Os rumos do jornalismo e a cobertura do ensino superior

1. Os rumos do jornalismo e acobertura do ensino superior 8º Congresso Brasileiro de Comunicação no Serviço Público1º Encontro Nacional de Assessores de Comunicação no Setor de Educação Pública Maurício Tuffani São Paulo, 27 de agosto de 2008

2. Em um dos extremos, temos reportagens, artigos e colunaspautadas em função de demandas sociais para as universidades federais e estaduais, cujo pressuposto é o de que essas instituições devem ampliar a oferta de vagas. No pólo oposto, temos abordagens que enfatizam aspectos gerenciais, que geralmente levam às conclusões de que no Brasil os recursos são mal aplicados no ensino superior público e de que este não tem como ser eficiente. Polarização temática

3. Nessas duas abordagens costuma ser praticamente desconsiderado que as universidades públicas respondem não só pela quase totalidade da formação de pesquisadores do país, mas também por grande parte da pesquisa científica brasileira de nível internacional. Desse modo, o ensino superior público do país deixa de ser compreendido, divulgado e até mesmo avaliado, na cobertura jornalística, em sua especificidade, que consiste na sua indissociabilidade com a pesquisa e a extensão. Polarização temática

4. Exemplo: Folha de S. Paulo, 30/12/2007 “Cai número de formados na universidade pública” (págs. A1 e C1) “O número de alunos que entra nas universidades públicas brasileiras cresce desde a década passada. Nos dois últimos anos, porém, a quantidade de estudantes formados nessa rede caiu quase 10%, apontam dados do Ministério da Educação. O resultado representa uma perda na eficiência nessas instituições, que são financiadas com recursos públicos.”

5. Exemplo: Folha de S. Paulo, 30/12/2007 “Cai número de formados na universidade pública”(págs. A1 e C1) “O volume de ingressantes cresceu 17% entre 2001 e 2003, quando entrou a maioria dos alunos que deveriam se formar entre 2004 e 2006. No período em que as instituições públicas perderam eficiência, houve aumento de 30,5% de formados nas universidades privadas. Também utilizando dados do censo, o professor Oscar Hipólito (ex-diretor do Instituto de Física USP-São Carlos e consultor do Instituto Lobo para o Desenvolvimento da Educação, da Ciência e da Tecnologia) calculou a evasão na rede pública, a pedido da Folha. ”

6. Conflito de interesse? • Não é o caso da Unesp (Universidade Estadual Paulista) • Número anual de formandos cresceu 59,3% de 1997 a 2006, índice superior ao número de ingressantes por ano, que cresceu 54,9% no mesmo período.

7. Pressupostos da reportagem • O que significa “eficiência” para o jornal ou para as fontes por ele consultadas na elaboração dessa matéria? • Seria possível avaliá-la por meio de índices meramente quantitativos?

8. Exemplo: Dubitandum, 30/06/2008 “Errar é Humanas”(Gustavo Ioschpe, economista e “especialista em educação”) “Essas aulas [de filosofia e sociologia] serão apenas uma maneira mais escancarada de se praticar o doutrinamento do marxismo rastaquera que impera em nossas escolas. Eu particularmente ficaria muito contente se os nossos alunos saíssem do ensino médio ignorantes de filosofia e sociologia, mas conseguindo ler um texto e entendendo-o, para que tomassem suas próprias conclusões filosóficas ao lerem seus próprios livros. E se fosse para incluir uma nova disciplina em nosso currículo, adoraria que fosse estatística. (...) Sem uma comprovação empírica, qualquer pensamento é apenas uma tese”.

9. Desconhecimento do assunto “Sem uma comprovação empírica, qualquer pensamento é apenas uma tese”. (Gustavo Ioschpe, economista e “especialista em educação”, em “Errar é Humanas”): Observação: Se essa afirmação fosse verdadeira, a matemática, a estatística, a computação e a própria lógica seriam ciências sem possibilidade nenhuma de comprovação de seus teoremas, pois nenhuma delas tem conteúdo empírico; seus procedimentos são inteiramente dedutivos.

