Journalism In the Time of Change   

"A change is gonna come," Sam Cooke told us, and as was so often the case, the rhythm and blues legend was right on target.

Change is everywhere in the news business these days as newspapers struggle to reinvent themselves, 24-hour cable news channels make their debuts, megadeals bring more media consolidation and Web sites proliferate like Starbucks outlets.

Change is also a leitmotif in this issue of AJR.

Start with J.D. Lasica's insightful look at the ramifications of online journalism ("Net Gain," page 20). The computer has already had a profound impact on the way journalism is practiced by the Old Media – research on the Net via search engines, e-mail iÜterviews, data crunching through computer-assisted reporting. And an entirely new form of journalism has sprung up, with additional online newspapers, magazines and other news sites launched seemingly every 10 minutes.

This is a very young medium, of course, and its ultimate shape and impact are unknown at this point. And, hype being an essential component of the American way of life, there's no doubt that some accounts of the Web's revolutionary consequences are way oversold.

But that being said, this is not something that is going to go away like the Macarena or Sinéad O'Connor. Traditional journalists ignore it at their peril.

Not long ago I was judging a journalism contest, and after the heavy lifting was over we jurists turned our attention to the more serious business of schmoozing. At some point the conversation turned to the Net, and both of my fellow judges, high-ranking editors at major American newspapers, both in their 40s, confessed that they really hadn't confronted the online world yet. Their body language suggested they hoped they didn't have to.

Yet, as Lasica makes clear, there are implications of journalism online that should be embraced by those who care about the field.

One of the more troubling phenomena these days is the wide gulf that seems to separate news organizations and their audiences. Poll after poll contains disheartening

news about confidence in the media. Particularly discouraging are those periodic rankings that suggest the public puts journalists somewhere between ax murderers and Charles Manson. Many seem to think journalists are aloof, above the fray, isolated from the real world concerns of everyday people.

But the Net is an interactive medium. Instant response is an e-mail away. And the Net culture guarantees that instant response there will be. The potential is there for much more give-and-take, much more conversation, a breaking down of barriers. This will take some getting used to, but its potential upside is enormous.

The second major plus stems from one of the darker sides of life on the Net. As anyone who has lurked for 15 minutes knows, the Internet, in addition to its obvious charms, is a place filled with dubious data. Wild rumors take on a life of their own. On the Net, as on talk radio, half-baked theories (and even theories tartare) and completely undocumented speculation are often passed on as accepted wisdom. Witness the fact that federal officials were forced to call a press conference to dispel the Net-circulated notion that an American missile had taken down TWA flight 800.

This is where journalists come in. They separate wheat from chaff for a living. The Net desperately needs the traditional values of the field – news judgment, accuracy, fairness, context – to help people make sense of the overwhelming glut of information andYmisinformation that lies just a click away. As the medium matures, journalistic skills, adapted to cyberspace, should be at a premium.

Change also plays a role in AJR Senior Editor Carl Sessions Stepp's look at why young people don't embrace newspapers to the extent that their elders do ("The X Factor," page 34). But this piece is not so much about changes taking place as it is about changes that should take place if newspapers are to attract more young people.

Two lessons emerge: First, papers have to provide information that makes them essential to a younger audience (while not driving off core readers, a task easier to recommend than to carry out). Second, it's high time to stop sneering at youth culture and start taking it seriously. Traditional journalism has paid a steep price for indulging in the former.

Finally, change at its most concrete level is the theme of AJR contributing writer Alicia C. Shepard's interview with new U.S. News & World Report Editor James Fallows ("Walking the Walk," page 40).

Fallows has come to the fore as one of the most influential critics of journalism as it is practiced today. He has flogged the field for its insider approach to government and politics, its concentration on the sensational and the shallow, its failure to cover real issues that affect people's lives. He has been equally harsh in his criticism of celebrity journalism.

Now Fallows has that rare opportunity to put his theories into practice. As in every transformation from candidate to official, there are compromises: He contemplates no outright ban on speaking fees and will continue to encourage TV appearances by U.S. News staffers on the pundit shows he has previously referred to as a "pestilence."

But he also talks of a newsmagazine without (or with far fewer) polls and predictions, one that spends more time examining the impact of the issues of the day, one that is peppered with true wit.

It will be a fascinating experiment to watch. l