Readings for Week 2

In explaining the “why” and the “how” of American journalism, James Carey argues that these two items are “the most problematic  aspects of American journalism. While Carey also touches on the aspects of the “5 W’s and the H” of journalism, his focus is on what he describes as the “dark continent and invisible landscape.” He argues that these two elements of journalism are difficult because these are the elements we desire most, but are most unlikely to actually be given. Throughout his essay, Carey explains the difficulties of the “why” and “how” as it relates to journalism, using specific examples to illustrate the problem with these two elements.

To begin, Carey describes what he calls the Greider-Stockman episode. This particular example was regarding an essay published by William Greider described some of the economic decision-making during Ronald Reagan’s term as president. However, it was not as simple as just an essay. By putting this essay together, Carey argues that Greider illustrated some of the bigger issues facing journalism, which mainly surrounded the “why” and “how” elements.

Next, Carey goes into detail about how American journalism has developed. Journalism, as Carey argues, has been “stripped away [from its] ideological context” through a series of events: the partisan press, penny papers, and the development of the telegraph. The partisan press is recognized as one of the first steps of American journalism, as it set a foundation for journalism that focused on business. However, as the penny press began to popularize, more and more news became geared toward the general public and not necessarily towards commerce and business. The telegraph then further impacted journalism, allowing news to travel faster. Along with this “instant” news, the content also changed; it became shorter, more “objective,” and more universal than in the past. However, with these developments, Carey argues the problem of “why” and “how” began to emerge as each element was now eliminated from journalism.

Over the next few sections, Carey describes in great detail the issue of “why” in American journalism. Carey argues that, while almost all other elements are concrete, the “why” element of journalism is a far more abstract concept or description. Carey recognizes that readers desire this “why” element just as much as any other element, yet it is the hardest to describe. However, regardless of where the story might come from (political, economic, etc.), this element must be answered in some form. As Carey later goes on to describe in more detail, this can be done in a variety of ways. Motives are questioned, analyzed, insinuated, and the list goes on and on. Carey argues that journalism is rooted too much in finding motive. In a lot of cases, as Carey points out with specific examples of the Roman IRA among others, the motive is often oversimplified. It also, as Carey points out, turns journalism into a competition analysis (who is winning?) rather than an actual analysis of the situation.

Overall, Carey finds that American journalism is currently “disconnected and incoherent.” He argues that journalism needs to be read as a whole rather than read as its individual pieces. As individual pieces of news in a newspaper, the content does not connect. If journalism is taken as a whole, the narrative becomes much more coherent and connected. But as Carey points out, journalism is a reflection of the culture as a whole. While these problems certainly exist, they will continue to exist as long as the culture surrounding it does not change.

Catherine Ford touches on this topic of change as she describes the fundamental changes of journalism. She describes the current landscape of print journalism, as most people see it; print journalism – newspapers, especially – are currently dying and moving toward digital. This change, as Ford describes, is a change that has not been fully made yet. Despite the emergence of digital journalism, the structure has not yet been perfected as news is not seen as nearly as reliable as a newspaper had been. Ford argues that the entire structure of journalism is in a very fluid state and is still working on becoming “reliable” communication. But as Carey also pointed out, Ford states that even with the death of the newspaper, the culture has a whole will have a stake in the new structure of communication and journalism.