10. Exemplo: Dubitandum, 30/06/2008 “Errar é Humanas”(Gustavo Ioschpe, economista e “especialista em educação”) “No primeiro semestre da faculdade, li um texto muito bom de Paulo Freire, em que ele dizia que era preciso read the word to read the world (ler a palavra para ler o mundo). Não sei se ele o escreveu em inglês ou se a tradução foi especialmente fortuita, mas o enunciado é verdadeiro: é impossível entender a complexidade do mundo se você não sabe ler. É impossível estudar filosofia se você não sabe ler. ”

11. Paulo Freire “A leitura do mundo precede a leitura da palavra, daí que a posterior leitura desta não possa prescindir da continuidade da leitura daquele. Linguagem e realidade se prendem dinamicamente. A compreensão do texto a ser alcançado por sua leitura crítica implica a percepção das relações entre o texto e o contexto. (...) Primeiro, a “leitura” do mundo, do pequeno mundo em que me movia; depois, a leitura da palavra que nem sempre, ao longo de minha escolarização, foi a leitura da “palavra mundo”. (FREIRE, Paulo. A Importância do Ato de Ler. São Paulo: Cortez & Moraes, 1986, p. 113.)

12. Estudos de organizações multilaterais como a Unesco e a OCDE mostram cada vez mais o aumento do Produto Interno Bruto e das exportações em países em que há maiores investimentos em pesquisas. Embora o Brasil mal tenha ultrapassado recentemente o patamar de 1% do PIB em P&D, nossa produção científica, que permaneceu nos anos 1980 abaixo do nível de 0,6% da produção internacional, fechou 2006 com mais que o triplo desse índice: 1,9% dos trabalhos científicos de todo o mundo publicados nas revistas indexadas. Aspecto fundamental

13. Relação PIB, P&D e exportações Fontes: OCDE, 2006 e Unesco, 2007

14. Conclusão • A prevalência dessas duas tendências tem prejudicado acobertura da educação superior pública no Brasil, inclusive no que se refere a exigir dela os resultados que ela deve alcançar nas próprias áreas de ensino, pesquisa e extensão. E isso também é relevante para o interesse público, assim como a inclusão social. • Esse quadro aponta para a necessidade de fortalecer o jornalismo investigativo, principalmente no que se refere à interpretação de dados. • Esforço importante vem sendo feito pelo Ministério da Educação com a produção e a divulgação de pesquisas sobre o desempenho das Instituições de Ensino Superior (como o ENADE e as avaliações trienais da CAPES).

15. Tendências do jornalismo Estudos e obras consultados • Os Elementos do Jornalismo:O que os jornalistas devem saber e o público exigirBill Kovach & Tom RosenstielSão Paulo, Geração Editorial, 2003 (2001 nos EUA) • The State of the News Media(relatórios de 2004 a 2008)Project for Excellence in JournalismColumbia University, Graduate School of JournalismNova York

16. Os Elementos do Jornalismo • Autores: Bill Kovach (Programa Nieman, Harvard University)Tom Rosenstiel (Project for Excellence in Journalism) • Iniciativa do CCJ (Committee of ConcernedJournalists) fundado por 25 editores e ombudsmans, reunidos na Universidade Harvard em junho de 1997 em torno do tema da crise de credibilidade da mídia • 21 fóruns de debates com cerca de 3 mil convidados, dos quais aproximadamente 300 jornalistas • Publicado em abril de 2001 nos EUA (2003 no Brasil) • Objetivo: ajudar jornalistas a articular os valores da profissão e a ajudar os cidadãos a exigir um jornalismo ligado aos princípios que criaram a imprensa livre

17. Os Elementos do Jornalismo Considerações iniciais sobre credibilidade • Estavam reunidos ali porque “detectavam sérios problemas na profissão jornalística. Mal reconheciam o que consideram jornalismo em boa parte do trabalho de seus colegas. Seu medo maior era que, no lugar de prestar um serviço público relevante, o jornalismo na verdade estava prejudicando esse nobre propósito”.* • “Na redação não falamos mais sobre jornalismo”, disse Max King, então editor do Philadelphia Inquirer. “Somos absorvidos pelas pressões comerciais e os lucros e perdas no balanço anual”, concordou outro editor.* • “As notícias viraram entretenimento e informação sobre entretenimento. Mais e mais os bônus anuais ganhos pelos jornalistas dependiam da margem de lucro da empresa, não pela qualidade do seu trabalho.” * * Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel. Os Elementos do Jornalismo: O que os jornalistas devem saber e o público exigir. São Paulo. Geração Editorial, 2003, pág. 19

