Not so very long ago journalists were trained to report facts when they wrote news stories, and make it very clear if their work had veered into opinion territory.
That line has blurred over the past, likely decade, and the process has been picking up speed over the last 4-5 years.
And now there’s this step up – or really, down, in the process. The term, “reimagining.”
Remember when a sci-fi TV show, “Battlestar Galactica,” got “reimagined” – i.e., reinterpreted?
It was fiction and a work of art, but not everybody liked it, and some of the reasons might actually have been valid.
But how about your supposedly valiant, trusted news media – led by the Associated Press, and followed by the likes of 6ABC Philadelphia, Baltimore Sun Media, Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, and WCBS – a total of 27 legacy outlets – actually going for this same definition to describe their own behavior?
Sorry – but “reimagining” is and always will be a distinctly non-factual, artistic process.
Fact.
YET – here’s the notorious Poynter Institute (which receives government funding by the way) announcing there are 27 “news” rooms who have signed up to learn how to create basically “more acceptable narratives” – seemingly rather than giving their audience the news.
It’s called, “public safety journalism.”
The goal: creating “more accurate and comprehensive community narratives about public safety,” Poynter has announced.
But, what – the very idea of “accurate” (whatever the fact may be), and, a “narrative” (that would be whatever somebody crafts as an interpretation of a fact) clashes right away.
After all its variously embarrassing “third party moderation” efforts, Poynter is really pushing the wrong envelope here.
But who’s to stop a runaway train of censorship and public opinion from “reimagining.”
It will eventually exhaust itself.
Meanwhile, expect this – a “cohort” of “news” rooms working together for months. The AP notwithstanding with its global reach, the other legacy media are in the US, and by and large, local.
If you believe Poynter’s pitch here – there’s not just news, whatever that might be. There’s instead, “every newsroom’s solution (that) will be unique to the communities they serve.”
