Are journalists an endangered species?

• Author: Saltzman, Joe
• Position: Column

THEY'RE DOING IT AGAIN, the soothsayers who, with each new communications technology, predict the demise of simple, old-fashioned journalism. Their latest warning is that the newest laser technology will make print obsolete and journalists an idea of the past. They tell us we need a new breed of mass communicators who will be steeped in the technology of the 21st century. Although they pay lip service to the old-fashioned tools of reporting, writing, and editing, they're more interested in interfacing, interacting, and intercommunication.

None of this would matter except a lot of powerful people in the media are buying the latest doomsday scenario: printed newspapers and magazines are dead; no one will read them anymore unless they are in an electronic database. Journalists aren't necessary, just information-processors who know the latest computer and CD-ROM technology. Throw all the information into the electronic hopper under various subject headings and the brave new world is here.

They forget that someone must wade through the billions of pieces of information stored in up-to-the-minute electronic and print databases. Someone has to sort all of this out and present it in a clear, concise, and accurate way. And that person is now and always will be the journalist. Ask anyone who has waded through the murk of electronic bulletin boards, weather-information retrieval systems, and medical or legal databases. Without a guide, it's a hopeless morass. What is needed is the old-fashioned journalist steeped in the skills of reporting and writing to ferret out what is important, sum up the essential information, and give people a sense of what is happening today and tomorrow.

The public's needs

What must be remembered is that people haven't changed. They still have a finite amount of time each day and they always will want what a newspaper or newscast ideally offers them on a daily basis: a fair and accurate account of what is going on in the world; a clarification of the public issues affecting their lives and pocketbooks; a look at the injustices and inconsistencies in society; a constant check on government, military, and police; a chance to learn something more about the people in their community; a look at the unusual, the bizarre, and the unexpected.

Sure, it's neat to be able to go into electronic databases and access every court record in Los Angeles County or everything written on breast cancer or weather patterns for Southern California...