18. Os Elementos do Jornalismo Pesquisa Pew-CCJ sobre credibilidade • Por volta de 1999, cerca de 21% dos americanos achavam que a imprensa estava de fato preocupada com as pessoas, contra 41% em 1985 * • Também em 1999, cerca de 45% dos americanos acreditavam que a imprensa protegia a democracia, contra 55% em 1985 * * CCJ & Pew Research Center for the People and the Press. Striking the Balance: Audience interests, business pressures and journalists’ values. March 1999, p. 79

19. Os Elementos do Jornalismo Conclusões dos estudos e debates • Os jornalistas correm o risco de ver sua profissão desaparecer. Nesse sentido, a crise de nossa cultura, e de nosso jornalismo, é uma crise de convicção.* • Existe o risco de que a informação independente seja substituída por um comercialismo egoísta fazendo pose de jornalismo. Se isso acontecer, perderemos a imprensa como uma instituição independente, livre para vigiar as outras poderosas forças e instituições da sociedade. ** * Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel. cp. cit. pág. 22 ** Idem, pág. 23

20. Os Elementos do Jornalismo Conclusões dos estudos e debates • Essa conglomeração e a idéia por trás de muita sinergia corporativa em comunicação — o jornalismo é só conteúdo, ou, a mídia é toda igual — levantam outro tipo de perspectiva. A Primeira Emenda deixa de significar a confiança pública outorgada em nome de uma ampla comunidade. Em vez disso reivindica direitos especiais para uma indústria semelhante à isenção antitruste para o beisebol. Nesse contexto, a Primeira Emenda se torna um direito de propriedade que estabelece normas básicas para a livre concorrência econômica, não para a livre expressão.* * Bill Kovach & Tom Rosenstiel. Obra citada. pág. 54

21. Os Elementos do Jornalismo • A primeira obrigação do jornalismo é com a verdade. • Sua primeira lealdadeé com os cidadãos. • Sua essência é a disciplina da verificação. • Seus praticantes devem manter independência daqueles a quem cobrem. • O jornalismo deve ser um monitor independente do poder. • O jornalismo deve abrir espaço para a crítica e ocompromisso público. • O jornalismo deve empenhar-se para apresentar o que é significativo de forma interessante e relevante. • O jornalismo deve apresentar as notícias de forma compreensível e proporcional. • Os jornalistas devem ser livres para trabalhar de acordo com sua consciência.

22. The State of the News Media • Realizado peloProject for Excellence in Journalism, sediado em Washington, DC, mas integra a Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, de Nova York • Publica desde 2004 relatórios anuais sobre o jornalismo nos Estados Unidos • Dirigido por Tom Rosenstiel, vice-presidente do Committee of Concerned Journalists e co-autor, com Bill Kovach, de Os Elementos do Jornalismo • Parceria com escolas de jornalismo da Michigan State University, Missouri University e Ohio University e com a Knight Foundation • Patrocinado pelo Pew Charitable Trusts (Joseph N. Pew, Sun Oil Company, US$ 204 milhões em 2006)

23. Áreas temáticas Conteúdo Audiência/circulação Economia Propriedade Investimento em redações Atitude pública Mídias pesquisadas Jornais (de âmbito nacional e local*) Telejornais (idem)* Websites (idem) Blogs (idem) TVs a cabo (nacionais) Rádios (locais) * Inclusive em espanhol The State of the News Media

24. Jornais nacionais The New York Times Los Angeles Times USA Today The State of the News Media Veículos pesquisados: mídia impressa Revistas nacionais • New Yorker • Time • Economist • Us News & World Report • The Week • Newsweek

