Media outlets have changed drastically because editors make assumptions about what the readers want to see, Boston University professor Lance Morrow said last night in the College of Communication.
Morrow, a professor in COM, detailed his experiences as an essayist for Time magazine in the talk sponsored by the Boston University chapter of the Society for Professional Journalists.
Through his analysis of various media outlets, Morrow said he has found that more controversial writing has emerged as news media outlets’ business practices have shifted and as publications have become more concerned with gearing coverage toward specific audiences.
He said quality journalism is the main component of any good publication and warned against allowing advertising departments’ excitement over top stories, such as the war in Iraq, to cloud publications.
Overall, the media is also too absorbed in ‘chasing demographics,’ struggling to stay with mainstream trends and attract younger audiences, he said.
Morrow cautioned against making assumptions about readers and advised students to work from the inside out, pursuing their own interests rather than tailoring to a hypothetical audience.
He also said the ‘outright mendacity,’ or lying by the government at the end of the Vietnam War, perpetuated the transition into more controversial journalism.
‘I wouldn’t have imagined publishing things like the pornographic Starr report on the president [in my early career],’ Morrow said.
Citing flaws in journalism today, Morrow criticized modern journalism, saying journalists ‘have to do more with less’ because of media outlets’ budgetary concerns. Journalists are overworked and tired, and newsrooms are generally understaffed, Morrow said.
The tendency to send in well-known journalists, or ‘parachute in’ journalism’s top names for top stories, is a result of corporate debt accrued by mergers, he said. Less reliance on local bureaus ‘is why organizations [like Time and The New York Times] are getting thinner and thinner and thinner,’ Morrow said.
According to Morrow, many major publications are beginning to view local bureaus as an unnecessary expense, potentially sacrificing journalists’ precious contacts and local expertise.
Morrow said New York Times executive editor Howell Raines had searched for ‘star’ reporters, potentially hindering the pursuit of responsible journalism. He defined stars as journalists who have distinguished themselves by being ‘jazzy, flippant and ingenuous.’
Journalists’ ultimate goal, according to Morrow, was originally to ensure that ‘journalism is the best available version of the truth.’
Morrow also spoke briefly about his upcoming book, which will be released in August. ‘Evil: An Investigation’ will discuss the aspects of necessary, discretionary and tolerable evils and consider the misled conceptions of evil.
‘Evil is horrifyingly possible in everyone,’ he said. ‘It is like an electric current it’s an opportunist.’