"From objective and observational to interpretive and participatory." -Betty Ann Attaway-Fink
What is a reporter?
The terms ‘reporter’ and ‘journalist’ will be used interchangeably. As reporters, their job is to seek and report critical information to their audience for publication via print, audio, and online news platforms (Bohère 7). A reporter is normally given assignments in which they must travel to a specific scene(s), like an accident or town meeting, and take note of all attainable information concerning the event. Reporters primarily gather information through observational methods like interviews or private investigations. They are also able to retract data and information from studies and research. Once the reporter finishes gathering information, they draft an article that is reviewed by an editor and published by a news publication in print or online. The reporter’s importance and necessity are founded on their social responsibility to inform the public. Therefore, their integrity relies on subjective and ethical deduction which has been a journalistic skill that has gradually declined due to technological advancements (Harcup 105).
Reporters are often accompanied by multiple colleagues during assignments including photojournalists, videographers, or audio journalists to help capture an event. In recent years, many technological innovations have replaced the photojournalist or videographer and allowed the regular reporter to complete automated tasks that make multi-skilled reporting easier. Reporters can do photography, videography, and reporting (Thomsen 195), which makes today's reporters flexible and technically skilled to increase productivity.
Rationalized journalism was first implemented to increase news accessibility. Reporters no longer have to publicize their articles when technologies like the radio and television broadcast news in a more structured and fast paced manner. The occupation has become less of a necessity given the prosumer and pro-technology preferences of today's society. The introduction of citizen journalism has threatened the occupation because reporting has become more technical and systematic through social media, rather than unique and observatory in newspapers. More primitive journalists who were considered 'correspondents' as they had the skill and ability to implement their own personal narrative, networks, and demographics in their work. Contemporary journalists have been taught to write in an automated manner that decreases their skill and ability.
Technology has taken the young reporter’s opportunity to build a passion for learning about society. Rationalization has equipped current reporters with research tools that prevent reporters from directly learning and being able to have creative influence in the field. This could be one of the reasons why there has been a drastic decrease in newsroom employment. Rationalized journalism has made the occupation unattractive (Abernathy 59). The implementation of technological replacements has made the reporting process uniform and easy for anyone to do.
George Ritzer defines McDonaldization as “the process by which the principles of the fast-food restaurant are coming to dominate more sectors of American society,” In the tenth edition of The McDonaldization of Society, Ritzer describes how efficiency, predictability, calculability, and control are the foundational principles that make McDonaldization (otherwise known as rationalization) work. Each principle is described in reference to the implementation of technology that makes labor and marketing more productive. Ritzer's theory connects to Taylorism, founded by Frederick Taylor, and has become an optimum method of working throughout many occupations like reporting. The reporter's tell-tale signs of rationalization and Taylorism are cameras, computers, radios, and televisions.
HOW DO THE PRINCIPLES OF MCDONALDIZATION APPLY TO REPORTING?
Efficiency
The principle that is most influential in promoting the rationalization of a reporter is efficiency. As previously mentioned, efficiency can be seen through the implementation of fast-paced platforms like the Associated Press, and now in the fully digital era, social media platforms. Over time technology has allowed reporters to share news much faster and easier than before. The radio, television, Google, Instagram, and Twitter are automated reporters that have taken a substantial part of their role in distribution. News distribution is an essential and very difficult part of reporting, especially locally when coverage does not have an impact on a large-scale level (Abernathy 45). Digital platforms have monopolized, or rather rationalized, the reporter’s struggle and made news easier to spread over long distances.
An efficient reporter is able to adapt to advancement and innovation. By 2011, readers' habits have shifted, with more citizens getting their news online than by newspaper (Abernathy 23). Especially given the COVID-19 pandemic, technology has created a space to produce information and articles at a faster pace. However, technology has also made the reader, or regular citizens, prosumers as they can capture and report events without a reporter's guidance. In an individualistic society, there is a strong focus on expression and exercising the First Amendment. Citizen journalism delivers on the promise of the web as a democratic enabler (McCaffrey 41). Hence, there has been an exponential decline in journalist employment at local newspapers, and a small maintenance of employed journalists at state or renowned newspapers like The North State Journal and the Washington Post.
Control
The next most influential principle that has heavily affected the rationalization of the reporter is control. Reporters are controlled through digital tools like grammar checkers, audio translators, vocabulary boosters/simplifiers and formatting accessories like citation generators. These tools are often seen in most processing software like Microsoft extensions, Google extensions, and even grammatical accessories like auto correct on smartphones and Grammarly (“Digital Tools for Journalism”). When reporters use these devices, the tools automatically prompt reporters to format their articles based on the preferred journalistic style. For example, reporters inherently accept phrase suggestions made by the grammar devices, or letting a citation generator determine how the reporter cites their sources.