25. TV aberta ABC Today Show Good Morning America CBS Early Show NBC ABC World News Tonight CBS Evening News NBC Nightly News PBS NewsHour The State of the News Media Veículos pesquisados: telejornais TV a cabo • NewsNight with Aaron Brown (CNN) • Larry King Live (CNN) • Special Report with Britt Hume (FOX) • The O’Reilly Factor (FOX) • Hardball with Chris Matthews (MSNBC) • Countdown with Keith Olbermann (MSNBC)

26. Websites CNN.com CBSnews.com NYTimes.com Dailynews.Yahoo.com News.google.com Blogs Daily Kos Instapundit Eschaton Talking Points Little Green Footballs Power Line Crooks and Liars as the vlog The State of the News Media Veículos pesquisados: internet

27. The State of the the News Media Eight Major Trends – 2004 • A growing number of news outlets are chasing relatively static or even shrinking audiences for news. One result of this is that most sectors of the news media are losing audience. That audience decline, in turn, is putting pressures on revenues and profits, which leads to a cascade of other implications. The only sectors seeing general audience growth today are online, ethnic and alternative media. • Much of the new investment in journalism today - much of the information revolution generally - is in disseminating the news, not in collecting it. Most sectors of the media are cutting back in the newsroom, both in terms of staff and in the time they have to gather and report the news. While there are exceptions, in general journalists face real pressures trying to maintain quality. • In many parts of the news media, we are increasingly getting the raw elements of news as the end product. This is particularly true in the newer, 24-hour media. In cable and online, there is a tendency toward a jumbled, chaotic, partial quality in some reports, without much synthesis or even the ordering of the information. There is also a great deal of effort, particularly on cable news, that is put into delivering essentially the same news repetitively without any meaningful updating.

28. The State of the News Media Eight Major Trends – 2004 • Journalistic standards now vary even inside a single news organization. Companies are trying to reassemble and deliver to advertisers a mass audience for news not in one place, but across different programs, products and platforms. To do so, some are varying their news agenda, their rules on separating advertising from news and even their ethical standards. What will air on an MSNBC talk show on cable might not meet the standards of NBC News on broadcast, and the way that advertising intermingles with news stories on many newspaper Web sites would never be allowed in print. Even the way a television network treats news on a prime time magazine versus a morning show or evening newscast can vary widely. This makes projecting a consistent sense of identity and brand more difficult. It also may reinforce the public perception evident in various polls that the news media lack professionalism and are motivated by financial and self-aggrandizing motives rather than the public interest.

29. The State of the News Media Eight Major Trends – 2004 • Without investing in building new audiences, the long-term outlook for many traditional news outlets seems problematic. Many traditional media are maintaining their profitability by focusing on costs, including cutting back in their newsrooms. Our study shows general increases in journalist workload, declines in numbers of reporters, shrinking space in newscasts to make more room for ads and promotions, and in various ways that are measurable, thinning the product. This raises questions about the long term. How long can news organizations keep increasing what they charge advertisers to reach a smaller audience? If they maintain profits by cutting costs, social science research on media suggests they will accelerate their audience loss. • Convergence seems more inevitable and potentially less threatening to journalists than it may have seemed a few years ago. At least for now, online journalism appears to be leading more to convergence with older media rather than replacement of it. When audience trends are examined closely, one cannot escape the sense that the nation is heading toward a situation, especially at the national level, in which institutions that were once in different media, such as CBS and The Washington Post, will be direct competitors on a single primary field of battle - online. The idea that the medium is the message increasingly will be passé. This is an exciting possibility that offers the potential of new audiences, new ways of storytelling, more immediacy and more citizen involvement. • The biggest question may not be technological but economic. While journalistically online appears to represent opportunity for old media rather than simply cannibalization, the bigger issue may be financial. If online proves to be a less useful medium for subscription fees or advertising, will it provide as strong an economic foundation for newsgathering as television and newspapers have? If not, the move to the Web may lead to a general decline in the scope and quality of American journalism, not because the medium isn't suited for news, but because it isn't suited to the kind of profits that underwrite newsgathering.

