Tortoise and hare — a fable about deadline-driven journalism
- By Ni Tao
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E-mail Shanghai Daily, December 23, 2013
Age of fast-food reading
Great journalism invariably takes time. Take the Pulitzer Prize winners, especially reporters crowned for public service reporting, the most prized of all Pulitzers. Their dedication to a single topic for months, if not years, is rare at a time when patience is so scarce for anything that consumes time and funding — and not just readers’ patience, but editors’ as well.
But I’m of the view, opinionated as this might sound, that only the news that takes time to produce is worth the paper. The best news stories people are willing to pay for are invariably investigative stories. They may be slow in coming but they uphold the high standards of journalism in an age of fast-food reading.
In addition to increasing risks for error and compromising standards, being too fast can mean being forgetful.
As People’s Daily opined on Wednesday, who still cares about the orphans from a private kindergarten in Henan Province that was gutted in a blaze killing six children early this year? What was the compensation for the three students from Zhejiang Province who died in a plane crash in the United States?
These news events, which occurred less than a year ago, appear almost as distant as a century away, the newspaper said.
Indeed, after news goes stale, it sinks into oblivion. The plight of the individuals concerned, who not long ago grabbed headlines and raised eyebrows, becomes irrelevant, barely evoking any memory.
This sort of incoherent reporting has left the public hanging, waiting for a follow-up, which seldom comes. It is a sad reminder of how much of the media today has lost any true commitment to their vaunted “humanistic” coverage, and how frivolous is lofty talk of empowering the weak when the weak are abandoned for the next headline.
Let’s look back at the tortoise and the hare. It’s hard to say who is the hare and who is the tortoise today, because although online media is often where bogus, sensational and vulgar news originates, the print media has at times joined in the race to the bottom.
It is a time when everybody is becoming restless, as if “no big news today” sparks panic over loss of market shares to rivals. When even the tortoise wishes to hurtle and hop like the hare, it’ll be the end of a great motivational fable.
Which makes the work of those few journalistic “loners” all the more worthwhile and outstanding. They want more than just a hundred more clicks, something more enduring than meaningless tidbits about which celebrity wears which brands on which occasions.
Again, while few have the patience to read lengthy investigative pieces from beginning to end, significant journalism and analysis should never have to worry about having an audience.
As the People’s Daily editorialized, news professionals ought to insist on being slow in a fast-paced job and environment. In pursuing some fleeting subject under deadline pressure, they also need to spare time on salvaging the “leftover” news, to finish the unfinished business they’ve left behind.
So what are we willing to be?
Hare or tortoise, it’s our call.
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