(2003-09-23) Jarvis News Is Information Business

Jeff Jarvis on the Newspaper Publishing and Journalism. I started making this point the other day when I suggested that just for a moment, we should drop the term "news" with all its heavy baggage and instead look on our job in terms of imparting Information... When you do that, when you see yourself as a leader in the information business, then minders and copy editors become just a little less important. The value of information to the audience becomes more important... I fear that sometimes we lose sight of the fact that even more than being in the news business, we are in the information business. Oh, that's not all we do. We in journalism are also watchdogs (but so are citizens) and Expert-s (but many are more expert than we are) and commentators (though everybody has an opinion). But first and foremost, if we do not impart information, we are useless. And so we cut off sources of information at our peril. So we shouldn't be scared of weblogs or forums or even press releases so long as we label them carefully and make sure the audience is never confused about their source. It's information. Information Wants To Be Free (of minders). And often, information is free (which is good news in this age when the news Business Model is under financial pressure). Information is what it's all about.