30. The State of the News Media Eight Major Trends – 2004 • Those who would manipulate the press and public appear to be gaining leverage over the journalists who cover them. Several factors point in this direction. One is simple supply and demand. As more outlets compete for their information, it becomes a seller's market for information. Another is workload. The content analysis of the 24-hour-news outlets suggests that their stories contain fewer sources. The increased leverage enjoyed by news sources has already encouraged a new kind of checkbook journalism, as seen in the television networks efforts to try to get interviews with Michael Jackson and Jessica Lynch, the soldier whose treatment while in captivity in Iraq was exaggerated in many accounts.

31. The State of the News Media Eight Major Trends – 2004 (recorte) • Conteúdos: aumenta a distribuição e diminui a produção • Produção: diminuição do material obtido por verificação e checagem e aumento da informação bruta, primária • Telejornalismo: tolerância crescente do merchandising, que promove uma imagem pública do jornalismo mais ligada ao mundo dos negócios do que ao interesse público • Agenda da cobertura: manipuladores da informação têm influência crescente “em detrimento do poder de barganha dos jornalistas” * * Carlos Castilho, “O estado ‘crítico’ da imprensa”, Observatório da Imprensa, 23/3/2004 (http://observatorio.ultimosegundo.ig.com.br/artigos.asp?cod=269SAI003)

32. The State of the News Media Five Major Trends – 2005 • There are now several models of journalism, and the trajectory increasingly is toward those that are faster, looser, and cheaper. The traditional press model - the journalism of verification - is one in which journalists are concerned first with trying to substantiate facts. It has ceded ground for years on talk shows and cable to a new journalism of assertion, where information is offered with little time and little attempt to independently verify its veracity. Consider the allegations by the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth," and the weeks of reporting required to find that their claims were unsubstantiated. The blogosphere, while adding the richness of citizen voices, expands this culture of assertion exponentially, and brings to it an affirmative philosophy: publish anything, especially points of view, and the reporting and verification will occur afterward in the response of fellow bloggers. The result is sometimes true and sometimes false. Blogs helped unmask errors at CBS, but also spread the unfounded conspiracy theory that the GOP stole the presidential election in Ohio. All this makes it easier for those who would manipulate public opinion - government, interest groups and corporations - to deliver unchecked messages, through independent outlets or their own faux-news Web sites, video and text news releases and paid commentators. Next, computerized editing has the potential to take this further, blending all these elements into a mix.

33. The State of the News Media Five Major Trends – 2005 • The rise in partisanship of news consumption and the notion that people have retreated to their ideological corners for news has been widely exaggerated. A year ago we mentioned a third, older form of news that seemed to be gaining momentum - the journalism of affirmation. Here the news is gathered with a point of view, whether acknowledged or not, and audiences come to have their preconceptions reinforced. In 2004, that notion gained new force when Pew Research Center survey data revealed that Republicans and conservatives had become more distrustful of the news media over the past four years, while the perceptions of Democrats, moderates and liberals had remained about the same. This led to the popular impression that independent journalism was giving way to a European-style partisan press, in which some Americans consume Red Media and others Blue. The evidence suggests that such perceptions are greatly overstated. The overwhelming majority of Americans say they prefer independent, non-partisan news media. So, apparently, do advertisers and investors. In addition, distrusting the media does not correlate to how or whether people use it. Not only do Republicans and Democrats consume most news media outlets in similar levels, but those in both parties who distrust the news media are often heavier consumers of news outlets than those who are more trusting. The only exceptions to this are talk radio and cable news. In the latter, Republicans have tended to congregate in one place, Fox. For most other media, the political orientation of the audience mirrors the population. The political makeup of the network news audience, for instance, matches that of the Weather Channel. • To adapt, journalism may have to move in the direction of making its work more transparent and more expert, and of widening the scope of its searchlight. Journalists aspire in the new landscape to be the one source that can best help citizens discover what to believe and what to disbelieve - a shift from the role of gatekeeper to that of authenticator or referee. To do that, however, it appears news organizations may have to make some significant changes. They may have to document their reporting process more openly so that audiences can decide for themselves whether to trust it. Doing so would help inoculate their work from the rapid citizen review that increasingly will occur online and elsewhere. In effect, the era of trust-me journalism has passed, and the era of show-me journalism has begun. As they move toward being authenticators, news organizations also may have to enrich their expertise, both on staff and in their reporting. Since citizens have a deeper range of information at their fingertips, the level of proof in the press must rise accordingly. The notion of filling newsrooms only with talented generalists may not be enough. And rather than merely monitoring the official corridors of power, news organizations may need to monitor the new alternative means of public discussion as well. How else can the press referee what people are hearing in those venues? Such changes will require experimentation, investment, vision and a reorganization of newsrooms.

