C-218. The new journalist
What the newspaper misses means…
My friend and mentor, B. R. Fisher, remarked 60-some years ago that reading the newspaper was like solving a puzzle: So much is missing. Beth Heffner demonstrated experimentally (Journalism Monograph No. 30, 1973)* that work not done by the reporter had to be compensated for by the reader – or not.
What all has been missed? A lot actually. But the newspaper is not alone in this. When we focus attention on the universe as the body comprising all bodies, and use B-ness tech (Read and Tell) to talk about things of nature (what is said about it [WISA]), we miss the Nature of Things’ Expansion and our Frontier status within it.
Every next step AT, ON the Frontier may be new. Can “news” not be relevant to that newness, in addition to happenings recently new? The news can be Read just for what’s different. But the newspaper has to be published and Read for differences that make differences: in the reader, in the happenings reported, in the work of the reporters and editors (esp. questions asked and not asked) and in the conduct of the newspaper as a business enterprise (e.g., its business/editorial ratio).
How active, how comprehensive, should journalistic surveillance be? Can it – should it – approach diagnosis? If it doesn’t, is that a reason why newspapers are losing the surveillance competition to 24-7 media? Are we short-sighted to see newspapers as (rough) historical records of contemporary events?
Has journalism been too much a matter of practices (“functions”) and not enough a matter of needed practices (needed functionalities)? Do we need a new technology, a more diagnostic technology, for the journalist and “news” to be of more value? A technology that would look more to its message value than to its transport value.** For a better balance. (See the teeter-totter test. C-217.)
Needed functionalities are as much about societies as they are about individuals. Why else would Jefferson prefer a nation without government to one without newspapers? (Newspapers the First, not the Fourth, Estate?) Minding society is as much about providing intelligence as it is about watchdogging the government. Yet the U.S. spends billions of dollars a year for intelligence and still finds itself without the readiness it needs for its next step(s). Time after time, a few may have “seen it coming,” but We didn’t. How can public opinion work without better surveillance?*** Without more concern for our disastrous ratio of decision making/problem solving >1++? A more readiness journalism … a more Frontier journalist.#
And a second kind of First: the first concerted societal effort to respond to the fact of the Nature of Things, to the “here and now” of the Expansion’s Frontier.
***
A Frontier journalist. Not just latest events: recent happenings for various interests, including the record (history). But also current states: how We are doing re step as well as body, re our behavioral problem as well as our situational problems. What are the ratios?
The newspaper is multi-functional in that its relevance comprises both the timely (aka “news”) and the timeless (print’s great advantage when we need to stop to think, question or remember, as re our next step[s] AT and ON the Frontier: our readiness). The news/opinion ratio (>1+) shows something of this division. Ratio analysis suggests there is more to be done, re the timeless. “Opinion” may be too timely, failing to provide Involves that would improve our Grasp.
The pre-newspaper journalist, like the personal journal writer still, offered opinion (“What next?”: policy re WICF) along with news. Newspapers today typically set aside an opinion page or two. (Although fecklessly quoting opinions as news in the ”balanced” but imbalanced ratio of balance/fairness >1++.)## However, the needed “news CEM opinion” functionality is not well developed. The real “public opinion” is not realized.
The newspaper business model (business/editorial >1+) works against itself in the current context of communication’s transport/message >1++ ratio. Newspapers find themselves competing in the wrong (transport) business. ### Without a compensating message capability. Without which capability both the newspaper and society suffer. Too much is missing.
Chain ownership of newspapers cheats the community – and society – of their needed functionality. More is missed. We miss particularly and pragmatically the emergence of Union between individual and community. Chain ownership defeats an obvious amendment to the business model, which is for communities to support newspapers for their Union contribution. The U.S. postal deal for newspapers provides an example. Or will as long as we keep it.
***
* Work was assessed using the “signaled stopping technique” (SST). Attempted use of SST for non-print (radio) failed because no one stopped. (A point TO print’s “timeless” – as contrasted with its “timely” functionality.)
** Newspapers are in the wrong competition, losing on speed of transport in a communicative world, courtesy of “information theory,” in which the transport/message functionality ratio is at least >1++. Speed is far from all that WICF implies.
*** Not that societies other than democracies find it any easier to do without such information.
# We need to scrap “journalism” – or at least set it aside – if we are going to significantly advance the functionality here, because “-ism” confirms the status quo: i.e., as practiced. (“-ism” –type functional analyses abound – to the neglect of needed functionality and the development of technology to meet it. See WICF.)
## WICF insists that we pay attention to DIFs => DIFs (PP) because we need to review, to make and be able to make changes. We cannot afford to (simply, ala B-ness) treat a DIF => DIF as though it were no more than a DIF. The Frontier journalist cannot afford indifference (a pseudo-objectivity). That’s how journalism got its reputation as a crude version of history.
Indifference violates the pragmatic precept. Unfortunately, communication (tool and procedure) technology has visited us with ways that counter the advantage that print gave us to practice PP. (See * above. “Listening” may not be engagement enough – unless one is willing to forfeit a portion of the passing message in order to make a point [sometimes to the extent of an interruption].)
### The “transport” businesses currently can get away with selling message content taken from newspapers and other business entities that had done the work of surveillance. For society, this might not be the worst of it. Transport businesses that run “search engines” employ algorithms with a decided agree/understanding >1++ ratio. Users do not get the latest up-to-date news and views about their subject of inquiry. Some difference that might make a huge difference could be thousands of items -- if not a million -- down the scroll. Even quite pointed inquiries are flooded by advertisements in search of a customer.
In light of the very useful Search feature now available in the home page, parenthetical back references are suspended for Comments as of C-184.
