Gomes Neil

From MediaStudies

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Intro and 1

Neil decries the decay of respect, demand, and place for traditional values of professional journalism that corresponds with the rapid change in contemporary media.

Symbiotic: mistrust of journalist, industry's response is to redefine journalist as a talking head on FOX news.

Mainstream media, in economic crisis, cuts professional journalism, spreads "news talk" and entertainment news disguised as news, and there is less objective, professional journalistic content bold enough to challenge public relations and buisness interests.

Fosters consumer's skepticism, which undermines the sense that citizens can share knowledge and basic facts produced by trustworthy journalists. The spread of journalistic work in new media challenges the mainstream media's monopoly on information, yet doesn't support the dying idea that professional reporting is a sacred and difficult task. Furthermore, new media's ecosystem is incognizant of the need for standards, libel and slander are less serious on the web. The results:

it is more difficult for people to "reach agreement or even civilly discuss" topics vital to society easier for leaders of every political inclination to pursue initiative based on expedience and falsehood those practicing professional journalism lose executive privelege, much-needed to do their jobs well.

2: Neil argues that one of the most serious threats to the authority and credibility of journalists are bad journalists themselves, whose inaccurate or fabricated details and stories undo the work of civic and professional reformism aimed at improving journalism. Exploring the problem, he asserts that reporters fabricate due to either a demanding environment, or to reap benefits of awards, raises, or promotions. On the institutional level, he argues that an adherence to "accepted norms" dictates the breadth and accuracy of coverage in papers, which he justifies by examining the history of overt racism in mass-media. The adherence is sometimes comes as a threatening imposition by an outside force, for example the govenment's censorship of material that may support opposition to the Iraqi war. In addition to printing misinformation, papers are prone to excluding material that challenges the status quo, and in hindsight, rarely acknowledge or correct past mistakes, bias, and misleading omissions. This kind of imposition is more akin to a self-censorship, Neil argues. Concluding this chapter, Neil emphasizes that commission and omission both demonstrate mass media's prioritizing the show of professionalism over the "real deal" of professional journalism.

3: Neil explores the media's vulnerability to hoaxes. Neil describs the web as rambunctious and wholly ungovernable because of the instantaneuous news and reactions, easy accessibility and use by millions; thus it is the most lucractive medium for tricksters to conceive of and disseminate misinformation. He adds that the 'net also provides opportunities to debunk mischeif or supervise the content of mass-media. Nevertheless, hoaxes succedd by way of the "believability" of journalism; they appropriate the signifiers of professionalism to convey myths. Neil charges the journalists with the task of sifting real and fake sources of news, but hoaxers hoodwink journalists by playing to a specific appetite: news is the unusual, current, conflict-ridden, and consequential.

4: Neil argues that cost and staff cuts have created a vaccuum in the last decade in which "fake news" proliferates. Unlike the hoax, these pieces are video press releases and news releases produced by non-news outfits with the intention of promoting a product or company. Like hoaxes they appropriate the guise of journalism, which is increasingly effective in selling products and political messages. Neil argues that the news industry is guilty of conflating the business and news sectors of their operation - a convergence that is traditionally abhorred since the interests of these departments are often in conflict. Although the paper's desire to turn a profit is an old issue, Neil sees the rise of advertorials as evidence that in contemporary media business concerns have trumped journalistic values more than ever. Furthermore, the conflation of news and advertisements is congruent with a division between the newsroom and the public, since the industry is serving the interests of its advertisers and not its consumers.

Neil supports the notion that New Media provides methods and tools for connecting the dissemination of information with the public, yet sees the practical application as problematic since the blog has a narrow audience and as he argues excludes the poor, less educated, and less technically equipped. Futhermore, he argues that the blogosphere contains more rhetoric, complaining, provocation, and rumor than meaningful information and has eroded a trustworthy landscape for journalistic news and reporting. While the use of these blogs are on the rise, he argues that the challenge for traditional news media to survive inthe New Media age is monumental. Current tactics for revenue discourage readers, as does the loss of non-tangibility, and invasive requests for personal information. Professional, dedicated, effective journalism is losing an outlet.