Brad Marley

Not only did the tragic events of September 11 change our outlook on the world, it changed how we get the viewpoints that shape our perspectives.

Before the attacks, news was delivered at a slower pace, which reflected our demand for news.  But the rapid-fire coverage of 9/11 brought with it an unexpected shift in how we get our news. Certain tools became necessary to give us our fill of up-to-the-second updates, and these tools were used so often in the days and weeks after, that they never went away.  Now, when you turn on the news or open a newspaper, you’re seeing the artifacts of those tools.

With the 10th anniversary of 9/11 still fresh in our minds, let’s take a look at four ways the attack changed how we get our news.

The News Ticker – Even though it debuted on TV in the 1950′s, the news ticker didn’t gain popularity until the public had a real need to know information as it happened. September 11 was that trigger. In the days following the attacks, those tickers were the perfect way to relay the current homeland security threat. Now you can’t turn on the news (or ESPN) without seeing it. It’s impossible to remember a time when it wasn’t crawling across the bottom of your screen.

Transparency – If a newspaper would have reported in the days leading up to 9/11 that terrorists were going to fly airplanes into buildings, I think most of us would’ve scoffed at that absurd notion and admonished the paper for running the story. But now, airlines detaining passengers and bomb threats make it into print because outlets (especially newspapers) can ill-afford to miss something. Of course, it’s a double-edged sword: there are some who call fear-mongering for posting these stories. I’m not sure there’s a happy medium.

Breaking News Alerts – Obviously, the ultimate breaking news alert was the attacks of September 11. [Editor's note: I watched the "9/11: As It Happened" special on MSNBC two nights ago, and I was amazed at how remarkably composed Matt Lauer & Co. were on The Today Show. Of course, we now have the benefit of hindsight, but there was no freaking out. They were a calming influence on a chaotic day.]

Anyway, I know I’m not the only one who gets a little anxious when The Office is interrupted by a special report. Thanks to Twitter, we usually learn about the breaking news before it breaks on television, but it’s still a bit unnerving when the national news cuts in, especially at an odd time. It seems we’ve been programmed to pay full attention when out-of-the-blue news hits, because we just don’t know. The media knows now what gets our attention.

Crowdsourcing – On a day when information was shared among sources so fast that nobody new what was real and what was fiction, many of the news outlets carrying the story relied on eyewitness interviews from people in New York City, Washington, D.C., and Shanksville, Pa. to tell them what really happened. At one point during the MSNBC special, there was a report of a car bomb going off at the State Department, but one of their correspondents, who was at the State Department, nixed that rumor. This was the first time I can remember where the news relied on citizens to help report the news.

I’m sure there are more I’m forgetting (and I would love it if you pointed them out in the comments) but these four really stand out as being solid examples of how tactics that were used to report details of this tragedy were adopted for future use.

There’s a saying that says, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.” In this case, I think it’s applicable.

If I was somebody who makes decisions for the Detroit Free Press, I would eliminate the reader’s ability to leave comments on the online version of the paper.

There are three reasons why:

1. There is no two-way dialogue. Blogs — which the online version of a daily paper strives to emulate — are built on two-way communication. Here, there is no conversation taking place between the reporter and the commentators.

2. Feedback is ignored. As far as I know, the writer doesn’t review the comments to get a sense of what his readers think about the content. Maybe I’m wrong, but I’d venture a guess that the comments provide no value to the paper.

3. Anonymity leads to verbal sparring. Nine times out of 10, the comment section becomes a virtual yelling match between people based in conflicting opinion camps. Add to that idea the fact that you can be totally anonymous, and it can get pretty ugly.

That last reason is the one I want to focus on, using a recent article about what Detroit could look like in the year 2020 as an example.  

In a city that is rife with anger and apathy, an opinion piece stating that the city needs to change to survive was sure to ruffle some feathers.

But, by the fourth reader comment, all sense of decorum was thrown out the window when a reader named “JumboFishSticks” called the city a “turd,” blaming it all on the “great white flight.” A response to that comment called Detroit “the worst place in America to live.”  From there, we were off and running.

As you can imagine, the constructive comments were far overshadowed by, well, the less-constructive comments, calling the plan to fix the city a “Utopian dream” and “a foolish daydream.” One commentator even took the Web editor to task for inserting a graphic of future Detroit that was too hard to read.

It it within these negative comments that we can see first-hand why the city is in such dire straits. Readers and citizens, alike, would rather spend their energy spouting negative retorts at other commentators on what amounts to an online message board than doing something positive with their time.  But what’s the point of trying to change things when so many others (read: other online commentators) clearly don’t feel the same way? It’s enough to cause more people to become fed up with the direction of the city in a city that is already teaming with lost citizens.

I’m not saying that shutting down comments will magically save the city, but anything we can do, right now, to nip negativity in the bud is a step on the right path.

And the less we hear from people who just want to see the city burn, the better.

The recent allegations against University of Michigan football coach Rich Rodriguez provide a great example of why we need newspapers and journalism, in one form or another, to survive.  

MGoBlog, which bills itself as "a somewhat comprehensive Michigan sports blog," has been following the story closely these past few days as more information about the investigation comes to light. (If you have not been paying attention, blogs are kind of popular.)

But we can't expect – and the blogger doesn't try to indicate otherwise — that a blog written by an alumnus of the University of Michigan would be objective. It would be like a Christian blogger reacting to new evidence that Jesus Christ didn't exist: their words only serve to lather up the faithful.

Journalists, on the other hand, abide by a professional code of ethics that states "public enlightenment is the forerunner of justice and the foundation of democracy."  It is their job to find the truth and report to the public.  

And that truth can sometimes manifest itself as players on a college football team who were fed up with a program that, in their minds, is breaking NCAA rules.

It doesn't matter who the coach is, which school it is, or what their record is.  If journalists are given information that the public deserves to know and, after thorough research, is deemed legit, they are obligated to report it. 

We may not like it, and we may not agree with it, but without it, we would all just be preaching to the choir, and how interesting would that be?

Forget for a second that the PR industry is also affected by the economic 'doom and gloom' reported on a daily basis.

Because at the end of the day, we can set our sights on another publication if one of our daily newspapers shuts down.

The reporters who worked for that now-defunct newspaper don't have that luxury.

Matthews Roberts, multimedia editor for the Rocky Mountain News, recently compiled a 20-minute video chronicle of the last days of the paper, complete with staff interviews and the reactions of their reading public.

What strikes me the most is that, like other companies and corporations that have recently closed their doors, the head honchos decided to simply walk away, rather than fight. If that's the current mindset, we're in more trouble than we thought.

It's remarkably well done, and worth a look.

Final Edition from Matthew Roberts on Vimeo.