“When a reporter doesn’t have the time, knowledge or background to deal with the complexity of an issue, there are still two ways he or she can tell the story—by focusing on conflict or personality,” Carleton University journalism professor Chris Waddell wrote in a new book, How Canadians Communicate IV: Media and Politics. “Assisted by new technology, these two approaches have become the staple of political reporting and that has helped to alienate the public from politics and public policy.”
Earnscliffe Strategy Group principle Elly Alboim, a former CBC TV national political editor, described the change in the media landscape succinctly: “In many ways, political coverage has come to resemble sports reporting.”
In a chapter called “On the Verge of Total Dysfunction: Government, Media and Communications,” Mr. Alboim wrote “elite and specialized media organizations”—such as a weekly or monthly newspaper, generally focused on a particular industry, or say, the business section of The Globe and Mail—tend to cover Parliamentary processes more routinely, cover issues other news organizations pass over, and operate “closer to a professional model of journalism.” He explained to The Hill Times, however, that “normal media not only don’t want but actually reject” that kind of coverage and content.
Mr. Alboim said mainstream media competes commercially and said their editorial decision-making is commercially based: editors are deciding what people want to know, not what they need to know.
In How Canadians Communicate, Mr. Waddell wrote that media coverage of federal politics is in decline, with condensing newsrooms putting bigger and broader demands on reporters who are also contending with the 24-hour news cycle brought on by the internet and smartphone technology.
Mr. Waddell co-edited the book with Mount Royal University communications professor David Taras, and includes contributions from a range of Canadian experts such as former Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) adviser Tom Flanagan, who wrote a section titled “Political Communications and the ‘Permanent Campaign’” and Florian Sauvageau, a former newspaper editor, TV host, and university professor who was director of the Université Laval’s Centre d’étude sur les medias.
While the internet has been a global revolution making all manner of things easier, faster and more accessible, it has also dealt a swift blow to the knee-caps of news organizations.
“Newsrooms are shrinking at a time when the information firehose is just getting bigger and faster all the time,” Ottawa Citizen columnist and author Dan Gardner told The Hill Times.
Pyschology tells us people have two systems of thought, said Mr. Gardner, one is automatic and reflexive and the other is conscious reflection.
“The key distinction between the two is time,” said Mr. Gardner. “The automatic, non-conscious thought processes are instantaneous, boom you just have the answer. The conscious-thought processes of course takes time, conscious thought takes time and effort, and if you look at what’s happening in the information environment where you have fewer and fewer people trying to cope with more and more information, any psychologist will tell you what’s going to happen: the non-conscious automatic thought process will become more and more important and conscious reflection will diminish,” said Mr. Gardner.
“If you think about that in the context of newsrooms it’s obvious what it means, it means that more and more we’re going to be relying upon our gut reactions to information and not applying conscious reflection and scrutiny to that information, and that’s just bad news all around.”
The 24-hour news cycle and bringing news online has meant a revenue crisis for newspapers that are struggling to adapt to the new ways news is consumed.
The now defunct chain CanWest Global was perhaps the first high profile casualty of the struggles being experienced in the media. Wrapped up in millions of dollars of debt, CanWest declared bankruptcy in 2010, and more recently its predecessor, Postmedia Network, shut down its wire service last May and shed dozens of jobs. In Postmedia’s second financial quarter report for 2012, the network reported a $34.3-million decrease in print advertising revenue. In April, Postmedia CEO Paul Godfrey announced that the Ottawa Citizen and the Vancouver Sun newspapers would be putting up online pay-walls, and the next month, the Globe and Mail announced they would be doing the same.
“If there are fewer and fewer reporters in the newsroom and you’re trying to cope with more and more information, what do you do? Do you sit down and try and untangle the arcane complexities of public policies, or do you go with the horse race angle? Well, the horse race angle is extremely easy, so clearly you’re going to be driven in that direction,” said Mr. Gardner.
Mr. Waddell said ironically, rather than bringing journalists closer to regular Canadians, technology, particularly the BlackBerry, has served to further layer Ottawa’s political “bubble” in a protective veneer, a “closed communications loop with the people that they cover.”
The cutbacks dealt to both personnel at newspapers and time has virtually eliminated the role of specialized reporters, said Mr. Waddell. As news organizations converge, and local and regional news organizations opt for wire service coverage over having their own reporters in the Parliamentary press gallery, the majority of reporters covering politics are general assignment and part of national news organizations and therefore don’t have the opportunity to build up knowledge about issues, to build relationships with specialized contacts, or to really delve into the issues of the day, said Mr. Waddell. This lack of time and knowledge has made journalists more vulnerable to party communications efforts, said Mr. Waddell, and with local and regional bureaus moving off the Hill, reporters don’t know what people in, say, Alberta, should be concerned about.
But not everyone sees mainstream political reporting as taking the short-way down a cliff.
John Ibbitson, Ottawa bureau chief for The Globe and Mail, said—speaking only to his own paper—he doesn’t see any evidence of declining coverage of federal politics or of over-emphasis on political strategy and tactics.
“There is some coverage of horse race issues, like who’s up and who’s down in the polls, but I would contend that the vast majority of our coverage is substantive,” said Mr. Ibbitson. “I would go so far as to say this: 20 years ago, let us say, The Globe and Mail newspaper would have had more stories on national politics inside the newspaper, smaller stories, more routine stories. Stories that go into the newspaper now are ones where we believe there’s something particularly important, something value-added that we can give. … If anything I would contend that our coverage is broader and deeper than it used to be because we have the resources of the web that 20 years ago they didn’t have.”
Former CBC journalist and Carleton University professor Paul Adams said “there’s always a narrative of decline,” but said he does see a problem with the bubble that surrounds those who are a part of, are reporting on and are engaging in federal politics. Mr. Adams said while technology has helped to create a “broader bubble,” one that is “more complicated, pluralistic” and interactive, it still doesn’t include the general public who are tuning out because they simply don’t relate to political issues.
While Mr. Adams said he feels there has been a decline in the substance of coverage over recent years, he said it was largely a byproduct of minority governments.
“We’ve had a period of minority governments up until 2011, the longest period in living memory, and one of the things that that does is it produces a journalism which is focused around, ‘When will the government fall?’ ‘Will it fall?’” Mr. Adams said. “I think the media were drawn away from questions of real policy substance and I think you can already see, now that we’re in a majority, that we’re having more of that substance again, we’re having debate about the pipeline for example. … The media are gradually focusing on more policy issues.”
But Mr. Waddell told The Hill Times he hasn’t seen a “substantial” improvement of political coverage so far under a majority government.
Strengthening political communications, fast-paced reader demand and commercially-driven journalism can all be seen as guilty parties to what many see as a decline in coverage. Mr. Waddell said more money needs to be spent on editorial resources and said organizations need to reconsider what they see as an adequate rate of return, that is, profit.
“I think people will still pay for information that makes them smarter, that helps them in their daily lives and make decisions, that helps them understand the world around them,” said Mr. Waddell.
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: LAURA RYCKEWAERT
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