Toward a new formula to define journalism
Intention: it’s the one simple word I keep returning to as discussions dig deeper into what it means to do journalism nowadays and what is its future.
From social media creators and innocuous SEO-driven websites to TV stations uniquely driven towards supporting a single political figure, there is more than one way to claim what you do is somewhat journalism. Some 30 years ago, journalism was, by definition, mostly tethered to ethics (however these principles were understood and applied) and the publishing format — what you read in newspapers and magazines, and, sometimes, listened in the radio or watched on TV.
As the industry clearly knows now, new ways of digital publishing obliterated that notion that journalism is format. Not everyone can have access and capital for printing presses or broadcast airwaves, but everyone can have a social media account or a website. The old barriers for putting out content, journalism or not, are now archeological reminders for simpler times in defining this industry. With all its faults (and there are plenty), Big Tech made broadcasting a decentralized resource, which is not a bad thing, although it was partially appropriated by bad people.
During my year as John S. Knight Journalism Fellow at Stanford University, I have been thinking about ways to help newsrooms make better decisions regarding the technologies they use. This search also led me to think hard on what journalism really means now.
When access to publishing and distribution technologies have leveled the playing field, what is then left to claim as journalism? What do journalists do differently from creators, SEO writers, TV talking heads and, basically, anyone with a social media account and a ChatGPT ready to spit out text? If journalism can take multiple forms, including software, how can we differentiate it from other content using the same formats?
In my view, to define the work of journalists we need to take into account two main elements: its purpose of serving an audience or community combined with transparent reporting standards. True journalism requires both authentic intention and rigorous process.
This notion suggests a simple formula: journalism = intention + process.
Let’s start with the process. You might mean to do journalism, but you also need to follow the basic rules that give your work rigid boundaries, both ethical and procedural. Most journalists, if not all, would agree that journalism needs a good process to succeed, and newsrooms and schools cover this very well. It is not a coincidence that a lot of news professionals find jobs in other fields, from academia to speech writing and even public relations: the journalistic process is a valued resource.
However, searching for facts and stories is not a unique thing to journalists. Private investigators and prosecutors, for instance, interview people and follow leads the same way journalists do. Corporate auditors and historians browse documents and find newsworthy things too. Press releases are well edited and sourced. Academic research is, frequently, even more rigorous. Process alone is not enough to define the journalistic work.
While creators make content to get likes and brand deals, SEO writers publish catchy headlines to increase traffic and monetize content with Google Ads and TV pundits are paid to blindly defend one side or another, journalists work towards disclosing information so people can make their own decisions (“The Elements of Journalism” from Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel are still alive and well). Process is the engine, but intentionality is the fuel.
Artificial intelligence can do many things, but it can’t muster intention. It generates text, edits, reviews, checks typos, researches and even contextualizes, but it simply does not aim to create communities or inform an audience. Of all the talk around “agentic AI”, it does not have any agency by itself, it does not want or mean to do journalism.
“Intention” might be a tough word for journalism hardliners to accept as their own. It is too vague, too arcane. But it is also a notable conceptual pattern that can be traced back to real reporting work as we know it: journalism is only there because we, the journalists, intend it to be.
Intention, as journalism, might be hard to define, but we know it when we see it.
This article was written entirely by a human being
