Reporter's Diary: On Journalist's Day

The pin in the photo above is a gift to reporters from the organizers of the China International Import Expo to mark China's Journalist's Day, which was on Friday. 

"Record the times," the characters read.

The pin reminds me of when I had just started out as a community reporter at a local TV program 15 years ago. The giant shoulder-held camera was still conventional for news departments. But the smaller handle-attached kind, as shown on the pin, was gaining popularity. If for nothing else, it's much lighter.

Neither camera is completely obsolete at the CIIE, with the machines used mainly for live TV transmissions or interviews that don't involve much running.

A journalist's toolbox is generally significantly smaller these days. Smartphones are much more common. Sport cameras are spotted more than occasionally. Both can be easily steadied on a hand-held pole instead of a heavy tripod, allowing more mobility. Microphones have also shrunk in size, from the typical long stick as shown on the pin, to a tiny, wireless square that can be clipped on a jacket collar.

In term of affordability, the cost of a giant old professional camera is nowhere near that of a smartphone today in proportion to a reporter's salary. It's hard to imagine any of my colleagues would ever have entertained the idea of buying an old-style camera. More than a billion people in China now own smartphones.

Easy-to-use cameras alone don't make each phone owner a potential broadcaster. Social networks help with that. Anybody's social media account can be turned into a news channel the moment its holder aims the phone. News travels from a phone at an event to a viewer's device thousands of kilometers away with little time lapse. In the face of new technologies, the monopoly of organizational news media is falling apart.

More competition from citizen journalists and niche market players is not inherently a bad thing, as far as the industry is concerned. News supply of better quality with better service benefits the consumers. That is, if the market functions properly.

But the attention economy that comes with the boom of social media may twist the supply and demand for news. When a turbocharged headline splashes far more widely than an informing but restrained one, some may be tempted to view facts less the texture of a story than a drag to productivity. 

Not to mention that avoiding facts contradicting one's own belief is a fault that few social media users are immune to. There will surely be self-styled reporters who are eager to pander to prejudices for hits, the currency of the digital echo chamber, where the demand is high for "alternative truth." "Deep fake" is the latest step down this slippery road. 

Fact is the most salient substance of the social fiber, on which trust is based. A journalist's work should be to deal only in facts, protecting trust. New technologies, while sometimes unleashing disruption across social networks, should also be empowering for reporters.

What's at the core to journalist training today? To harness technological power is certainly a priority. But equally important, if not more so, is how to sustain the mental strength that helps with resisting the drive to chase after quick clicks.

The pin shines. So must the true profession of journalism.