Unjournalism

A good article from a great writer on the future of journalism, as envisioned by Gannett, publisher of USA Today and a hundred billion other newspapers. The article from BusinessWeek’s Jon Fine talks about Gannett’s strategy for a new journalism — “pro-am,” they call it. The professionals do the heavy lifting, and the amateurs fill in the details. This will be the new approach at Gannett’s newspapers and eventually it’s TV outlets, as well.

More from Jonny Fine:

Perhaps the best early example of this fused approach took place at the Fort Myers News-Press. Home buyers were getting whacked with massive bills—as much as $30,000—for simple water- and sewer-line connections. The News-Press kicked off its probe with a short item, in the paper and on its Web site, announcing it was looking into these fees, and, by the way, did anyone have anything to share? After that: the deluge. Certain documents surfaced, suggesting potentially illegal activity involving bids; local engineers scrutinized blueprints posted online. These were posted and feverishly discussed in forums, which in turn generated leads and drove follow-up coverage in print and on the Web. It’s “a whole different way of building a story,” says Executive Editor Kate Marymont. The “microsite” that hosted that chatter became The News-Press’ most-trafficked, a position it maintains today.

How incredible is that? Ass-kickin’ journalism in an era in which no one wants to pay for it (neither the publishers [in terms of staff] nor the consumers [in seemingly any terms])! Beautiful. I’m genuinely excited to see what more examples of this new journalism — don’t any of you dare start talking about “journalism 2.0″; that’s such a lame and lazy buzzword-ification — we’ll soon see. This makes we want to get into the journalism business. Wait, does this count as being “in the business”?

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