Week: 4. Kindred vs. Moran

Matt Snider

The articles by Dave Kindred and Malcolm Moran both shed light on a major change in journalism brought about by the advancement in technology. Before, journalists would have all night to get a story as simple as a game recap written up for the next day’s paper. In the more modern era, reporters are lucky if they get an hour. It is this time crunch that leads to one of the biggest problems facing the industry as a whole. This problem is the ever growing struggle of being first.

                Each of the articles took a slightly different take on why this situation has created problems for the journalists out there. Kindred’s piece sees the added push to get things done faster as hindrance on the potential of reporters. No longer can reporters take their time to work out and describe monumental events but rather they must quickly transcribe what is happening as fast as they can to satisfy the mass audience. It’s in this scenario that we see a rather depressing idea in that the ways of really telling a story or painting a scene for a game are completely lost. Journalists must write and write on their blogs, twitter, facebook, story for the paper, etc… that they simply don’t have the time to be able to put into any one particular outlet. If they spend too much time on their blog then all their twitter followers are up in arms over the last hit that they didn’t hear about or where the ball should be spotted. It creates a mass following that need all medians of news updated and ready to go. In the meantime, while all this is going on, there is a game going on that the reporter can’t truly appreciate any more than simply balls and strikes.

                Moran’s piece showed a slightly different angle to the problem of time constraints facing today’s journalists. He attributes the situation to one of somebody walking along a tight rope with no safety net. If you fall, there is nothing to save you. This metaphor is similar to the case of the journalists of today. Where is there is often no one there to edit your writing or fact check your statements meaning that if you slip up, everyone will know about it. Blogs can often run unchecked by anyone other than the writer themselves meaning if they posted false information there is no security blanket, in the form of someone else, to catch that mistake. The task falls solely on the writer and the writer alone. Coupled that with problem the Kindred showcased and you have one reporter furiously transcribing events over multiple outlets and one can see how easy it would be to make a mistake and pay heavily for the consequences.