Journalism, churnalism

My colleague Nina pointed me to this piece from the press gazette today:
http://blogs.pressgazette.co.uk/editor/2008/01/31/journalism-or-churnalism-what-happens-in-your-newsroom/

Essentially, Nick Davies is bemoaning what he calls the rise of 'churnalism'. Citing new research carried out by Cardiff University’s journalism department, he claims that 80 per cent of home news stories in the main quality UK national newspapers are at least partially made up of recycled material from the PR industry or news agencies.

Looking at newspapers on a case-by-case basis, the study - which looked at 2,000 stories over two weeks last year - found that 69 per cent of home news stories in The Times were wholly or mainly made up of PR and/or wire copy. The proportions for other newspapers were: The Daily Telegraph: 68 per cent; The Daily Mail, 66 per cent; The Independent: 65 per cent and The Guardian: 52 per cent.

The research also claims that fewer Fleet Street staff journalists are now producing three times as many pages as they did 20 years ago.Davies also looks at the diary of a regional newspaper reporter - who over a week said they produced 48 stories, worked 45.5 hours and spent just three hours out of the office.

The description of life on a regional daily in his report does sound very familiar - the pressure to compete for the eyes and ears of an increasingly segemented audience is something that PRs can sympathise with as well. I hate to labour a point, but his comments reminded me of last week's 'Google is white bread for the mind' lecture. There is a definite paralell between his sentiments and those of Professor Brabazon.

Extracting copy from a PR via a wire without interrogating its veracity or exploring its genealogy 'because there is no time for it' is the same as students simply going to Google's first results for their knowledge. There is no intellectual rigour applied...all that happens is that the same half baked ideas are repeated.

As someone who takes a daily papers meeting with the Midnight team, I can be confident in saying that the same old tactics and non stories come up again and again.

The question is...what does this mean? Where is original journalism to be found? I think we know. It begins with 'Blog' and ends with 'osphere'.