Redefining journalism

IT HAS not occurred to me to look at certain changes in my trade as closely as I do now. It’s probably because the changes have been made arbitrarily and little affect my own medium—print.

For now, at any rate, I wish to deal with a wide-ranging point raised with me directly, a point that seems to me to constitute an anomalous redefinition of basic terms and concepts of my trade, more specifically, a delineation between “news” and “public affairs.” The delineation may have been intended for the broadcast practice, but still it’s an attempt I find too presumptuous to let pass.

I have been drawn into a discussion of it by a claim that the Supreme Court no less has affirmed the delineation for MTRCB (Movie and Television Review and Classification Board, itself figuring in the last column). A promised copy of the ruling has not arrived. All the same, here is my side of the e-mailed conversation, which, despite its one-sidedness, would, I hope, be useful still—though merely implied, the context should be adequately provided here:

[I won’t] quarrel with nomenclature, but with general or generic words and phrases—like news and public affairs—arbitrary definitions can be confusing, even troublesome. Words like them are to be taken in their dictionary meanings and disciplinary contexts. In other words, one simply has to know their place in journalism and politics. Anyway, a public discussion should be instructive…

I have…found no decision by any court, let alone the Supreme Court, favoring the contention that news and public affairs are two different things—particularly in the sense of the former barring opinions and the other allowing them—and not (1) that all public affairs are potential news, because public affairs, by their own nature, are bound to affect people’s lives in varying ways and degrees; and (2) that knowledgeable opinion contributes to a clearer understanding of a news event.

The first point is so basic to journalism it should preclude contention; but the second point seems increasingly missed, because it is widely and often taken simplistically; there is in fact a great deal of opinion woven into news (by which I here mean the facts of the event of public interest) on the order of what certain knowledgeable people, specifically experts, have to say about it. Indeed, it’s an issue that has become increasingly relevant given the confusions and complications caused by a technology [the Internet] that [allows] anyone to say what he or she pleases to a vast public not to mention by people who do it for their own selfish or malicious purposes…. I can go on and on, but thank you for accidentally opening the discourse; it is IMPORTANT and DECIDEDLY USEFUL, I have no doubt, especially to the media and their publics. Properly conducted, the discourse should be a great help in sorting out the admittedly polluted practice of my own profession.

If you do find such court decision as you say has been rendered, please do share it with me. [A court decision] that supposedly delineates news and public affairs from each other, that in fact supposedly differentiates one from the other…bugs me, because in my trade all public affairs—that is, things that can affect the public—are news, the very definition of it in fact.

The media doubtless need to change—with time and technology alone. And it’s precisely because or such inevitable prospect that the media should watch seriously where they are being taken, lest they are transformed into an anomaly.