A Uchronic Vision Of The Evolution Of The Press

Internet didn’t invent all the press’s problems.

Tom Rosenstiel, the Executive Director of the Institute of the American press, has published on Poynter’s website a very interesting article re: the evolution of the press in the digital age.

Superception fans know that I consider that the future of journalism rests on journalists climbing up the value chain: Shifting from reporting the facts to putting them into perspective, and tirelessly developing investigative and local journalism.

In this regard, Rosenstiel mentions two amazing events in his article (quote):

• The Wall Street Journal was reinvented in the late 1940s on the idea that its financial audience already knew the basic news of the day earlier from the ticker.
• The Hutchins Commission on a free and responsible press declared in 1947: “It is no longer enough to report the fact truthfully. It is now necessary to report the truth about the fact.”

These uchronic anecdotes perfectly describe two major challenges facing the press today due to the Internet revolution.

They also confirm what I regularly write on Superception: Digital technologies are often raising old societal questions in a new way.