Emerging technologies are transforming journalism, and the task of today’s generation is to find ways to harness them, broadcasting icon Tom Brokaw told the Exponent’s Editor-in-Chief Eric Dietrich during a one-on-one studio interview organized by the MSU Leadership Institute.
“You’re in for a real ride,” Brokaw said.
He suggested that though the means of delivering news have changed, the importance of media has not. “The culture of journalism is oxygen to a free society,” he said.
When he was growing up, Brokaw said his family would gather around the television to watch the news. As American society has become more fragmented, citizens are increasingly turning to digital media to stay in touch with the world.
Today’s generation must move beyond its mere fascination with these new technologies, Brokaw said, and start thinking about how to use them.
According to him, the new media landscape offers both new opportunities and new risks.
“The Internet is a game-changer,” he said, pointing to the recent revolutions in Egypt and Libya, where social media have been used to communicate information and ideas. “Now, with a keystroke, you can organize people in distant lands,” he said, adding that groups in the U.S. such as the Tea Party have begun largely as online movements.
At the same time, this radical democratization of information means that some emerging news sources may be of dubious credibility. Brokaw spoke of “googling” his own name after a 2009 car accident and discovering bloggers who, “under the cover of anonymity,” had used the event as an opportunity to criticize him.
Because of this, he argued, Americans can no longer be “couch potatoes” but must instead become “active news consumers.” The citizen’s primary question should be: “Can I trust this source?”
Dietrich also inquired about the former anchor’s opinion on contemporary journalistic performance and the outlook for traditional news mediums.
Print media, Brokaw responded, will continue to have a role in American society. He said that local newspapers will remain viable because “people still want to read about their neighbors.”
Regarding national media, Brokaw said that news outlets grant too much attention to the process of government – of “who’s up and who’s down” – while neglecting analysis of policy. He pointed to last year’s health care bill as an example of a policy that has been inadequately covered for content.
With the recent global economic downturn and revolutions in the Middle East, Brokaw said the 21st century has had “a raucous start.”
“You’re living through a transformative time,” he said.
See the full interview here .
