With optimism for the future of journalism, Slate Magazine editor David Plotz discussed the revolution of digital journalism Monday as part of the Must See Monday speaker series.
Slate is an online magazine that prides itself on its counter-intuitive style of reporting the news. The magazine is also home to Future Tense, a tech blog partnered with Arizona State University and the New America Foundation.
“The idea is to cover technology, public policy and the implications of technology for society and to write about that from as many different perspectives as we can,” Plotz said.
Future Tense has been around for two years, and averages about 2.5 million views every month.
In front of a full crowd in the First Amendment Forum, Plotz analyzed the new, fast-paced world of digital journalism.
“It has just turned journalism into this hamster wheel of a job,” Plotz said. “The people work at this pace that is unmanageable.”
Plotz went on to say that more news companies would rather have a quick, mediocre story rather than a slower paced, excellent story, simply for the sake of speed. In this day and age, journalists compete to get the news out first.
“No one needs to wait for news or pictures or analysis anymore,” Plotz said. “Every story in the world has been tweeted, reported, analyzed and digested within minutes or hours of its occurrence.”
Plotz even admitted that news is no longer being broken by the traditional news sources of the past. Websites like Twitter and Reddit are becoming the more common places to get the latest breaking news.
Though the pressure to be the first to break news is immense, Plotz said that digital journalism is more creative, ambitious and profitable than the old ways of journalism.
“I think it is an amazing time to be a journalist,” Plotz said. “With these new forms of journalism, each of these is new, each is thriving and each comes with a business model which increasingly seems to make sense and I find myself optimistic about the profession, which I haven’t been for years.”
Journalism junior Vanja Veric attended the event to hear a professional in the business speak about the future of digital journalism.
“Online, you can personalize your content to what your readers want to see, which is obviously going to make for a more successful company and a more well-rounded and well-equipped writer who knows what their audience wants to read,” she said.
Though Plotz recognized the need for quick breaking news stories, he said he also believes long-form journalism is extremely helpful in attracting a large readership and discovering a more creative side of journalism.
At Slate, Plotz makes his journalists take a month off from fast-paced news stories to work at a different pace and do a more in-depth investigative story. Plotz said these long-form pieces could lead to innovative and ambitious stories.
Journalism and economics senior Matt Haldane was intrigued by Plotz’s positive views on the future of long-form journalism.
“He is much more optimistic about long-form journalism and the monetization of it than what we generally hear at Cronkite,” Haldane said. “It’s all about being fast and on top of social media and I think there’s a market for long-form, more thoughtful journalism.”
Journalism senior Chris Yousif said he appreciated Plotz’s belief that journalists should get away from the breaking news scene every once in a while.
“I like the fact that he said you need to take a break,” Yousif said. “They do different kinds of stories where it’s not all about speed and ‘we have to be first.’”
Contact the reporter at brepasi@asu.edu
