Thursday, August 14, 2014; 7:21:47 AM Eastern
An opportunity to change journalism
- The template
- One reporter goes first. A template is created.
- Then every news organization and columnist repeats the story, also repeating the perspective, errors and omissions in the original.
- Maybe it's human nature. Maybe at one point, when there were just regional papers, it was necessary. But it's always been a bad practice.
- Inbred punditocracy
- Another related problem -- they mostly quote a small group of professional quote-givers. It leads to inbred thinking and missed opportunities, huge ones.
- It's why Nate Silver was so successful in the last two national elections. He spurned the pundits, found his own sources, and reported accordingly, and with notable accuracy.
- New processes, please
- When you're redesigning the process of journalism, don't just create new technology, create new reporting processes. Otherwise you end up with the same old garbage in a shiny new package.