In this article, the main question is whether and, if so, to what extent online journalism raises new moral issues and, if any, what kind of answers are preferable. Or do questions merely appear new, since they are really old ones in an electronic wrapping, old wine in new bottles? And how does journalism deal with the moral aspects of online journalism? The phenomenon of the Internet emerged in our society a few years ago. Since then, a large number of Dutch people have gone online, and the World Wide Web is now an integral part of our range of means of communication. Dutch journalism is online too, although certainly not in the lead. More and more journalists use the Internet as a source, especially for background information. Newspapers have their web sites, where the online version of the printed paper can be read. And that is it for the time being. There are no more far-reaching developments at present, certainly not on a large scale. Real online journalism is rather scarce in the Netherlands. The debate concerning the moral aspects of online journalism is mainly being conducted in the United States. First of all, by way of introduction, I will present an outline of online journalism. The first instance is the online version of the newspaper. Here, only to a certain degree new issues come up for discussion, since the reputation of reliability and accuracy of the papers, in spite of all criticism, also applies to their online versions. Besides, especially in the United States and increasingly in European countries as well, there is the so-called dotcom journalism, the e-zines, the online news sites without any relationship with printed newspapers. This may be the reason why these sites do not have a strong commitment to moral standards, at least as they have developed in the journalistic culture of the newspapers. After having outlined the moral issues arising in online journalism, the question will be addressed whether and, if so, to what extent it is meaningful and desirable to develop instruments of self-regulation for this new phenomenon of journalism.
Journalists in the 21st century are expected to work for different platforms, gather online information, become multi‐media professionals, and learn how to deal with amateur contributions. The business model of gathering, producing and distributing news changed rapidly. Producing content is not enough; moderation and curation are at least as important when it comes to working for digital platforms. There is a growing pressure on news organizations to produce more inexpensive content for digital platforms, resulting in new models of low‐cost or even free content production. Aggregation, either by humans or machines ‘finding’ news and re‐publishing it, is gaining importance. At so‐called ‘content farms’ freelancers, part‐timers and amateurs produce articles that are expected to end up high in web searches. Apart from this low‐pay model a no‐pay model emerged were bloggers write for no compensation at all. At the Huffington Post thousands of bloggers actually work for free. Other websites use similar models, sometimes offering writers a fixed price depending on the number of clicks a page gets. We analyse the background, the consequences for journalists and journalism and the implications for online news organizations. We investigate aggregation services and content farms and no‐pay or low‐pay news websites that mainly use bloggers for input.
With the rise of innovation and entrepreneurship as avenues for journalists to take in their search for journalistic work, we need to critically interrogate how these terms are understood. Various journalism institutions are pushing a particular understanding of journalism, and of what constitutes meaningful and innovative journalism. In this paper, we review the literature on these themes and draw on experimental research done by one of the authors to argue for a more process-oriented approach to journalistic innovation and entrepreneurship. As a researcher-maker, one of the authors created an innovative journalistic project and tried to develop a business model for this project. She participated in an accelerator process organised by one of the main funds aimed at journalism innovation in the Netherlands. We show that one existing, and prevalent, understanding of innovation in journalism is one that is linear, rational and outcome-oriented. We challenge this understanding and draw on process-oriented theories of innovation to introduce the concepts of effectuation, improvisation and becoming as new lenses to reconsider these phenomena. These concepts provide clearer insight into the passionate and improvisational nature of doing innovative journalistic work.
Being objective as a journalist indicates a distance to your sources and maintaining the role of a neutral bystander. This principle echoes in journalism education; generally speaking, to call something objective is a compliment and to say something is subjective is a warning. This journalistic role perception faces criticism since the late twentieth century. There’s extensive scholarly research looking to bridge the gap between objectivism and subjectivism, but journalistic education still widely prioritizes a binary perception of these principles, putting a strong emphasis on objective reporting. This PD aims to integrate artistic practices into journalism education that advocate a more balanced approach of the assumed objective-subjective dichotomy. One such approach is live journalism, where the artistic method extends to productional outcome, usually in the form of a journalistic narrative brought before a live audience. Research shows that, whereas visitors still think such productions should be fact-based, the fact that journalists had (made) a personal connection to their subject was seen as essential to the credibility of their work. This presupposes that journalism in this context is not merely a profession, but rather a person carrying out a profession. This PD intends to not only accept a certain subjectivity, but to explore its potential in journalism education. It plays with the concept not as being or becoming personally opinionated as a journalist, but as subjecting the self as a reporter. Research shows that for journalists, such an active connection to a target audience and an attitude to want to hear more than an answer to a question leads to a more representative understanding of the position and predicaments of a social group. In this light, the objective and subjective do not present themselves as a T-junction where the journalist chooses either one or the other; they appear in mutuality.
