Journalism Today - It's Just Not News

Fast forward to todays journalism - todays reporter and todays news ... or should we say the total destruction of todays news. Once it paid to be on the spot for breaking news. Now it still pays but it doesn't really matter if you miss the story because you can just take it off the syndication feeds and report on it anyway.

Once, if you missed the scoop, the next edition of your employer's news broadcast would be sadly lacking in comparison to your opposition who had scooped the story. Nowadays, owing to syndication, all rival networks can report on the same stories at the same time.

This is where we have major problems marching insidiously into todays news. Where once we would sit down in front of the six-o-clock news and flick through the channels to get more details and a different slant on stories, today all rival channels are sprouting the same piece. All fed to them by a news organization such as Reuters.

Journalist integrity is a thing of the past. Reporters now write up stories with no clue except from the syndication feed in their hands. No follow-ups are made, no separate witnesses are interviewed, it is all the same, no unique perspective, no unique broadcast.

While syndication may have helped media outlets to produce stories at a low cost to themselves and their budget, at what cost does that come to the people, the ultimate consumer? Instead of paying a journalist to sit in a war zone, it is much easier and a hell of a lot cheaper to pay Reuters to get a live feed sent to you 24/7.

The media is monopolized by these syndications.