34. The State of the News Media Five Major Trends – 2005 • Despite the new demands, there is more evidence than ever that the mainstream media are investing only cautiously in building new audiences. That is true even online, where audiences are growing. Our data suggest that news organizations have imposed more cutbacks in their Internet operations than in their old media, and where the investment has come is in technology for processing information, not people to gather it. One reason is that the new technologies are still providing relatively modest revenues. The problem is that the traditional media are leaving it to technology companies - like Google - and to individuals and entrepreneurs - like bloggers - to explore and innovate on the Internet. The risk is that traditional journalism will cede to such competitors both the new technology and the audience that is building there. For now, traditional media brands still control most of where audiences go online for news, but that is already beginning to change. In 2004, Google News emerged as a major new player in online news, and the audience for bloggers grew by 58% in six months, to 32 million people. • The three broadcast network news divisions face their most important moment of transition in decades. A generation of network journalists is retiring. Two of the three anchors are new. One network, CBS, has said it wants to rethink nightly news entirely. Nightline, one of the ornaments of American broadcast journalism, was fighting for its life. After years of programming inertia and audience decline, network news finds itself at a crossroads. If the networks rethink nightly news, will they build on the programs' strengths - carefully written, taped and edited storytelling - or cut costs and make the shows more unscripted, like cable interview programs? Will they try to find network evening news a better time slot, or begin to walk away from producing signature nightly newscasts altogether because of the programs' aging demographics? Will ABC try to save Nightline because it adds to the network's brand, or drop it because the company could make more money with a variety show? The next year will likely signal the degree to which passion, inertia or math drives the future of network news.

35. The State of the News Media Five Major Trends – 2005 (recorte) • Tendência crescente do padrãofaster, looser, and cheaper na diversificação de políticas editoriais • Blogs expandem “cultura” (que vem crescendo na mídia convencional na última década) do jornalismo assertivo em prejuízo do jornalismo baseado na verificação e na checagem • Blogs trazem “filosofia afirmativa” para a mídia convencional: publicar qualquer coisa, especialmente pontos de vista, e ficam a checagem e a verificação para os blogs dos pares (fellows) • Reforço do contexto favorável à manipulação da opinião pública por parte de governos, grupos de interesses e corporações

36. The State of the News Media Major Trends – 2006 • The new paradox of journalism is more outlets covering fewer stories. As the number of places delivering news proliferates, the audience for each tends to shrink and the number of journalists in each organization is reduced. At the national level, those organizations still have to cover the big events. Thus we tend to see more accounts of the same handful of stories each day. And when big stories break, they are often covered in a similar fashion by general-assignment reporters working with a limited list of sources and a tight time-frame. Such concentration of personnel around a few stories, in turn, has aided the efforts of newsmakers to control what the public knows. One of the first things to happen is that the authorities quickly corral the growing throng of correspondents, crews and paparazzi into press areas away from the news. One of the reasons coverage of Katrina stood out to Americans in 2005 was officials were unable to do that, though some efforts, including one incident of holding journalists at gunpoint, were reported. For the most part, the public — and the government — were learning from journalists who were discovering things for themselves. • The species of newspaper that may be most threatened is the big-city metro paper that came to dominate in the latter part of the 20th century. The top three national newspapers in the U.S. suffered no circulation losses in 2005. The losses at smaller newspapers, in turn, appeared to be modest. It was the big-city metros that suffered the biggest circulation drops and imposed the largest cutbacks in staff. Those big papers are trying to cover far-flung suburbs and national and regional news all at the same time — trying to be one-stop news outlets for large audiences. In part, they are being supplanted by niche publications serving smaller communities and targeted audiences. Yet our content studies suggest the big metros are the news organizations most likely to have the resources and aspirations to act as watchdogs over state, regional and urban institutions, to identify trends, and to define the larger community public square. It is unlikely that small suburban dailies or weeklies will take up that challenge. Moreover, while we see growth in alternative weeklies and the ethnic press, many small suburban dailies have shrunk.

