It’s no secret that journalism is in crisis due to the collapse of the traditional print news business model, and the astonishingly fast rise of the web as the medium through which vast numbers of people get their information. What can we expect in the near to mid-term (say 1-10 years) as these changes accelerate? One way to narrow this down is by looking at specific roles in a traditional print news organization, and what will happen to each of them. I believe the editor position will experience the most profound changes, so it's a good one to start with.
If you listen to editors talk about their roles, they make themselves seem like a distinct, sacrosanct species, without which the news would cease to be informative. I believe this is an exaggeration. Editors tend to be well-regarded writers who were promoted to positions of greater influence. They get to decide what stories a news organization should invest resources on, and carry the responsibility of ensuring all material released under the banner of the organization is up to standards. But writers do this as well, only on a smaller scale. Within the boundaries of a story, a writer also has to chose what to prioritize, while ensuring their work does not violate standards. I believe editors achieved the level of importance they currently hold not by being more influential writers, but by the unique role they played in choosing which articles to prioritize.
When the distribution of news was accomplished by printed paper, it made sense to have a very prestigious post that prioritized which pieces of news were more important then others - what article ran on the front page, for example - because once the paper was printed, that prioritization was fixed. Keep in mind that a news organization doesn’t just collect the news, it also chooses what news to emphasize, which is hugely important because most people don’t have the time to read every article.
As anyone who has glanced at the twitter-sphere knows, this reality is over. The news is now updated moment-to-moment, and the choice of what news is important is no longer made by newspapers but by the readers themselves. To me, the most interesting place at nytimes.com is not the headline but this box:
If the readers (henceforth the community) are deciding what’s important, then what are the editors doing? Well, I’m sure they are trying to be proactive in deciding what will be important tomorrow. They probably believe some variation of “we should fear the whims of the mob”, and see their roles as cushioning against short-term interests, and of upholding the ideals of the profession. But writers can do this as well. Good writers already know that they need to plan for the future, if they want their stories to be widely disseminated when today’s news is old news (a few hours from now?). They also know that shady dealings such as making up facts or blindly shilling for powerful interests eventually gets you discredited.
Instead, what you need is an editor to moderate the activity of the now all-powerful community. To ensure that a small but loud minority does not overwhelm or slander other viewpoints. To highlight thoughtful contributions, from writers or the community alike - a.k.a. the now dreaded comments section. To occasionally provide long-term perspective or topical references. In short, editors will no longer be ultimate arbiters of priority; they will instead become thought-leaders of the community. If you want to see what this looks like, cruise over to reddit.com and see what their moderators are up to.
In a well functioning community, I believe the “editor” role may not even be a paid position within the news organization; instead it will be a distributed responsibility amongst a core subgroup of the community (something like Wikipedia’s core group) that will probably not be paid at all, and taken up instead simply for influence’s sake. News organizations that can operate within the lower costs afforded by such a scheme will have a huge advantage over those pining for the days of the mid 90’s. They may not look anything like the Gazettes, Tribunes and Chronicles of today, but they will be the source of much of our news.
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I've never worked in a print news organization but I did watch Season 5 of The Wire.