Walter Cronkite

What Happened to Mainstream Journalist Ethics?

By Tim Berry

Question: Where are journalist ethics these days when we need them as much as ever?  My answer: Real journalists are trying as hard as ever. The tradition of journalist ethics is strong inside the profession among those who are still operating as reporters of news. News values, the goal of objectivity, the need for facts... Read More »

Decline of Real Journalism and Fake News are Cause and Effect

By Tim Berry

These are related trends: the decline of traditional journalism and the emergence of fake news everywhere. I’ve accidentally chronicled the decline of journalism in this blog, with occasional posts over the last 10 years. Check out the category journalism here and you’ll see what I mean. Now, suddenly, so-called fake news is a big issue.... Read More »

Headlines: Naked, Vicious, Brutal, and So Forth

By Tim Berry

I was 26 years old. Married, already a father, but still, so young, and so full of illusions. I still thought – although I was starting to wonder – journalism could be about changing the world for the better. And not at all ready to accept the truth as Matt Kenny presented it to me... Read More »

50 Years of Truth vs. Opinion, Facts, Truthiness

By Tim Berry

Something happened to truth in the last 50 years or so. Where once we had the ideal of objective truth based on evidence, we now have contentious argumentative truth, based on opinion and belief. And I miss the old kind. Let’s look at two divided nations, ours in 1968, and ours in 2016, and how they... Read More »

We Can All Stop Making Killers Famous

By Tim Berry

Roseburg last Thursday, an hour south of where I live. Charlotte, Aurora, Lafayette, Newtown, and on it goes. As a society, we go on and on, bemoaning these mass shootings. But we don’t do anything about it. Congress does nothing. Local legislatures do very little. So we just hate that it happens, and go on,... Read More »

Do We Want Our News Crowdsourced?

By Tim Berry

Whether we want our news crowdsourced, or not, I don’t think we have a choice. The steady onslaught of rapid information via the new technologies – digital, social media, et. al. – is happening. In the background, traditional news media get less attention (readers, viewers, web traffic) and that means less money to pay for... Read More »

Will Web Metrics Kill Professional Journalism?

By Tim Berry

The crumbling of mainstream journalism worries me. But am I just being nostalgic? Was it really that good in the past? The Portland Oregonian, one of the grand old daily newspapers they used to use an example when I was in J-school in 1971, and is still printing big paper newspapers every day, is changing... Read More »

Can Journalism Preserve Truth over Appearances?

By Tim Berry

Are you a parent? Do you deal with two squabbling kids by assuming it takes two to fight, so you scold them both? That may be good parenting. But it’s bad journalism. Traditional Journalism is obviously threatened by technology, the crumbling of media advertising economics, distraction of blurring lines between online gossip and news, the... Read More »