A study by the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University has suggested that now newswire services can send stories direct to consumers through the proliferating digital channels, traditional newspapers may end up ‘disintermediated’ – a word my spell check can’t deal with which means, I think, cutting out the middle man.
If proved right, this could have seismic repercussions for the quality and tone of received news. If stories at source (e.g. press releases) are not ‘intermediated’ by established gatekeeper journalists, their contents will need to be taken with a large pinch of salt.
On the upside, less intermediated news means less negative spin which would be welcome to many like the man who phoned the BBC yesterday to ask what he should say to his eleven year old daughter who asked him why the news was always so ‘horrible’.
ROSS FURLONG
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