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Isn't technology but one of many pressing problems for journalism?
Yes, of course. "The journalist's challenge isn't the medium but the message," argues Ellen Hume in her special report, Tabloids, Talk Radio and the Future of News. "The problem is not the strength of the competition but the weakness of today's journalism, hobbled as it is by formulas, attitudes, and habits that alienate many customers."
Hume is certainly right that winning new audiences and holding onto old ones will require more than simply using a new medium to do the same old things. But she also knows it's a mistake to focus on changing journalistic conventions without understanding the way the technological and economic environment shapes them.
The fast-food part of the modern media diet -- conflict, celebrities, and catastrophe -- exists in part because of burgeoning technology. To be heard above the din of growing competition, much of journalism today finds itself in tabloid mode, shouting and trivializing in order to attract attention.
On the positive side, changing technologies force journalists to re-examine what they do and why. What exactly is news, and who has the right to report it? How do you make it useful? Do people select and absorb information differently in the on- line environment? Every new media service has to ask questions like these. The answers will create a new generation of journalistic conventions that could well affect old media as well. New technologies, therefore, give journalistic reformers an ideal opening to try new ideas.
