Two Names for a Decline
Posted: Wed Feb 05, 2025 3:47 am
If you want to break down the misery that most news media are in into two terms, the first is "reader reporter". Those who use it obviously don't realize that it is a wonderful example of a "contradictio in adiecto". For all non-Latin content providers: a contradiction in terms. Like a square circle or a black mold. A reader is someone who reads something, a reporter used to be someone who reports according to certain journalistic principles. Since the world is not as big as a few sheets of poland rcs data paper or even a news website, the job of the journalist or reporter is not least to filter. To weigh. To select and classify.
Of course, tips from readers are occasionally useful in drawing attention to an event that is worth a more in-depth journalistic investigation. But it becomes absurd when the reader is appointed as a reporter, can read himself or amuses himself with a picture he has taken himself. Unfortunately, it is true that the journalistic quality of the work of "reader reporters" is all too often not significantly different from the work of journalists or reporters who at most have more flexibility in a Google search or the ability to ask an "expert" about any topic. In addition to access to subscribed agencies such as sda, dpa or AP, whose articles are somewhat tailored and placed in the paper as supposedly their own work.
Of course, tips from readers are occasionally useful in drawing attention to an event that is worth a more in-depth journalistic investigation. But it becomes absurd when the reader is appointed as a reporter, can read himself or amuses himself with a picture he has taken himself. Unfortunately, it is true that the journalistic quality of the work of "reader reporters" is all too often not significantly different from the work of journalists or reporters who at most have more flexibility in a Google search or the ability to ask an "expert" about any topic. In addition to access to subscribed agencies such as sda, dpa or AP, whose articles are somewhat tailored and placed in the paper as supposedly their own work.