'Perfect for San Tropez'

Today I watched the first 10 minutes of a Channel 4 TV show called Gok's Fashion Fix, which is about fashion (probably since I did not watch it all) and about how to get "fashionate" without being a big spender. This type of TV programme has million different shapes. The issue at stake here is not the quality of the programme, but the dullness it exhibits. It is like an adult's lullaby.

Who is "perfect for San Tropez"

Everyone (with a fortune perhaps) but also those that want to escape the complexity of the world. Nick Davies argues in his wonderful book, Flat Earth News, that journalists use more time on copying press agency material rather than creating their own articles (Davies, 2008: 53). There is nothing wrong with agency articles. However, there is something wrong when the journalist do not take a stance against what is written. The millennium bug is a good example of such a case (Davies, 2008: 12).

Today I listened to an interesting pod cast between a Danish journalist and a professor in German, who talked about among other things journalism in Germany. He said that the idea of having an education that teach you how to become a journalist is a bad idea. He suggested that instead one should use academic professionals that after getting their degree becomes a trainee on a newspaper and learns how to write. In this way journalist would be professionals within a given field rather than professional writers.

Why is journalism important

To fully grasp the importance of journalism, one has to take a look at the democracy as an institution. For many people democracy is about voting, which of course is not incorrect. However, there is more to it than that. Robert A. Dahl writes about different qualities democracy must have in order to be a real liberal democracy. First of all he speaks about the possibility of participation and voting equality. There is nothing extraordinary in this. He also stresses the importance of enlightened understanding as well as control of the agenda (Dahl, 1989: 113f). The reason why I italicised the latter two points is because this is where the (failure of) journalism becomes important of several reasons as I will mention below. First let us elaborate a bit on the two. Enlightened understanding is where,

”Each citizen ought to have adequate and equal opporturnities for discovering and validating (within the time permitted by the need for a decision) the choice on the matter to be decided that would best seer the citizen's interests.” (Dahl, 1989: 112).

In other words information has to have substance in order to make an informed decision, say for example voting. Control of the agenda stresses that...

"[...] demos (the electorate) must have the exclusive opportunity to decide how matters are to be placed on the agenda of matters that are to be decided by means of the democratic process.” .

One has to be able to place his fingerprint on the public debate. A person cannot be excluded from being heard, from making a point etc.

When journalism is "Perfect for San Tropez"

... is when journalism does not provide the demos with these options as mentioned above. In a world as complex as the one of today, a democracy needs journalism that are ready not only to report, but also to analyse and understand. Who is better at understanding and providing the demos with what is needed in under to understand i.e. politics than the political scientist, or the biological consequences of waste than the biologist etc. This is my arguments for academic journalism rather than professional educated journalists.