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In an old job for a company I won't mention my old boss used to call the people in the news department "newsies." Back then It seemed like a derogatory term. Newsies is the title of a 1992 Disney film - a musical no less - but it was also an underclass of society at the turn of th twentieth century. Here's an excerpt from Wikipedia:
"Newspaper boys, also called newsboys or newsies, were the main distributors of newspapers to the general public from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s in the United States of America. Standing on street corners, walking through neighborhoods and hawking their papers throughout every city, they first appeared with the rise of mass circulation newspapers. Newsboys tended to be among the poorest classes of society, often seen sleeping on the streets."
So by definition newsies are simply the dispatchers of news. These were the stereotypical boys that hawked their wares by crying "extra! extra!" trying to get the passer by to purchase a paper.
Now the term came off as derogatory then but looking back at it now and seeing the dog-eat-dog nature of news, I can see that my old boss was right then and he'd be right now. "Journalists" at the big sites and bloggers covering the sector are nothing more than newsies, screaming "extra extra" on the Internet, trying to drive traffic to their version of the story that they now own. We are simply aggregating of news, throwing in our own spin or regurgitating what everyone else is saying.
The blogs have simply replaced the old newsies with the same kind of coverage. In this fast paced Cable News style cycle, it's really hard to find an acceptable level of quality when the order of the day is quantity.
Mind you I'm not complaining about blogs - many of them do a better job of gathering real news than places like GameSpot, 1up, or IGN do; what I'm saying is that it's old hat and nothing has changed since I started ten years ago.
My point is I don't want to be a newsie anymore, but to compete I am still going to have to act like one. My conundrum is finding that sweet spot in the middle between newsie and reporter. Many of my colleagues covering news have done just that and I hope to contribute something meaningful to the space.
"Newspaper boys, also called newsboys or newsies, were the main distributors of newspapers to the general public from the mid-1800s to the early 1900s in the United States of America. Standing on street corners, walking through neighborhoods and hawking their papers throughout every city, they first appeared with the rise of mass circulation newspapers. Newsboys tended to be among the poorest classes of society, often seen sleeping on the streets."
So by definition newsies are simply the dispatchers of news. These were the stereotypical boys that hawked their wares by crying "extra! extra!" trying to get the passer by to purchase a paper.
Now the term came off as derogatory then but looking back at it now and seeing the dog-eat-dog nature of news, I can see that my old boss was right then and he'd be right now. "Journalists" at the big sites and bloggers covering the sector are nothing more than newsies, screaming "extra extra" on the Internet, trying to drive traffic to their version of the story that they now own. We are simply aggregating of news, throwing in our own spin or regurgitating what everyone else is saying.
The blogs have simply replaced the old newsies with the same kind of coverage. In this fast paced Cable News style cycle, it's really hard to find an acceptable level of quality when the order of the day is quantity.
Mind you I'm not complaining about blogs - many of them do a better job of gathering real news than places like GameSpot, 1up, or IGN do; what I'm saying is that it's old hat and nothing has changed since I started ten years ago.
My point is I don't want to be a newsie anymore, but to compete I am still going to have to act like one. My conundrum is finding that sweet spot in the middle between newsie and reporter. Many of my colleagues covering news have done just that and I hope to contribute something meaningful to the space.
Oh, and to my old boss I want to acknowledge that you are wise beyond your years.
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