Brokaw: Journalism Is On ‘life-support’
By Don | September 24, 2009
Former NBC News anchor Tom Brokaw told students that journalsim is alive but on "life-support."
From the Yale Daily News
Journalism will survive the significant challenges it faces only if it succeeds in engaging and empowering readers and viewers, NBC News special correspondent Tom Brokaw said Tuesday.
Before a packed auditorium in the Whitney Humanities Center, Brokaw argued that new forms of journalism hold great promise but that they must be used thoughtfully. Journalists need to be more proactive in promoting journalism as a vital part of society, he said.
“For too long we have talked and you the viewers have listened, we wrote and you read,” Brokaw said. “Now [the media] needs to engage readers and viewers in the future of journalism … The new viewer is empowered as never before to satisfy his needs and curiosity.”
Before addressing the future of journalism, Brokaw recalled the power of network television news to bring people across the country together. Still, he acknowledged the limits of journalism’s prior generation, including a failure to cover gender issues, the health sciences and Asia.
Today, he said, the world faces a starkly different problem. Rather than having a relative scarcity of informed coverage, consumers of media can now pick and choose information from countless news sources, including network television, newspapers and the Internet.
“Does this new reality of television represent a step forward, or is it simply a retreat to the lowest common denominator of common interest and exploitation?” Brokaw asked. “The answer: all of the above.”
Brokaw challenged the audience to take an active part in the modern wave of journalism by choosing its news sources carefully and being wary of misinformation that may appear in the unfiltered media.
While journalism is alive, Brokaw said, it is on “life support.” But he said he sees promise in collectives of investigative journalists who sell their work to newspapers, television networks and Web sites. These transactions make the news more reliable and assist viewers in making informed decisions, he said, while also providing a sustainable financial model for journalism.
The four students interviewed said the talk brought out the tensions created by new technology and ways of getting information.
“The benefits of new technology in the journalism industry are striking, but it is clear from Mr. Brokaw we need to be cautious, careful and innovative in our business models,” Peggy Liu ’11 said.
Rachel Styer ’12, however, said she had difficulty connecting on a personal level with Brokaw’s experiences.
“His talk was insightful, but I wish he were more relatable,” Styer said. “His anecdotes seemed to be from another era of journalism, and I couldn’t really relate to some of the issues he was trying to convey.”
Over the course of his 47-year career, Brokaw has served as anchor of “NBC Nightly News” and “Today.” He has also made 25 documentaries on a variety of subjects, including Watergate and global warming.
Decades of liberal media bias and arrogance are finally beginning to have an effect on the profession. Of course Brokaw sees no such bias and that is the problem. If the media produced fair and accurate stories that the public was interested in they would stem the flow of readers that have abandoned them in the last few years. Yet there are some that would rather lose their job than actually report in an unbiased fashion.
Old style journalism is dead. Long live the new media.
Post #2352
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The PLM (Partisan Liberal Media) is on life support. The honest media like FOX and the WSJ are doing OK.
Whether in print, broadcast or cable, the common denominator for failure is a liberal agenda.
The main stream media used to be biased to the Left. When that failed to achieve their goals they moved firmly into partisan propoganda. A million conservatives marching is simply ignored, while twelve liberals sending out a fax dominates the news cycle.
Blatant intellectual dishonesty appears to be bad for business. Thank God that Obama hasn’t nationaized the media…yet.
try the truth next time Tom
pushing an agenda, instead of the facts, is a guranteed loser.
It’s not journalism that’s on life support, it’s the liberal mainstream media’s grip on journalism that’s on life support. In fact, journalism is alive and well, and probably has never been more vigorous.
Maybe Tommy should go on youtube and watch his own apperance on charlie rose right after the 08 election
In you’ll see.both of them whining to each other about how they absolutely nothing about obama
“Brokaw challenged the audience to take an active part in the modern wave of journalism by choosing its news sources carefully and being wary of misinformation that may appear in the unfiltered media.”
FILTERED MEDIA is the problem!
” But he said he sees promise in collectives of investigative journalists who sell their work to newspapers, television networks and Web sites.”
That’s because, if the media BUYS a story for publication, it will only pay for stories that agree with their personal bias!
“These transactions make the news more reliable and assist viewers in making informed decisions,”
Informed decisions based on the bias of the media promoting it!
My Opinion: I’m 75. I remember Walter Winchell,
Paul Harvey, etc. Today’s MSM (Mighty Sorry Mess)
have danced with two left feet, fallen flat on
their collective posteriors (except FOX), and now?....They have to pay the Piper.
Their “noos” didn’t jive with the facts of what
WE KNEW TO BE “NEWS.” You can fool some of the
people some of the time; you can’t fool some
of them all the time, but you can’t fool all of
them ALL OF THE TIME.
Early on, they became BS (Barry Soetoro aka BO)
make-up man: covering his “blemishes” and “imperfectons.” They were like “wet on water”
with him. Inseparable.
It’s like they “pledged allegiance” to BO, and
have been very loyal. I caught him in so many
gaffes/flip-flops, I’m SURE the MSM did, also…
but didn’t report it. Remember how they ground
Quayle to the ground with a mis-spelling? Oh,
and Dan Rather and his ‘proof’ on Bush’s military
records? But, of course, they aren’t biased..lol.
How about when BS said he’d been to 57 states (we have 50..but the Organization of Islamic Conference DOES have 57.) He said “Iran is a little nation,” 2 days later, it was a VERY important nation! How much coverage did the MSM give BS when he replied: “That’s above my pay grade.?” I’ll stop there, on page 50 of the 2nd volume of gaffes THEY COULDA, SHOULDA (but not WOULDA) reported such.
Oh, Volume one? Vaulting his alleged U.S. Birth
Certificate; giving credit to different hospitals
in Hawaii, when his own grandmother said she was
present at his birth…..in Kenya; keeping his
passport information, college records/thesis beyond reach (guess the college had no vault;) his
trip to Kenya,Camp-paining for that President’s opponent, Odinga; the bloodshed and chaos that
followed?; his taking the flag off his plane and
putting a big O on it? You can see, Volume 1 is
lengthy, but that covers only covers some of his PRE-“Residency of the White House” days.
IF they had any investigative reporters, they
sure kept the information to themselves. So, how
long do before people change channels on that kind of propaganda…and that is what LACK OF
unbiased NEWS reporting amounts to!
NO NEWPAPER BAIL-OUTS! If their sales graphs are in the tank, let them go with them. They
made their choice; they take the consequences!
I wouldn’t throw them a candy Life-Saver.
But THANKS FOX! You’re a rose in a garlic patch.
Brokaw is sone of the self important persons that have consistently supported the destruction of the USA and its Constitution and Bill of Rights by ignoring ‘common sense ” ....The advocacy of left wingers by media has poisoned any possible acceptance of any story from the ” establishment media ” as merely another less than truthful slant marker !....accept mass media information ? now mass smedia trumpets the Whoopie Goldberg story…RAPE IS GOOD ! SHE WAS NOT HURT ! and Ted ” the Calendar man ” Danson….are we all burned or drowned by ” GLOBAL WARMING “....THE FOOLS OF MASS MEDIA KILLED MASS MEDIA !!!
September 24 at 8:38 pm | #1 | Link
How about holding the leftist mainstream media accountable for the failure of journalism. No Tom, you don’t want to admit you are part of the failure of shoddy and no journalism practiced by NYT, LAT WaPo, NBC, MSNBC, CBS, ABC and CNN and a plethora of print media.