Ronald C. Roat is program coordinator of the print and online journalism sequences and an associate professor of journalism. He joined the faculty in 1986 after a professional career as a reporter, columnist, and/or editor at six newspapers in Michigan, West Virginia, Ohio, and Indiana, including the Lansing State Journal and the Dayton Daily News. He has written regular opinion page columns for three other newspapers. Professor Roat is the author of three mystery novels, Close Softly the Doors, A Still and Icy Silence, and High Walk, all stories in the Stuart Mallory Mystery series. A Michigan native, he earned his master of arts degree at Oregon State University and his bachelor's degree from Michigan State University. He currently writes a weekly Internet column for The Evansville Courier & Press. Roat is in his 19th year at USI and is the single father of his daughter, Brittany, and is working to complete a book on which is an outgrowth of many of his columns and his unscheduled “rants” he delivers to his students. After that, Roat will finish the next Stuart Mallory novel, Some in Velvet Gowns.

The Future of News
What is considered ‘news’ often determined by the audience

by Ron Roat

Predicting the future of news is a fool’s job. For instance, who would have predicted the inverted pyramid to be a major result of Samuel Morse’s telegraph? Another example: Journalists of the 1950s thought they were doing the right thing by focusing on covering events. Then the 1960s revealed that event-centered journalism could not expose or make sense of the activities that shook the foundations of democracy. Oops, there went most of a decade.

Worse, “the future of news” is way too broad. Let’s narrow this to the character of the news audience we can expect in the next 25 years.

Consider the audience today that is 18-35 years old. What these people read might tell us something about what they will continue to read as they mature. These people have grown up on a steady diet of news you’ll never need to know. These newshounds aren’t as interested in the quality of education today as they are in Britney Spears’ dating schedule. For example, People and now Teen People, in addition to dozens of fashionable “news” Web sites, provide this audience with all the news that doesn’t matter. They provide “in-depth” reports about movies, Hollywood stars, “extreme sport” enthusiasts, DVD releases and T-shirt purchases.

Hundreds of news surveys show this audience is not very interested in government, taxes, war, pollution or medicine. Yet, they’ll flirt with developing carpal tunnel syndrome while surfing for the latest hot info about a despondent divorced woman in remote Arkansas who once considered drowning her children just before she shot them instead – a Hollywood classic unreeling in the real world. Newspapers, magazines, top 40 broadcasters, television networks and would-be networks serve up a constant diet of this stuff to “fill” the public’s ravenous information appetite.

The picture this paints about the future of news has to do with what kind of news will be in demand. Traditional “hard” news stories requiring educated, skilled journalists will have a small audience. In high demand will be stories which have little tangible value and do not require much of the reporters who hunt them down. As newspapers, magazines, broadcasters and “Webcasters” turn to this soft and often meaningless material, they also will turn toward a less skilled news operation to deliver it.

Examine today’s stylish “news” Web sites. The material is sensationalized, poorly written and sketchy, even for the Web. It offers no attention span challenge. This unskilled news operation will be a self-fulfilling prophesy: Not only will it feed us low-grade soft news as main course cuisine but it also may fail to recognize or manage news of substance when the times demand it. We’ll be back in the late 1950s, this time without Elvis or Buddy Holly to comfort us.

If this assessment and prediction seems out of line with your view of today’s audience, please correct it. Sometimes, of course, we must amplify the contrast to detect and define the action. Not much amplification was needed here.