Is journalism today worse?

I've been thinking about writing a post titled "The sloppy state of journalism," to discuss the dearth or lack of proper editing and vetting of news stories these days, which often results in typos, errors, and worse.

Then I saw this post on a friend's Facebook page:

Quick poll: Do you think that online news articles (and their headlines) are meant to objectively inform and educate, or to subjectively incite and impel greater site traffic and interaction?

The overwhelming response was the latter, which got me thinking, again, about the current state of journalism, online and in general. And this is the comment I left:

Headlines have always been written to compel people to read the article. That is not new. Newspapers and magazines make their money from advertising (and, to a lesser extent, subscriptions). And their job is to sell papers, or magazines. In the past you had yellow (or sensational) journalism. Today you have click bait. The goal is pretty much the same.

THAT SAID, plenty of news organizations try to inform and educate readers -- and use headlines designed to grab readers' attention. "Click bait" and "journalism that informs or educates" are not mutually exclusive. Today, as in years past, you need an eye-catching headline if you want people to read at all. The idea that there was some Golden Age of journalism where the media's sole or main desire was to educate and inform is erroneous.

Indeed, people often forget (or don't know) that until relatively recently, newspapers, even so-called respectable ones, would print titillating, sensational, or salacious stories, often thin or devoid of facts, for the sole purpose of getting eyeballs and driving up circulation.

As explained by the Office of the Historian for the U.S. Department of State:

Yellow journalism was a style of newspaper reporting that emphasized sensationalism over facts. During its heyday in the late 19th century it was one of many factors that helped push the United States and Spain into war in Cuba and the Philippines, leading to the acquisition of overseas territory by the United States.

As to the question of whether the Internet and social media and the rise of the 24/7 news cycle has degraded the quality of journalism, I would say that the need to "be first" has definitely taken a toll.

Most blogs and many news organizations do not fact check, copyedit, and/or proofread articles before they are published these days -- or editors are so overwhelmed or inexperienced that they often miss or introduce errors or typos. (As a journalist and editor for over 30 years, I know, and I can cite more than one instance where The New York Times and other "reliable news sources" have gotten something wrong.) This has resulted in what I call sloppy journalism. And there is a lot of it out there.

However, there is also a lot of great, or very good, articles out there, many of which are published on non-traditional news sites and blogs. There are even articles that are deemed "click bait," pieces with headlines designed to get readers to click to read the full articles, that are educational and informative. Indeed, I would argue that the reason there is so much click bait right now (though again, baiting the reader is nothing new) is because people have such short attention spans and don't take the time, or have the patience, to read unless given a good reason to do so -- and publications have just adjusted to this new reality.

So, is journalism today truly worse than it was 50 or 100 or 150 years ago? If you objectively look at the history of journalism (keeping in mind that gossip sheets have been around for over 200 years), I'm not so sure.

Why all the news isn't fit to print

I started my career in magazine publishing, as a researcher/fact checker for a glossy Manhattan-based magazine. Like the narrator in Jay McInerney's Bright Lights, Big City, without all the cocaine or partying.

Back then, in the 1980s, every magazine and newspaper had a fact checker/researcher on staff, often a whole team of them, to ensure that they got stories right.

It was not a glamorous or an easy job. Often you would butt heads with writers (many of whom couldn't actually write), who would play fast and loose with the facts. (One such writer, whom I worked and butted heads with constantly, eventually took his column to The New York Times, where I doubt it's ever been fact checked.)

But fact checking was considered an essential job -- and if you did it well, not only did you feel the pride of saving the publication from a potentially messy, litigious situation, but you would eventually get promoted.

Today you would be hard pressed to find a fact checker at any publication.

Instead, for actually many years now, magazines and newspapers, especially the digital ones, have come to rely on writers, many (most?) of whom are too busy or lazy to fact check (and have never taken a journalism course or been properly trained) to check their own facts. A very scary proposition -- and why we continue to see stories blow up upon closer inspection.

But what about editors, or producers? Shouldn't they be verifying stories before they are published or aired?

Yes, yes, they should. And some do. (Albeit mostly nightly TV news producers, who know their asses will be toast if they screw up a story, especially one having to do with politicians or the government.)

But thanks to budget cuts, a 24x7 news cycle, and the constant need for more page views or higher TV ratings, there is so much pressure on news organizations to spit out the news quickly, especially sensational or breaking news, that fact checking, or in-depth research, goes out the window and door -- or is only done at a most basic level.

The sad thing is, in many (most?) cases, checking the facts doesn't require much, just asking a few questions (albeit the right ones) and requiring proof that something is, in fact, true.

But apparently that is too much work for some publications, even prominent ones, such as New York Magazine, whose story about a Bronx high school student making $72 million trading stocks during his lunch hour was quickly proven to be false (i.e., untrue), after editors and producers at other news organizations asked the teen some simple, basic financial questions, which he couldn't answer, as well as for proof, which he couldn't produce. 

However, lest you think that New York Magazine is the exception, it isn't. Just look at Rolling Stone or The New York Times, both of which have been shown to be negligent in regard to fact checking recently. (Though in the latter's case, it's been going on for some time now. Which may be why you no longer see "All the news that's fit to print" on the Times's masthead, or at least on the digital version.)

And that is why, boys and girls, you shouldn't believe everything -- or even half of what -- you read, especially online, or take it with a grain of truth.