NRJ Book Review: Beyond News: The Future of Journalism

Abstract

Mitchell Stephens, Beyond News: Future of Journalism (New York: Columbia University Press, 2014). Hardcover. 264 pages, $30.Review by Marc EdgeMitchell Stephens has contributed some monumental books to the field of mass communication, including A History of News (1988) and Rise of the Image, the Fall of the Word (1998). His latest book, Beyond News: Future of Journalism, is similarly insightful and authoritative in attempting to sort out the current transformation of journalism. In doing so, however, Stephens plac- es himself squarely in what Dean Starkman calls the Future of News (FON) consensus that has been led mostly by Big Apple academics such as Jeff Jarvis of CUNY, Emily Bell at Columbia and his colleague Clay Shirky at NYU. In urging a shift to a more analytical journalism, Stephens unfortunately buys into the myth that reporting has become less important in today's Internet age because everybody all ready knows what's going on.Stephens begins by objecting to the 2009 description of journalism by for- mer New York Times editor Bill Keller as experienced reporters going places, bearing witness, digging into records, checking and double-checking. This brand of what might be called shoe leather journalism is hopelessly out- dated in the 21st century, according to Stephens. Internet, he argues, now provides us with more information of public interest than ever before. The future of news, in other words, appears reasonably secure, Stephens writes. It is the future of journalism that is looking grim. ... After more than a century and a half of selling the latest facts, journalists need to sell something else.What journalists should be selling, according to Stephens, is not news re- porting but instead what he calls wisdom journalism, which strengthens our understanding of the world. Instead of merely recounting what hap- pened yesterday, journalists should be analyzing, and comment- ing on the news, akin to what bloggers do today or printers did in colonial days. Making this shift to a more analytical journalism, however, will require a change in mindset, according to Stephens. Reporting staffs will have to be replaced with interpreting staffs organized not along the lines of traditional beat systems but more like academic disciplines. Instead of hiring out of journalism schools, editors should be hiring scientists, economists and experts who can match the expertise of their sources in such things as urban affairs and foreign policy. What is needed, he writes, journalists who can con- nect the dots. Of course, between bloggers and shouting-head cable panel- ists, Stephens admits, there is no shortage of opinion journalism these days, but traditional media simply need to get with the program. bad news is that traditional notions of balance and objectivity may have to go out the win- dow in order for traditional media to compete in this brave new news world, according to Stephens.Even-handedness and dispassion might no longer be dominant values, he writes. Citizens who are interested in what is happening at city hall now have a legion of bloggers and citizen journalists, not to mention Facebook friends, to keep them up to date with what's going on. …