November 27, 2024

Is it time to redefine ‘good journalism’?

We all know what good journalism is. Its values are timeless, unchanging, and not up for discussion. Right? But what if those values are out of synch with modern audiences who are abandoning traditional media because they no longer seem relevant? Time for a rethink, or more precisely a reordering of our priorities.

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Ask almost any journalist what makes good journalism and the emphasis may vary but the same themes recur: objectivity, balance, thorough research, fact-checking, and coherent presentation of information.

There is already quite enough to worry about when it comes to objectivity. Recent weeks have seen Fox become Trump’s network, and in France there is concern that the oldest journalism school has been bought by billionaire media moguls. News avoidance and lost faith in journalism seem to be accepted as the fate of media. Partisan and increasingly extreme voices are on the rise, and it is tempting to point the finger at traditional media and accuse them of being out of touch.

Which makes it all the more interesting when studies ask both journalists, and their audience, what is good journalism and then compare the results. Which is exactly what a new Chilean study, by Claudia Mellado and Constanza Gajardo has done.

NiemenLab summarizes the disparity in definition as: “Instead of the journalists’ traditional professional values, audiences emphasised human elements: approachability, empathy, and skills in communicating clearly and in ways that emotionally resonate.”

With all the attention being given to the threat from AI, we should surely be rejoicing at that desire for more of the human touch, the ‘emotional resonance’.

It’s not the first time objectivity has been questioned as a sacred tenant of journalism.

So when was the last time you polled your journalists about their definition?

Earlier this year NiemenLab published a thought-provoking article about whether it was time to replace objectivity since our accepted idea of objectivity is a myth. There are those that point to an orthodoxy ingrained in journalism school which may be increasingly out of touch.

This doesn’t mean the death of journalism. It doesn’t even mean the death of objectivity. But it could mean that objectivity alone is not enough. Which brings us back to the work of looking into user needs that has been going on at the BBC and championed by the likes of Dmitry Shishkin.

Solid journalistic values like objectivity, impartiality, research, and fact-checking continue to be at the core of the job. But failing to adapt to the evident shift in what users want only serves to confirm that we risk being out of touch. The fact that the definition of good journalism hasn’t changed for a century at least is a clue.

So when was the last time you polled your journalists about their definition? Has senior management discussed the relative priorities of empathy and objectivity? Has your organisation researched its users’ needs, and has it shared that with everyone involved in content creation? Because it’s increasingly looking like time to do that.

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