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It seems that news as a business is moving away from journalism, and towards sensationalism. Being first becoming more important that being accurate. Getting th

by bsg75 14y ago

It seems that news as a business is moving away from journalism, and towards sensationalism. Being first becoming more important that being accurate. Getting the most eyes on your ads. I have a suspicion that what newspaper companies want is not what is taught in journalism school.

danso 14y ago
To be fair, this has always been a paradigm of the journalism industry. Freedom of the press was not an easy right for the founders to enshrine given how the penny press routinely slandered colonial leaders. "Yellow journalism" was so bad that the namesake of the Pulitzer Prizes is blamed for fueling the Spanish-American war.
knowtheory 14y ago
> I have a suspicion that what newspaper companies want is not what is taught in journalism school. You are correct, but not in the way that you intend. Journalism schools are even slower moving than the news industry. There are pockets of the news world who realize they need data analysis skills and programming talent (at prices they can afford). Journalism schools, by and large, have no idea what to do about this, even if they recognize the need, and few plans on how to bridge this gap. The Knight Foundation & Mozilla are making an effort to recruit programmers to the news world through efforts like Source (http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/ http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/ ) and the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Fellowships (http://www.mozillaopennews.org/fellowships/ http://www.mozillaopennews.org/fellowships/ ). (In fact I'm one of the earlier programmers insnared by their machinations, and i now work on DocumentCloud at the journalism non-profit Investigative Reporters & Editors)
- bsg75 14y ago
  > here are pockets of the news world who realize they need data analysis skills and programming talent (at prices they can afford). What does the "afford" part mean in this context?

by bsg75 14y ago

danso 14y ago

To be fair, this has always been a paradigm of the journalism industry. Freedom of the press was not an easy right for the founders to enshrine given how the penny press routinely slandered colonial leaders. "Yellow journalism" was so bad that the namesake of the Pulitzer Prizes is blamed for fueling the Spanish-American war.

knowtheory 14y ago

> I have a suspicion that what newspaper companies want is not what is taught in journalism school. You are correct, but not in the way that you intend. Journalism schools are even slower moving than the news industry. There are pockets of the news world who realize they need data analysis skills and programming talent (at prices they can afford). Journalism schools, by and large, have no idea what to do about this, even if they recognize the need, and few plans on how to bridge this gap. The Knight Foundation & Mozilla are making an effort to recruit programmers to the news world through efforts like Source (http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/ http://source.mozillaopennews.org/en-US/ ) and the Knight-Mozilla OpenNews Fellowships (http://www.mozillaopennews.org/fellowships/ http://www.mozillaopennews.org/fellowships/ ). (In fact I'm one of the earlier programmers insnared by their machinations, and i now work on DocumentCloud at the journalism non-profit Investigative Reporters & Editors)

bsg75 14y ago
> here are pockets of the news world who realize they need data analysis skills and programming talent (at prices they can afford). What does the "afford" part mean in this context?