Blur: How to Know What's True in the Age of Information Overload

For web strategies I recently read Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload by Bill Kovach and Tom Rosenstiel. I never expected to enjoy reading it however I was very pleasantly surprised to not only enjoy reading the book but also get a lot of valuable information out of it on the journalism field and be able to apply it to my life and future career.

The book discusses the age of the 24-hour news cycle and how it has changed the way media consumers receive and view their information while also changing the way news stories are reported on by journalists and news organizations. Consumers used to get their new information fix at set times either at designated newscast times or each morning with the newest copy of the daily paper. However, with the 24-hour news cycle, newscasts are always on and with the advancement of technology, a consumer can go to the internet and find just about any information they want on a given topic or story.

The 24-hour news cycle has created a rush to report mentality. News organizations want to be the first to break the story whether they have all of the facts or not, a complete 180 degree turn from how things used to be in the past. Reporting actual verified facts should be the most important thing to a news organization however, the push for ratings and more viewers has led stations astray. If a station is the first to break a story, they think they’ll retain the viewers and this should not be the way of thinking.

Also, with the 24-hour news cycle, stations have a tendency to “beat a dead horse,” meaning it’s the same stories with very little to no new facts added. As the example in chapter one shows, if the Three Mile Island nuclear incident would have taken place today, it would be non-stop news coverage for a month or more basically sharing the same information over and over with very little to no change.

This book as taught me a lot for my future career. One thing I want to be known for is reporting the verified facts of a story. I may not be the person to break the story but my story could be the first accurate story and in my opinion that is far more important. The books examples also lead me to research the events mentioned. I feel that as a journalist you should always want to continue expanding your knowledge and learning more and this book definitely increased my desire to learn more about how changes have affected the field of journalism.