Unjournalism

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A recent editorial in the LA Times takes a look at the Google’s recent move to let “actual participants” in stories to add comments that will then appear alongside the original story as it’s displayed on Google News.

It’s a decent, level-headed look at the issue, but it suffers from a huge case of sarcastic “no shit?” The main thrust of the column — and its conclusion that’s full of implied profundity — it that “…Google may strive to be the world’s index, but it’s not journalism.”

Did anyone ever say “Google is journalism”? This column’s conclusion strikes me as little more than another stupid little battle in the pointless war between traditional media and Wild Wild Web.

The LA Times piece also suggests that “[Google accepting comments] implies that the stories aggregated by Google News are incomplete — possibly because of limited space, but also possibly because of bias, neglect or ignorance.”

That’s one way to look at it, and it’s not unreasonable, but I certainly don’t see it as the most likely case. Maybe Google’s new feature implies that journalism and the stories it produces are the beginning of a conversation. Isn’t that part of what journalists strive for — to draw attention to events, issues and people that deserve to be noticed, discussed, analyzed, debated?

Tags: journalism //