Aggregating The News Second Hand Knowledge and the Erosion of Journalistic Authority by Mark Coddington
During these latest decades, (aggregation of news started in the remote past, when reporters of magazines and newsmagazines searched in the news some inspirations for new stories or for reporting facts published in other realities), became a viral system of "new information" or better "new disinformation" in the internet age, where social medias, youtube, and many more channels inspired always more journalists, to re-elaborate stories posted by someone else.
But...Which is the role of a reporter? A reporter is called in this way because he/she should inform people thanks to informations that he/she has in first hand, sources, interviews, documents.
In this way he will report reality.
In opposite case, the so-called "second hand knowledge" will put the reporter in a condition of inferiority and facts won't be anymore originals, but strongly altered.
It is absolutely true that real journalism costs a lot, but it pays see at the voice Boston Globe and Spotlight. When an information is not complete, sources not verified at all, pieces integrated thanks to the internet, readers will be disorientated. Personally, I am.
Aggregation is also used by big realities, where there are special departments and journalists working on this field. You musn't imagine that this reality is just wanted by little magazines or newsmagazines for the creation of a poor, cheap information at a good price. No: considering that it is a power it is wanted also by big realities.
The utilization of the net invests everyone and information can't avoid anymore social medias, including the biggest realities of the sector.
The President of the USA loves to tweet directly with politicians for example and many public characters use the net for spreading what they think, where they are, their joyous or sad moments.
For a serious journalist, this one, a moment of big changes and fears, populism, vaccines, climate changes, means a harder work for reporting the truth because accuracy is indispensible. More than in the past.
Journalists have their own certainties. "There are things they feel they know happened and things they feel they have enough evidence to show happened," writes Coddington.
A fake news, created and launched in the internet, as you will read, creates a lot of damage, embarassment and confusion because if involves important people becomes viral and will later be re-posted, re-launched many times.
It won't be impossible to stop it and what it is false will become true and what it is true will become false.
Aggregators are never sure of the source, and if a video, a piece is realistically true.
A journalist writes in a daily base and he/she is at direct contact with reality.
"Professionalism, means controlling knowledge and converting it into authority" writes Mark Coddington.
Although aggregators and journalists report a news in both cases, there is a big difference.
Written with clarity and passion, this book is highly recommended to everyone in the media, but also at that generic reader interested to discover what it is going on in the world of journalists, understanding why there is all this misinformation.
I thank Columbia University Press for the physical copy of this book.
Anna Maria Polidori
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