Since I was in school for journalism in 2007 I’ve been saying the same thing — instead of continuing to produce episodic articles, the news media could have shifted to providing context that helps people keep track of long-running processes that affect them. I do that for my friends, because I listen to the news all the time, and I can explain how events in the news today are part of much longer series of events. They find it very valuable. But if the news media ever does this, they tuck it in to existing article formats, but unless you are very attentive over years, its not possible, easily, to keep track of why something is happening or what led to it.
Hypertext and databases were made for this, but the news media can’t see it. I tried, for years, in school, at conferences and in various journalism jobs, to get people to see how this could make journalism more useful and powerful, but here in 2024, we’re still doing “articles, except on the internet”. And I can’t afford to keep working in the news media long enough to be in a position to try it out. Nobody can, unless their actual livelihood is coming from somewhere else.
So here we are, in total context collapse, and a dying news media whose slow disappearance, especially at the local level, is actively hurting people, and our democracy.
It’s bad, and its going to get a lot worse as AI makes it cheaper and cheaper to lie convincingly. But what can anyone do?
This sort of feels like what Wikipedia does for ongoing events? Here's an example I'm thinking of with background, prelude, timeline of events with links to more articles on different aspects:
Problem is we need the same for local news. A place where all the research gets archived, and events are tracked. Seems like nowadays the only people with a complete-ish picture of what's going on at a local level are the people directly involved themselves.
Anywho, things aren't looking good. One of the media giants in my country just cut 4,800 jobs across the country:
I've held on to my 2002 Wikipedia account, and have been SCREAMING "this is the way" since way back when Microsoft was still trying to sell an encyclopedia [on CD-ROM!]. I remember industry "experts" in my own academic village questioning "but how will you TRUST something that anybody can edit?"
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January 2023, I finally had an LLM cite one of my own written contributions when I began asking about a nuanced technical database which I maintain the article on wikipedia (which was really cool/eerie). This was over a year ago, and every day I continue to be floored by genAI capabilities in discussing published dataset complexities.
I know several lowkey published authors (one whose autobiography I copyedited) that have been terrified by what LLMs know about their own lives, based on commonsense associations/deductions.
to get people to see how this could make journalism more useful and powerful
Did you ever consider news media is structured the way it is by design? It's inherently a distraction and engagement tool crafted to influence public perception to the whims of those behind the companies.
What you propose is nearly the opposite of that and would likely incriminate some powerful actors.
yeah man I took many semesters of courses on this exact thing, and then felt it personally over the course of several acquisitions and layoffs. I know. Anyone who’s worked in journalism knows. The profession has always been at war with whatever provides the professional’s livelihood. Right now the powerful are winning that war in a way we haven’t seen since the turn of the last century, and the consequences of that aren’t going to be good.
The "context" approach was the whole "Explainer" period that happened in journalism, most famously done by Vox (as another commenter mentioned)--but also many others.
What you end up getting is the approved narrative of "how things are" by the same class of people who all hobnob with each other.
Glad to see it's end. Look forward to what's next.
No, that’s not what I’m talking about. That’s presenting context in the same episodic format as news articles, and it only works to explain the thing that was published on that day, up to that point.
Do you have examples of what context-oriented media like this would look like? After watching news about the pandemic, I found it interesting to see how short the collective public memory about the event was, and how little we remembered about the reasons for the decisions that were made early on. I wonder if a more context-oriented media might help people recall the sequence of decisions and their justifications at the time?
I think Wikipedia does a good job of being updated quite quickly with relevant news while also providing the context as deep as desired. I am not sure it is reasonable to expect each article to provide anywhere near sufficient context for anything remotely complicated.
I agree that context is sorely missing in a lot of news reporting these days. However I don't think there's enough content in the form of 'context' to justify a typically-staffed news outlet. I'd love to be proven wrong.
It also seems like journalism is suffering a similar problem as software engineering, in that people think they can take shortcuts. "I'll just walk around and ask people questions" is not the same thing as journalism, just as "I'll write a To Do app" is not the same thing as doing software engineering. These are disciplines with exacting standards, quality levels, and rigor, and require years of diligent study and practice.
And in the case of well-practiced journalism, it really is "the fourth estate", and we should be fearful of what our world becomes should that fourth estate ever crumble.
They were also trying to do it at a national level, with stories that are incredibly well-covered already. If someone did this for San Francisco, so frustrated people could get deeply-reported, verifiable answers to “why is [x] like this,” you would create an enormous amount of value.
P.S. if anyone wants to give me a million dollars to do this, I am both an experienced news editor and a senior-level software engineer, email in profile
Vox also tried too hard to stick to a coherent narrative that fit their own political outlook, which is normal for journalism but I think falls apart even more quickly when you try to provide context over time.
Ya ive been hoping to see something similar emerge. Both in terms of putting the story within big picture numbers and a chain of stories to explain what and why it happened as more time passes.
Hypertext and databases were made for this, but the news media can’t see it. I tried, for years, in school, at conferences and in various journalism jobs, to get people to see how this could make journalism more useful and powerful, but here in 2024, we’re still doing “articles, except on the internet”. And I can’t afford to keep working in the news media long enough to be in a position to try it out. Nobody can, unless their actual livelihood is coming from somewhere else.
So here we are, in total context collapse, and a dying news media whose slow disappearance, especially at the local level, is actively hurting people, and our democracy.
It’s bad, and its going to get a lot worse as AI makes it cheaper and cheaper to lie convincingly. But what can anyone do?