the new journalist

Anyone who is remotely connected to print journalism these days knows that the industry is tanking almost as quickly as the stock market. Papers and corporations across the country from the Boston Globe to the Seattle Post-Intelligencer to even the Tri-City Herald (owned by McClatchy, who made cuts of their own) are scaling back through layoffs or attrition. It's a scary time to be thinking about finding a job.

But as newspapers shift to smaller, online news coverage, a shift in style is coming with it. For example, the Washington Post just launched the second crime series in two weeks, this one is investigating the still-unsolved case of Chandra Levy from 2001. The series works with a style almost better suited for a mystery bestseller than a reporting of facts. Granted, I will be the first to jump on board the shift to more conversational and stylistic journalism, especially when dealing with long stories or less timely features, such as stories about semi-colons or fans going shirtless at baseball games. But in this series about Levy, many of the facts or information are left uncited, and comments are made about Chandra's feelings or thoughts or opinions that would be hard to nail down as concrete without hearing them from her directly.

Another debate about the same sort of language shift is being discussed by Politico about the Associated Press and its new head, Ron Fournier. The wire service is seeing more first person (considered the unpardonable sin by some journalists and professors) and "emotive language."

I have been saying for a few years now that the shift to increasing online content should not change the basic job of a reporter: gather facts, check accuracy, and write stories based on interviews and credible research. Online news still requires fact checking, still requires accurately quoting a source, still encourages watchdog journalism. And there is still plenty of this going on, both in print and online. But I worry that as newspapers desperately try to target the under-30 audience, they will compromise quality reporting for informal language and less "choppy" citations in order to mimic personalities such as Stephen Colbert (who actually is exceptional at citing sources for his facts or statistics) or E! news. The ride is keeping aspiring journalists on their toes, that's for sure.