As a prospective journalist, is it bad that I don’t even have my television plugged in 99 percent of the time?
I’ve often wondered if I’m kind of a throwback because I’m not interested in watching TV, being on TV, writing for TV, or even producing broadcast-like content for websites. When I first considered journalism as a career, many of the media professionals I met seemed to confirm this impression. They seemed to believe that mixed-media journalists who could produce their own clips are the wave of the future, and print-only writers are on the fast track to extinction.
One reporter in particular passionately exhorted me to enroll in the Interactive Journalism program at American University. There, she told me, I would learn to report while armed with a digital video camera, a recorder, and a laptop at all times. A mobile journalist, or “mojo,” herself, she believed that the ability to stick a microphone in anyone’s face and aggressively go after the sound bite on camera would be a big factor in determining any young journalist's future success.
While I agree that a good quote or a good clip can make a story, this approach to interviewing -- for a sound bite -- turns me off.
First, I view interviews as a part of finding out a story, and I don't ever approach one thinking I know everything someone is going to say. If I try to get only the words I want to hear out of someone's mouth, I'm not really interviewing them; I'm interviewing my projection of them. While this may not have been exactly what the reporter I spoke with meant, it frightens me that the news other young journalists are being told to find is only the news that they expect to be there.
Second, the neater the news is, the more manufactured it seems to me, just as the more the person who’s telling me the news looks like a mannequin (male or female), the less likely I am to believe them. And if I don’t believe the news on TV, why would I expect someone else to swallow it just because I started writing it?
The more I've thought about it, the more this difference in viewpoints has become symbolic to me of why my television sits dark and silent in my living room.
But maybe there’s hope for people like me. According to this article, I’m far from alone in despising broadcast news.
If I’m not the only one who’d rather not touch the nightly news with a ten foot pole, it stands to reason that there are other people out there doing more interesting things with video journalism. It’s even possible that viewers fed up with the ratings-based coverage choices would be interested in watching them. Which could mean that, given the current status of the media world at large, maybe we’ll see some evolution soon.
Bottom line: the journalists I cited at the beginning of this post do have a point. Even if I'm no more interested in being the next Colbert than I am in being the next Couric, even if my approach to interviewing is not totally sound bite-centric, and even if my television stays unplugged, it would still be a good idea for me to learn how to use a camera. If I want to participate in whatever the media world is changing into, I should learn how to use the tools of the trade. After all, my problem is not really with those tools; it's with what news stations are currently doing with them. It's even possible that, by the time I'm ready, the media world might want the types of clips I'd be proud to create.
So... home video projects, anyone?
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1 comment:
100% agree with you, but you know me ;)
I would much rather read an in depth interview in a magazine like Bitch or hear it on NPR than watch a sound bite.
I also hate the TV news for being fear-mongering and sensationalist--and I believe that that's partially due to the "manufactured" feel you describe. You really can't get the whole story or even a good opposing viewpoint from a 30-second clip. This leads people to form really scary opinions on frighteningly few facts.
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