Keller's view about journalism

From The Guardian:

News reporting faces web challenge, warns New York Times editor

Stephen Brook
Thursday November 29 2007

Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, tonight issued a stark warning that the supply of reliable news reporting is dwindling despite the internet-driven worldwide information explosion.

Delivering this year's Hugo Young memorial lecture to an audience at Chatham House in London, Keller said that the gravest danger to the future of newspapers was not political pressure, nor the "acid rain" of criticism from the blogosphere or new technology upending the business model.

"It is a loss of faith, a failure of resolve on the part of the people who make newspapers."

Keller said bloggers, internet search engines and satirical talk shows had blossomed across the world but could never replace reporting.

"That may sound like a strange thing to say in the age of too much information."

He referred to a "media tsunami" of blogs, Google News, RSS feeds, social networking websites like MySpace and online video file-sharing operations such as YouTube.

"The civic labour performed by journalists on the ground cannot be replicated by legions of bloggers sitting hunched over their computer screens," Keller said.

"It cannot be replaced by a search engine. It cannot be supplanted by shouting heads or satirical television shows. What is absent from the vast array of new media outlets is, first and foremost, the great engine of newsgathering - the people who witness events, ferret out information, supply context and explanation."

Even in locations that were the source of major news stories, such as Baghdad, the number of reporters was declining, Keller said. "Here's a statistic that should make your heart sink. When Saddam Hussein fell, there were more than 1,000 western reporters in Iraq. Today, at any given time, there are about 50."

"There are lots and lots of places you can go for opinions about the war, but there are few places, and fewer by the day, where you can go to find honest, on-the-scene reporting about what is happening," he added.

"Google News and Wikipedia don't have bureaux in Baghdad, or anywhere else. With a few exceptions, they do not - in the cold terminology of the 21st century media business - create content."

In 2003 Keller was made executive editor of the New York Times, replacing Howell Raines, who departed after a scandal about journalistic fraud and plagiarism by reporter Jayson Blair.

Keller said that Wikipedia policy actually forbade original material, while Google aggregated information from hundreds of news outlets, many that were simply unreliable.

"And how would you know? Here's an experiment you can perform at home: If you are inclined to trust Google as your source for news, Google yourself," he said.