Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn once wrote that it is better not to be a journalist than to write the lies of Pravda. Press in the United States is freer — exactly how “free” it is is debatable — than it ever was in the Soviet Union, so journalists here aren’t confronted with the dichotomy which Solzhenitsyn mentions. Despite this freedom of the press — and the ever growing freedom provided to us by the Internet — most journalism that exists today is either of poor quality (in that it lacks depth and insight) or it is simply not journalism, because of the topics it covers… You want evidence? Just look at most magazines, newspapers, radio programs, Web sites and TV news programs. Separating good journalism from the bad is like looking for tiny diamonds in a large pile of bullshit. There is good stuff on the radio (NPR), the Internet (mostly the Web sites of good magazines), and there are a few good newspapers out there… I can’t think of any good TV news networks. Only two television programs stand out as insightful and good bullshit filters: “The Daily Show with Jon Stewart” and “The Charlie Rose Show.”
The highest form of journalism, the form I value most, is magazine journalism (The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The Economist, and a few others) and journalism books (for example: by David Remnick, Sy Hersh and Hunter S. Thompson). In journalism, there is too much of an obsession with the present — often the immediate present — the importance of which is constantly exaggerated. I’m not saying that what’s going on in the present isn’t important, but depth, insight, critical thinking and seeing past the false dichtomy of “seeing both sides of the story” takes time. Reporting on “what happened today” should be the exception rather than the rule; and pandering to the lowest common denominator and sensationalism should not even be considered journalism.
Less news, more depth and critical thinking.
