1. Reporters — who go out and do first person reporting — creating original stories, not just reposting rewritten wire copy.
2. Columnists — who “start conversations and give stories another perspective.”
3. Curators — who “‘cover’ the news by sorting, verifying and editing live everything good existing on the web and in the media. They make link journalism, they make the news more accessible.”
The Role Of Curation In Journalism | Techdirt
The above are the three types of journalists Jay Rosen thinks are going to take over. I love the mix here, and I think he’s right - the key is going to be providing context and surrounding information.
As it is right now, we’ve got an endless stream of information - but it’s all surface stuff. For anyone who wants to dig deeper, understand an issue, and learn more, there’s remarkable difficulty in doing so. That’s where the columnists come in, and I think their value only increases as the volume of information does.
More information, and companies like Demand Studios and Seed, don’t create less of a need for journalists - they create more. We don’t have time to sort through everything to learn and understand, so we rely on professionals to do it for us. That’s always been the case, and though the job of the journalist might be a bit harder now, it’s also much more important.
