Journalism is the pinnacle of truth; it’s a career that builds on the pursuit and dissemination of knowledge. Whether through broadcast, print, photo, digital, or other forms of journalism, journalism and media, focusing on subjects like sports, business, or data, are political.
In such a politically versed world, with systemic issues and injustice, it is inevitable that the pursuit of justice is ever-present. Whether it is intentional or not, everything is political.
The death of journalism falls upon when the ability to report on serious and political topics becomes blocked by a new wave of journalism—journalism without greater intent.
This new wave of shallow journalism can be attributed to the need for constant stimulation, with the slew of short videos on TikTok, Instagram Reels and Facebook. These platforms, with varying influences, typically report on new trends, events, or celebrity drama within hours of it occurring, creating a phenomenon that embodies a fast-paced journalism cycle.
The constant pressure to produce content often results in ‘copy and paste journalism’, described by Janise Bruck as “…journalistic practice in which journalists (heavily) rely on external third-party materials, leading to news stories that are (verbatim) reproductions of this material.”
This form of journalism heavily relies on press releases as third-party material, often quoting events from the release in exact detail and repackaging them as new information.
In such practices, there is no genuine search for information or direct interaction with those primarily affected by the incident. Therefore, it further perpetuates dehumanization. When looking solely at incidents through press releases and statements, the art of discovering knowledge is reduced to a game of broken telephone across many sources.
This form of copy-and-paste journalism is commonly seen as an issue stemming from the strive towards objectivity. Objectivity, although considered a remedy to mistrust, is mutilated by a lack of credibility and political bias placed onto journalists. This information is presented to audiences as objective, yet pervaded by subjectivity.
Jacob L. Nelson writes that this creation of mistrust is not through the bias inflicted upon journalists to write, but rather, that news inaccuracy or political neutrality is built upon generating a larger audience and profits.
In the digital age of journalism, viewers assume that all profits are based on subscriptions or advertisements placed on the website, resulting in a need for higher viewership to gain these advertisers’ profits. Although this is a large factor in the need for constant eye-catching articles, the main emphasis on profits lies in bias.
Nelson’s interviews with multiple journalists under different companies reveal that the goal is to gain views. Without them, a journalist is not contributing enough money to the company.
However, these views must attract people from specific political sides, as dictated by the company, leading to investments by various support groups and pushing particular agendas in the media. From these profit groups, specific ideologies are pushed, leading to those subscribed members to be engulfed in a sole perspective of the news, resulting in mass distrust once they reach sources of differing views.
This push towards profit instead of proper investigation into political issues is not the only factor in the death of truth and integrity in journalism; influencers have begun to talk the red carpets, interviewing actors and musicians instead of journalists.
This example is seen in countless events, from Met Galas to the Oscars party, including social media personality Harry Daniels at the People’s Choice Awards and Jake Shane at the Oscars party, two prominent figures in the media due to celebrity reactions to them. At Harry Daniel’s appearance at the People’s Choice Awards, he poses unserious questions to celebrities, including America Ferrera, in order to gain stunned reactions and laughs online.
Although these influencers posing as interviewers at red-carpet events are all fun and games, journalists competing for positions like these have expressed frustration and concern about such clips.
In this Mashable article, writer Elena Cavender retells the incident, highlighting the response of an entertainment editor at Cosmopolitan, Tamara Fuentas, who wrote that red carpets are rather stressful to journalists than fun, due to pressures to land positions in interviewing, that are slowly being taken by social media influencers. These influencers are in the pursuit of ‘sound bites’, the attempt to join social media sounds and audios to be used and become memorable social media references, as opposed to true questions, delving into undiscovered knowledge.
In a similar sense, many people had an issue with Jake Shane’s interviews with celebrities during the Oscars, specifically his and Quenlin Blackwell’s encounter with actress Julia Fox, asking her about her favourite movies. Julia Fox praised many, and suddenly, shed a light upon If I Had Legs I’d Kick You, a movie detailing the life and struggles of an overwhelmed working mother to her sick daughter.
Shane jokes about the movie, calling the child character ‘annoying’, while Julia Fox instead, wanted to discuss how the movie touches upon the overwhelming societal expectations placed on mothers and their navigation through systems working against them. Drawing on her own experience as a mother, she spoke about these systems, only to be dismissed as a joke by the influencers.
People on X caused an uproar over this use of influencers on red carpets, as they create short conversations with no goal of pursuing deeper knowledge—something a journalist should do by trade.
Nonetheless, with the rise of capitalistic desire for profits over knowledge, the career suffers greatly, leading to an oversaturation of infectious, shallow journalism.