37. The State of the News Media Major Trends – 2006 • At many old-media companies, though not all, the decades-long battle at the top between idealists and accountants is now over. The idealists have lost. The troubles of 2005, especially in print, dealt a further blow to the fight for journalism in the public interest. “If you argue about public trust today, you will be dismissed as an obstructionist and a romantic,” the editor of one of the country’s major papers told us privately. An executive at one of the three broadcast networks told senior staff members in a meeting last year that “the ethical anvil has been lifted,” meaning the producers could dispense with traditional notions of journalistic propriety. One of the most celebrated editors in the country, John Carroll of the Los Angeles Times, stepped down in frustration in 2005, but only after taking weeks to persuade his successor not to join him. The most celebrated journalist still at ABC, Ted Koppel, left for cable, but only after announcing that neither cable news nor network news was amenable to the long-form work to which he aspired. The most cogent explanation for why journalism in the public interest has lost leverage was probably offered by Polk Laffoon IV, the corporate spokesman of Knight Ridder. “I wish there were an identifiable and strong correlation between quality journalism … and newspaper sales,” he said. “It isn’t …that simple.” From here on, at many companies, the fight on behalf of the public interest will come from the rank and file of the newsroom, with the news executive as mediator with the boardroom. There are some notable exceptions, and journalists who work in those situations today consider themselves lucky. Meanwhile, at many new-media companies, it is not clear if advocates for the public interest are present at all.

38. The State of the News Media Major Trends – 2006 • That said, traditional media do appear to be moving toward technological innovation — finally . In earlier reports, the real investment and creativity in new technology appeared to be coming mostly from non-news organizations like Google. Traditional news outfits, in practice if not in rhetoric, treated the Internet as a platform to repurpose old material. While the evidence is sketchy and the efforts are frustrated by newsroom cutbacks, in 2005 we saw signs that the pattern was beginning to change. A big reason was that much of the revenue growth in these companies is now coming from online (and from niche products such as youth newspapers). In network television, for instance, viewers of ABC News can now watch an evening newscast from that network online three and a half hours before one is broadcast on television. In print, various papers announced reorganizations of online operations. An internal memo at the Los Angeles Times was fairly typical, calling for “a different kind of online news operation, one that recognizes the changing expectations of readers.” In that transition, several big questions remain unanswered. One is whether younger audiences care anything about these traditional news brands. Another is, even if these legacy media do finally try to move online seriously, can they change their culture, or will they succumb to the natural tendency to favor their traditional platforms? • The new challengers to the old media, the aggregators, are also playing with limited time. When it comes to news, what companies like Google and Yahoo are aggregating and selling is the work of others — the very same old media they are taking revenue away from. The more they succeed, the faster they erode the product they are selling, unless the economic model is radically changed. Already there are rumblings. One thing to watch for in 2006 is whether old-media content producers demand that Google News begin to pay them for content. Another option for the aggregators is to begin to produce their own news, and already we are seeing baby steps; in 2005, Yahoo announced it would hire some journalists, but the effort is still minimal. Can the new rivals become more than technology companies? And if they do, will they have more than rhetorical allegiance to the values of public-interest journalism? • The central economic question in journalism continues to be how long it will take online journalism to become a major economic engine, and if it will ever be as big as print or television. If the online revenues at newspapers continue to grow at the current rate — an improbable 33% a year — they won’t reach levels equivalent with print until 2017 (assuming print grows just 3% a year). Realistically, even with the lower delivery costs online, it will be years before the Internet rivals old media economics, if it ever does. Fledgling efforts to get consumers to pay for online content edged forward in 2005, but only marginally. All this only adds to the likelihood that the next battleground will be producers of old media challenging Internet providers and Internet aggregators to begin compensating them for content, the model that exists in cable.

