Journalism and technology: Why Elon Musk is not media's Enemy No 1

Good journalism has a place and purpose. If every X user is the media, who ensures the facts?

Iridium was a satellite phone company in the 1990s that wanted to connect the earth with dozens of low-orbit satellites. Not too many sampled its service, but millions admired its advertising line: “Geography is history.”

 

In the late 1990s, a colleague of mine took a fly sheet of the Iridium ad, struck out “Geography”, wrote “print media” above it, and pinned it in our workspace.

 

It struck terror in my heart. This colleague of mine was a hotshot reporter, a regular on the front page. He had shirts in every shade of blue. He used a laptop when the rest of us banged away on the clunky keyboards of office desktops. Clearly, he knew. But did he, really? Print media survives. Iridium is history.

 

Along the way, we braved the onslaught of television and the internet. But those battles have had their impact. All print media houses have embraced the internet and churn out a ton of videos. Most of them continue to draw their sustenance from the print edition, but nearly all new investments go into digital, though they earn lower-than-handsome returns. Paywalls are not wildly successful yet and ad rates on digital are a fraction of those in print.

 

And now we are up against Elon Musk. Mr Musk has a gift. He can make innocuous words sound potent and pejorative. When he speaks of “legacy media”, it touches a raw nerve. And he does not shy away from an all-out attack, like the one he launched about the coverage when his beloved Cybertruck exploded. But when he tells the users of his social media platform, X, that they are the media, you wonder if he is serious.

 

Indeed, social media has given everyone a platform, which some presume to be a megaphone. Everyone has an opinion, which they are only too eager to express. But, as someone wise once said, everyone can have their own opinions, but everyone cannot have their own facts.

 

Not everyone can have their own fact-checking, either, as Meta’s Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated by abruptly dismantling the third-party fact-checking system Facebook started in the aftermath of Donald Trump’s first ascent to the White House, when the social network was facing grave charges of disinformation.

 

I once sat across the table from a high-profile minister trying to cajole him into giving me an interview. “I have xx followers on social media (there were several zeroes in that number). I can post what I have to say. It will appear exactly as I want it. Why should I give you an interview?” he asked.

 

That, right there, was the reason why, I told him. Because it will not appear exactly as he wrote it. Someone will be asking questions, shaping the discussion, taking it in a direction that will inform, educate, and enlighten those who could not speak to the minister directly. “You want me as the interface, you need me as the interface,” I said, channelling my inner Jack Nicholson from A Few Good Men (“You want me on that wall, you need me on that wall.”)

 

The minister was a wizened old hand. He was only testing me before agreeing to the interview.

 

Speaking directly to your audiences has its place in public discourse. But sometimes it can have consequences, as a new-age entrepreneur found out when he engaged on X with someone who makes a living by making jokes (aka someone who had nothing to lose). But news organisations still need to figure out the way ahead.

 

While embracing the internet, they have joined the race for “traffic”. Traffic is important. And many of us live in the hope that some of the people who get drawn to a headline about the opening weekend of a new movie will stay on to read about the role of government capex.

 

However, in the process of chasing traffic, websites are acquiring a form and shape different from their print avatars — which is their raison d'être. Movies, cricket, and celebrity gossip always got more traffic than good journalism. Back in the day, when I did frequent train journeys between New Delhi and Patna, Stardust outsold India Today by infinity to one.

 

But there is something to be said about good-quality traffic, which has always attracted a certain kind of audience and advertisers. My guess is it was much more prestigious to advertise in India Today than in Stardust. What will help is if journalism embraced the modern tools more readily.

 

I have heard stories that several journalists were sceptical when computers first came in, believing that the real skill was to be good on a typewriter. Today, the shift to computers appears to be a no-brainer. Five years from now, adoption of artificial intelligence might appear to be a no-brainer.

 

But, unbelievable though this might sound, fault lines exist in newsrooms between digital and print. Attempts at integrating the two have been going on for years, with mixed results. Several reporters avoid putting out their exclusive stories on digital first, for the very real fear that they will not remain exclusive by the time the print edition comes out. Even your columnist is guilty of saying, when faced with a below-par story: “Isko digital par dal do (put it on digital and forget about it).” As if the website belongs to a different brand and organisation — and readers.

 

If we start to think of modern technologies as our allies in enhancing our storytelling, where we do not need to rely on mere words to paint a picture, we can serve our audiences (not just readers) better. For inspiration, look no further than the famous story, “Snow Fall: The Avalanche at Tunnel Creek,” which The New York Times did years ago — go ahead! Google it — demonstrating the power of storytelling with modern tools.

 

Good journalism has a place and purpose. How many websites do we really need to keep up with movies, cricket, and celebrities? Someone needs to be the interface. You need me on that wall.