Journalism’s future needs entrepreneurial ‘hackers’
The future of the media, and in particular journalism, requires entrepreneurial ‘hacker’ journalists argues Merja Myllylahti in this cross posting from The Conversation.
The Guardian and The Washington Post have been awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service for their work in bringing to light documents leaked by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden.
It is fashionable to sprout doom and gloom about the future of journalism, but The Washington Post’s editor Martin Baron isn’t joining in.
At the recent International Symposium of Online Journalism Baron listed nine reasons to be positive about journalism – arguing there was no alternative to optimism.
“Hacker”
#BuzzwordAlert
#JargonWarning
Everyone do a shot…
Not sure the term “Hacker” can be considered a buzzword as its served over 20 years in the popular lexicon. When I think about how long a ago Gibson’s novels first came out I feel just a little bit older than I’d like to.
As far as the article goes I think this is a fair point. We’ve already seen Wikileaks and Snowden breaking big news stories without being journalist or having their hands held by journalists to assist them in this.
I’ve been thinking for a while that surely the way these stories got eyeballs onto pages is going to be noticed by news agencies. The natural consequences are to either go down Rupert’s route and do a little hacking yourself, or frequently using hackers as a whistleblower/source.
Obviously this comes fraught with legal and ethical dilemmas…but given journalist have been protecting whistleblowers for a while they can probably handle it….just might have to revive that old badge of pride of going to jail for brief stints to protect your sources. To be honest, journalism could certainly do with the positive PR kick that would give them.
I also think it’s reasonably easy to determine when “hacking’ will be accepted as a source and when it won’t. It’s the old public utility argument. Hack a dead girls phone for gossip/hack celebrities ect in the style of the News of the World and expect some fierce condemnation…..put out pictures of governments killing citizens or working with Microsoft to destroy your privacy and you will win a Pulitzer. Basically, pick targets that are fair game and you will be fine.
Mumbo and jumbo. Vox is nothing like the WashPost. Hacker is nothing like journalist. Coding is not journalism. And so on. A pastiche of unrelated items, posing as evidence. Perhaps journalism lecturers should examine this item: Q: Is this good journalism?