Good Night, And Good Luck

In the changing world of news and technology, even news behemoth CBS is feeling the crunch. This major media network, which The New York Times labels “the home of the most celebrated news division in broadcasting,” may potentially outsource its investigative reporting to fellow media giant CNN. This move would be a death knell to the great tradition of reporting which has led to such famous figures such as Walter Cronkite and Edward Murrow. What’s more, it is representative of an unfortunate decline in investigative reporting across all news outlets.

The pool of original investigative reporting has been shrinking in both print and TV news outlets. In this age of technological proliferation with the growth of user-generated content and blogs, these new media outlets draw their facts from many of the same sources of investigative reporting. While it is commendable that so many voices can now be heard, the decline in in-the-field reporting will adversely impact the journalism industry. Fewer reporters means analysts are increasingly reliant on the same wires and sources as others. This has already been evident in the number of identical articles drawn from the Associated Press filling the pages of papers across the nation. When budget constraints necessitate that something gets cut, investigative reporting is often the first thing to go. If CBS does indeed outsource its investigative reporting to CNN, this trend will only grow more prevalent.

But the field of news has always changed as technology evolves, and this may merely be the startling but inevitable signs of an industry in transition. Of course, traditional media must struggle to adapt in face of new competition from other sources. Indeed, reporting in radio has survived; the painful period of transition simply made the size of journalistic radio proportional to the percentage of people who utilized the medium after the advent of television.

As the Internet grows, the proliferation of blog and cable news has also led to an increase in access to information. Though these sources raise interesting new issues of accountability, they allow readers exposure to more international reporting from newspapers abroad along with instantaneous coverage provided by bloggers around the world. Furthermore, we can hope to see reporters financed by means outside of the traditional big media outlets. Innovative ventures (such as Pro Publica) which try to provide investigative reporting projects to the big media may become a part of the journalistic landscape in the future.

However the future takes shape, investigative reporting will always be the cornerstone of journalism. A move to downsize resources for investigative reporting in favor of frontline personalities such as Katie Couric, though economically sound, goes against what journalism stands for. Good news at its heart is news. Delivery and analysis should be of secondary consideration.