ResourceBlog Article: Overload! Journalism’s battle for relevance in an age of too much information

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Thursday, 11th December 2008

Overload! Journalism’s battle for relevance in an age of too much information

While it’s true that the Web allows the average individual to create and disseminate information without the help of a publishing house or a news organization, this does not mean journalism institutions are no longer relevant. “Oddly enough, information is one of the things that in the end needs brands almost more than anything else,” explains Paul Duguid. “It needs a recommendation, a seal of approval, something that says this is reliable or true or whatever. And so journalists, but also the institutions of journalism as one aspect of this, become very important.”

Moreover, the flood of news created by the production bias of the Internet could, in the end, point to a new role for journalistic institutions. “We’re expecting people who are not librarians, who are not knowledge engineers to do the work of knowledge engineers and librarians,” says Jonathan Spira, CEO and chief analyst for the business research firm Basex and an expert in information overload. In other words, most of us lack the skills—not to mention the time, attention, and motivation—to make sense of an unrelenting torrent of information. This is where journalists and news organizations come in. The fact that there is more information than there are people or time to consume it—the classic economy-of-attention problem—represents a financial opportunity for news organizations. “I think that the consumers, being subjects to this flood, need help, and they know it,” says Eli Noam. “And so therefore they want to have publications that will be selecting along the lines of quality and credibility in order to make their lives easier. For that, people will be willing to pay.” A challenge could become an opportunity.

In fact, journalism that makes sense of the news may even increase news consumption. As Jay Rosen points out on his blog, explanatory journalism creates a “scaffold of understanding in the users that future reports can attach to, thus driving demand for the updates that today are more easily delivered.” In a similar fashion—by providing links to background information and analysis alongside every news story—the BBC gives consumers frameworks for understanding that generate an appetite for more information.

Source: Columbia Journalism Review

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