How Media Has Changed The News

Published Date: 02 Nov 2017

To keep up with this digital era newspapers should involve the community, says Alan Rusbridger, editor of The Guardian. In a short interview he explains how has dealt with the rise of web services such as Twitter and why newspapers are getting "mutualised".

In your 2009 speech at the British Academy you have spoken of the growing role of digital media in journalism. You mentioned how online services are rapidly taking over the traditional tasks of newspapers. How has the internet age changed the newspaper?

If you look at today’s issue of The Guardian and compare it to one from, say 2001, I don’t think you would notice remarkable differences in terms of reporting. But apart from that I think technology is becoming more and more of my concern, the editing bit is still of most importance though. However, I have the impression that editors should now more than ever understand the technological developments that will shape the world of journalism, and anticipate on them. We don’t have a monopoly on news reporting, for readers now have the ability to publish and link up. So we’re doing as much as we can as to open up this clogged world of journalism and this is exactly where technology comes in. Certainly, the internet has affected news organisations.

How does The Guardian integrate this openness as a newspaper?

A good example I think is Comment is Free, which is the comment section of guardian.co.uk. Traditionally newspapers would hire all these columnists, and all covering a wide range of subjects. But if you want to write about politics or economics you‘re going to be in need of a certain amount of expertise. You’ll find yourself steadily hiring more and more people. So a couple of years ago we just decided to invert that model, because there’s absolutely no way that these are the only people who are worth listening to concerning these matters. You would find all these people who are ever so insightful and know far more than we do on a much wider range of subjects. So why don’t we put all these people together and give them a platform so their voices won’t go unheard?

You have been speaking about how Twitter is getting higher on your agenda. In what way does Twitter contribute to news reporting?

I think by now most of the large news organisations have been "Twitterised". Well I wasn’t particularly enthusiastic about Twitter at first; I told all our reporters not to sign up and give in to the hype. You’re just going to be too old to keep up with all of this, I thought at some point. Twitter just seemed silly, and I wasn’t able to add Twitter to all these other things. But Twitter, it’s almost like a personalized wire service. At first it might not seem like a quality news source, but it’s brilliant in a way that it speeds up reporting. Result: the whole team, including myself, signed up. For years I’ve been telling our reporters to not think of The Times, The Independent, or The Telegraph as our main competitors, because there is a great amount of services which are for a great deal doing the same thing we do. Because of their casualness and accessibility, web services like Twitter take down the whole idea of a distant journalist; it encourages people to put something together- together. They use the audience to help them write pieces; when they’ve written them they market them, bringing the audience back into the piece. It’s mutualisation of the newspaper; you’re involving your audience in the production process, and in return you give them the product.

Mutualisation of the newspaper, can you elaborate on this?

I think it’s clear that newspapers should not see readers as a passive audience but really stimulate them into cooperation. The advantage of this "mutualised" news business is that it helps getting over this dated idea of "us against them". They can’t pull off this stuff without us; neither can we while remaining separate entities. It blurs the line between reporter and reader and breaks down the perception of the secluded journalist. Just look at success of Wikipedia. It’s a huge external resource and great for building communities of shared interest, economically and journalistically. We can make it much more diverse and plural than a conventional newspaper.

I’ve discussed with some readers the idea of third parties playing a more active role on the platform of The Guardian in all its different aspects. The idea may be interesting or crazy, but quite a few readers indicated they liked the idea. There are dozens of bloggers active in lots of ways that are probably invisible to the mainstream media. It may be better in some ways but it's too early to say. I think the more the mainstream media implode the more society will need exchanges of information of this kind.

Finally, won’t those "unconventional" forms of news coverage supersede the old forms? Do you fear that they will?

No, absolutely not. I think there remains an awful lot of important work which mainstream media and trained journalists need to be doing, either on their own or in collaboration with others. However the next generation isn't going to feel the same way about the newspaper, they’re a very visual generation. There is going to be an exponential explosion in people wanting to make their material available so the ways we search for it, gather and present it; all are going to change. And I want to be as open as possible to all that. The people behind the digital devices and the readers will eventually be in control of what will happen. Either way, I would love to just keep on creating quality news, in whatever form it is preferred, for it’s not the delivery medium that matters but the journalism.

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