39. The State of the News Media Major Trends – 2006 (recorte) • “Paradoxo da informação”: cresce o número de canais, mas diminui a diversidade de assuntos do noticiário • Grandes temas são cobertos por meio de abordagens similares e por parte de repórteres de atribuições gerais • Essas tendências fazem com que a imprensa tenha grande controle do que o público sabe • O interesse público perde espaço para o mundo dos negócios (Os “idealistas” perderam para os “contadores” na longa batalha travada na mídia convencional.)

40. The State of the News Media Complementaridade dos Major Trends 2004-2006 • Those trends are in addition to others we have identified in earlier years. Among them: that the traditional model of journalism — the press as verifier — is giving way to other models that are faster, looser and cheaper; to adapt, journalism must move in the direction of making its work more transparent and more expert and widening the scope of its searchlight; those who would manipulate the press and the public are gaining leverage over the journalists who cover them; convergence is more inevitable and less threatening the more one looks at audience data; the notion that people are gravitating to a partisan press model, or red news and blue news, is exaggerated. (See Major Trends 2004 and 2005).

41. The State of the News Media Major Trends 2004-2006 (recorte-síntese) • Conteúdos: aumenta a distribuição e diminui a produção • Diminui a verificação e checagem e cresce a informação bruta • Telejornalismo: cresce tolerância ao merchandising (imagem de que na imprensa negócios sobrepujam interesse público) • Agenda noticiosa: cresce influência de governos, grupos de interesses e corporações “em detrimento do poder de barganha dos jornalistas” (contexto de manipulação da opinião pública) • Tendência crescente do padrãofaster, looser, and cheaper • Blogs expandem cultura do jornalismo assertivo em prejuízo do jornalismo de verificação e de checagem • Aumentam canais informativos, mas diminui variedade de temas • Grandes temas têm abordagens similares em diversos veículos • Interesse público perde espaço nas redações para o mundo dos negócios

42. Tendências x princípios Major Trends 2004-2006 (recorte-síntese) • Conteúdos: aumenta a distribuição e diminui a produção • Diminui a verificação e checagem e cresce a informação bruta • Telejornalismo: cresce tolerância ao merchandising • Agenda noticiosa: cresce influência de governos, grupos de interesses e corporações “em detrimento do poder de barganha dos jornalistas” • Tendência crescente do padrãofaster, looser, and cheaper • Blogs expandem cultura do jornalismo assertivo em prejuízo do jornalismo de verificação e de checagem • Aumentam canais informativos, mas diminui variedade de temas • Grandes temas têm abordagens similares em diversos veículos • Interesse público perde espaço nas redações para o mundo dos negócios Os Elementos do Jornalismo • A primeira obrigação do jornalismo é com a verdade. • Sua primeira lealdade é com os cidadãos. • Sua essência é a disciplina da verificação. • Seus praticantes devem manter independência daqueles a quem cobrem. • O jornalismo deve ser um monitor independente do poder. • O jornalismo deve abrir espaço para a crítica e o compromisso público. • O jornalismo deve empenhar-se para apresentar o que é significativo de forma interessante e relevante. • O jornalismo deve apresentar as notícias de forma compreensível e proporcional. • Os jornalistas devem ser livres para trabalhar de acordo com sua consciência.

43. Foco principal: comunicação x informação Fonte: Ciro Marcondes Filho, Comunicação e Jornalismo: A saga dos câes perdidos. São Paulo. Hacker Editores. 2000. pág. 108

44. Evolução do jornalismo Em azul: acréscimo com base no texto do livro (ver fonte). Em vermelho: acréscimos do autor deste post. Fonte: Ciro Marcondes Filho, Comunicação e Jornalismo: A saga dos cães perdidos. São Paulo. Hacker Editores. 2000. pág. 48

45. Evolução do jornalismo A questão crucial do jornalismo neste início de milênio não é se os jornais vão desaparecer, nem se os profissionais de imprensa serão todos terceirizados, mas se a função do jornalista deixará de ser a produção da informação para se restringir ao mero gerenciamento dela.