Churnalism?

Who watched the 7.30 Report tonight (27/8)? If you missed it you should really check it out on the show's website - Nick Davies raises a lot of the issues which we have been discussing in class for the past five or so weeks. I really liked his concept of churnalism - and I must say that I agree with much of what he was saying. Journalists are basically time poor now and therefore don't really be seeming to be actively going out and seeking and gathering information - instead they just 'churn' the information which flows in to them. Davies uses the example of the weapons of mass destruction in the Iraq War, and basically states that the media clutch on to certain stories and just run with them, then when they blow up, nothing is really done to rectify the misinterpretation. Another example which has been mentioned in class is the Haneef affair - the guy basically had his life in Australia destroyed by AFP, government and media - he turned out to be innocent in the end, yet there was no real reflection on how the media stuffed things up so badly.

Now, I'm not saying that this is the journalists fault - it's just the state of the profession today - the pressures that journalists have to deal with today (commercialism, the Internet - bloggers + citizen journalism etc) have completely changed the playing field from what it was thirty or so years ago (that's not to say that there weren't problems back then though).

I'm really confused about what I think is going to happen to the profession of journalism in the next ten or so years. I think I'll have to do some more reading on the issue and mull it over a bit and perhaps come back to it in a few weeks time after it has all sunk in.