Tomorrows Journalists: Tomorrows Clowns

By Bryan Kay

There was a time when journalists were journalists in the truest sense of the word. They ferreted away like the animals that they were, failing to recognize ``No'' as an answer.

They may have appeared unlikable creatures, people who had the ability to be curt, to the point and cynical. But those descriptions are about as good as it gets for a journalist. For it likely means they are honoring the fundamental tenets of journalism.

It's a shame that, these days, the majority of journalists ― or should I say reporters ― don't even live in the shadow of the hard-nosed hacks of days gone by. They are out of sight, lurking in the depths far from the podium on which the true greats rest.

It's worth pointing out there are a few still around who possess the integrity and conscience that results in journalism worth paying to read. But, increasingly, they are shoved into small corners and the average individual has a hard time finding them and their exemplary work.

Which is why we should be scared about the media bills passing through the National Assembly ― the ones that caused an almighty, sledgehammer-driven stink around Christmas time ― for very different reasons from the ones stoking such fervent emotion.

Journalistic standards have been slowly eroding over the last couple of decades. Glorified gangsters like Rupert Murdoch, the Australia-born media mogul, are at least part of the reason why the rulebook is being torn to shreds, destroying a profession that should be among the most righteous on the planet.

Media empires are now the norm, rather than the exception. Truly independent voices are scarce ― at least among the mainstream media.

Pick up any random world newspaper ― the New York Times, the Dallas Morning News, the Guardian, the International Herald Tribune, El Pais ― and the chances are you will be reading virtually the same story on any given day, perhaps turned around a little, under a different byline.

Why? Budgets are shrinking. Sure, circulation is falling amid the growth of the Internet and as advertisers scurry toward the online domain and all its trapped riches. But the fact is that budgets began shrinking long ago as more and more newspapers were swallowed up into empires.

That led to homogenization, the closure of branch offices, international bureaus and a heavier reliance on wire copy, itself the epitome of repetition and lack of an independent voice.

Murdoch, for example, owns so many newspapers across the world these days, it is no wonder we have been collectively misled over some of the most important issues of the day, when if we had more high-profile, independent journalists at that sort of level, able to probe and question, perhaps outrages such as the war in Iraq could have, at the very least, been laid bare amid all its lies and inaccuracies so much earlier ― and to a wider audience.

The greater the crossover created by media conglomerates and the less independent voices, the greater danger we will face and standards will continue to nosedive.

I once overheard a senior journalist in one of Scotland's most respected newsrooms utter the fatal words, ``You know, journalism is no longer about going out and digging up stories. No, these days a newsroom is a call center.''

Is that truly where we want to go? Turn our reporters into glorified note takers who do not think, let alone probe? That spells the death knell for democracy. Journalism was once regarded as the Fourth Estate and rightly so.

It kept the bigwigs and decision-makers in check. I fear we are not doing that these days and it is because money talks. In the wake of shrinking budgets and a stifling of newsrooms has come complacency and disenfranchisement, even among some of journalism's best.

Whatever happened to a fire in the belly?

Journalism was once a domain where, suddenly, you found yourself in a swirling pool, faced with a simple choice: sink or swim. When I was a young, wet-behind-the-ears reporter ― not all that long ago ― I worked under two inspirational characters who were members of the old school.

You left your ego at the front door and if you didn't have a thick skin, you quickly sank. They were hard-to-please taskmasters, but they got to the root of issues. They drilled their reporters to be thinkers, to question everything.

They were hard, they had their troops making enemies in just about every media office and public services building in the land. But they got stories that were a little closer to the truth. And that's the way it should be.

Let's make this attitude prevail and fight for the only vehicle to which this industry should adhere: truth. Let's not let men in suits get in the way of that most human of conditions.

Journalism is about a social responsibility to hold the world to task; to get to the truth; and to keep our rulers in check. Sadly, too many of my brethren have lost sight of that fact. And huge media amalgamations such as the one touted in Korea are only going to make a big problem worse.

Bryan Kay was a freelance journalist in Central America for two years. He can be reached at bryan_s_kay@hotmail.com