(c) 2020 R. F. Carter
My friend and mentor, B. R. Fisher, remarked 60-some years ago that reading the newspaper was like solving a puzzle: So much is missing. Beth Heffner demonstrated experimentally (Journalism Monograph No. 30, 1973)* that work not done by the reporter had to be compensated for by the reader – or not.
What all has been missed? A lot actually. But the newspaper is not alone in this. When we focus attention on the universe as the body comprising all bodies, and use B-ness tech (Read and Tell) to talk about things of nature (what is said about it [WISA]), we miss the Nature of Things’ Expansion and our Frontier status within it.
Every next step AT, ON the Frontier may be new. Can “news” not be relevant to that newness, in addition to happenings recently new? The news can be Read just for what’s different. But the newspaper has to be published and Read for differences that make differences: in the reader, in the happenings reported, in the work of the reporters and editors (esp. questions asked and not asked) and in the conduct of the newspaper as a business enterprise (e.g., its business/editorial ratio).
How active, how comprehensive, should journalistic surveillance be? Can it – should it – approach diagnosis? If it doesn’t, is that a reason why newspapers are losing the surveillance competition to 24-7 media? Are we short-sighted to see newspapers as (rough) historical records of contemporary events?
Has journalism been too much a matter of practices (“functions”) and not enough a matter of needed practices (needed functionalities)? Do we need a new technology, a more diagnostic technology, for the journalist and “news” to be of more value? A technology that would look more to its message value than to its transport value.** For a better balance. (See the teeter-totter test. C-217.)
Needed functionalities are as much about societies as they are about individuals. Why else would Jefferson prefer a nation without government to one without newspapers? (Newspapers the First, not the Fourth, Estate?) Minding society is as much about providing intelligence as it is about watchdogging the government. Yet the U.S. spends billions of dollars a year for intelligence and still finds itself without the readiness it needs for its next step(s). Time after time, a few may have “seen it coming,” but We didn’t. How can public opinion work without better surveillance?*** Without more concern for our disastrous ratio of decision making/problem solving >1++? A more readiness journalism … a more Frontier journalist.#
And a second kind of First: the first concerted societal effort to respond to the fact of the Nature of Things, to the “here and now” of the Expansion’s Frontier.
A Frontier journalist. Not just latest events: recent happenings for various interests, including the record (history). But also current states: how We are doing re step as well as body, re our behavioral problem as well as our situational problems. What are the ratios?
The newspaper is multi-functional in that its relevance comprises both the timely (aka “news”) and the timeless (print’s great advantage when we need to stop to think, question or remember, as re our next step[s] AT and ON the Frontier: our readiness). The news/opinion ratio (>1+) shows something of this division. Ratio analysis suggests there is more to be done, re the timeless. “Opinion” may be too timely, failing to provide Involves that would improve our Grasp.
The pre-newspaper journalist, like the personal journal writer still, offered opinion (“What next?”: policy re WICF) along with news. Newspapers today typically set aside an opinion page or two. (Although fecklessly quoting opinions as news in the ”balanced” but imbalanced ratio of balance/fairness >1++.)## However, the needed “news CEM opinion” functionality is not well developed. The real “public opinion” is not realized.
The newspaper business model (business/editorial >1+) works against itself in the current context of communication’s transport/message >1++ ratio. Newspapers find themselves competing in the wrong (transport) business. ### Without a compensating message capability. Without which capability both the newspaper and society suffer. Too much is missing.
Chain ownership of newspapers cheats the community – and society – of their needed functionality. More is missed. We miss particularly and pragmatically the emergence of Union between individual and community. Chain ownership defeats an obvious amendment to the business model, which is for communities to support newspapers for their Union contribution. The U.S. postal deal for newspapers provides an example. Or will as long as we keep it.
* Work was assessed using the “signaled stopping technique” (SST). Attempted use of SST for non-print (radio) failed because no one stopped. (A point TO print’s “timeless” – as contrasted with its “timely” functionality.)
** Newspapers are in the wrong competition, losing on speed of transport in a communicative world, courtesy of “information theory,” in which the transport/message functionality ratio is at least >1++. Speed is far from all that WICF implies.
*** Not that societies other than democracies find it any easier to do without such information.
# We need to scrap “journalism” – or at least set it aside – if we are going to significantly advance the functionality here, because “-ism” confirms the status quo: i.e., as practiced. (“-ism” –type functional analyses abound – to the neglect of needed functionality and the development of technology to meet it. See WICF.)
## WICF insists that we pay attention to DIFs => DIFs (PP) because we need to review, to make and be able to make changes. We cannot afford to (simply, ala B-ness) treat a DIF => DIF as though it were no more than a DIF. The Frontier journalist cannot afford indifference (a pseudo-objectivity). That’s how journalism got its reputation as a crude version of history.
Indifference violates the pragmatic precept. Unfortunately, communication (tool and procedure) technology has visited us with ways that counter the advantage that print gave us to practice PP. (See * above. “Listening” may not be engagement enough – unless one is willing to forfeit a portion of the passing message in order to make a point [sometimes to the extent of an interruption].)
### The “transport” businesses currently can get away with selling message content taken from newspapers and other business entities that had done the work of surveillance. For society, this might not be the worst of it. Transport businesses that run “search engines” employ algorithms with a decided agree/understanding >1++ ratio. Users do not get the latest up-to-date news and views about their subject of inquiry. Some difference that might make a huge difference could be thousands of items -- if not a million -- down the scroll. Even quite pointed inquiries are flooded by advertisements in search of a customer.
In light of the very useful Search feature now available in the home page, parenthetical back references are suspended for Comments as of C-184.
(c) 2020 R. F. Carter
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