These devices help editors ensure that their reporters are adhering to the Associated Press stylebook. These devices complete grammar, citation, and audio checking tasks for editors which makes the publication process much simpler. Having control over the reporter’s ability to determine these things causes the contemporary reporter to be less skilled than reporters of earlier generations. The reporter’s ability to adapt to these devices leaves opportunity for them to investigate and discover more evidence and information. Due to the reporter’s deskilling from 1930 to present, many reporters can associate with areas of knowledge (i.e., politics, science, economics, international). The association helps reporters differentiate themselves and the articles they produce amongst the millions published every week (Meyer).
Predictability
The third principle that influences the rationalization of the reporter is predictability. The most prominent evidence of predictability is the recent transition to the digital workroom. Amid the COVID-19 pandemic and shift to remote working, reporters have implemented digital newsrooms that allow them to investigate and network at the same time (Abernathy 14). A reporter’s work is founded on unpredictable events, times, and locations. However, the digital newsrooms allow for reporters to communicate and produce articles in a rule-conscious environment that reenforces journalistic style and structure. The goal of the digital newsroom is to ensure organization and similarity between reporters within that newspaper.
Calculability
The principle that has the least effect on the rationalized reporter is calculability. Calculability is explained as the assessment of outcomes based on quantitative data rather than subjective. As there are signs of rationalization through a ‘quantity over quality’ ideal, today’s multi-skilled reporters rely on various outcomes, like verbal feedback, to understand how to make successful stories. As mentioned previously, there are millions of articles released a week which supports news publications’ quota to make profit. This observation shows the benefits of efficiency yet is not substantial enough to prove the significance calculability has on making the reporter’s job simpler or more rationalized.
Irrationalities
This occupational change due to rationalization creates an irrationality which is disenchantment. Disenchantment plays a substantial role in the necessity of a reporter, primarily because citizen journalists make the reporter’s job seem much easier. With technology and social media, everyday occupations seem mundane. News is attained and communicated in very similar ways, which makes the reporter’s influence ineffective. Which also introduces another irrationality, which is homogenization. Most publications structure and produce articles the same way, in addition, the most relevant articles are likely to be the headlines for that publication. When reporters produce stories about the same, yet relevant, topic, readers experience ‘news fatigue’, more simply, the fixation on negative or suspicious news. News fatigue occurs when various news publications present different perspectives about the same topic.
Having multiple accredited publications present homogenous articles that either correlate or disprove each other leads to the misinterpretation of information amongst the majority of citizens. In the book Fake News Nation, it explains individuals have difficulty with determining the truth and the lie (Cortada and Aspray 211–12), which often happens because citizens have mediocre information literacy. This could be the reason citizens have become their own journalists, to prevent homogenization within news and improve enchantment and reliability. As Ritzer said, “the magical elements of thought” that characterize less rationalized populations have disappeared. Reporters are unable to distinguish their best stories, leaving developed stories unnoticed.
Therefore, the reporter and the customer become similarly controlled aspects of a profitable cycle in media. Furthermore, this has caused dissatisfaction with reporters in their career, and some are unable to work at the complexity of the newly introduced multi-skilled journalists which leads to a decrease in newsroom employment (Abernathy 26). This ultimately means that there are many stories and news events that have and will not be covered due to the decrease in reporters. As a result, there is less accessibility, reliability, and ability to peer review amongst reporters. This irrationality creates news articles and broadcasts that refrain from properly informing the public. These publications are not of quality based on journalistic principles.
Since predictability is a principle that has less influence on the rationalized reporter, there are little to no irrationalities that affect the occupation. Based on the use of the digital newsroom, homogenization is the primary irrationality that can be seen. There are no present irrationalities due to calculability, however, it can be predicted that high costs and inefficiency would be two irrational aspects if calculability had a stronger influence. Inefficiency would be deducted from the required data analysis and increased costs would result from the collection and analysis of that data. A recurring theme about reporters is that they lack objectivity, which according to Evan Thomas of Newsweek, is valid. However, he considers that it is almost inherent for an article to be subject to bias. Especially in the decision the reporter or editor makes in choosing what news is more important than others. Thomas suggests that most reporters are unaware of their biases but acknowledges that the mainstream press tries to be as objective as possible. When considering calculability, it seems that quality is actually more important to reporters than quantity.
Conclusion
Given the information about the implementation of technology into reporting, it is apparent that the reporter’s job has been rationalized for an exceptionally long time. Many trends illustrate the effects of rationalization, and how the simple tasks of a reporter have been replaced by automated technological innovations like social media, grammar checkers, and hybrid/digital newsrooms. These replacements have helped reporters complete simple tasks so that their focus is directed on complex tasks like investigative work. This is achieved through Ritzer’s four dimensions of rationalization, where efficiency is the most relevant and influential principle that has developed the role of a reporter over time. From my research, I predict that newsroom employment will continue to decrease over time. Based on data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor and Statistics, the occupation will continue to see a 9% decrease over the next eight years. It could be possible that the role of a citizen journalist would be more significant in popularity and accessibility than the journalists themselves. This means that the necessity for reporters will not be the same, which will likely result in lower salaries for incoming and working reporters.
However, there is also a positive possibility that reporters will maintain their position. In an excerpt called Future Imperfect by Alex Beam, he explains that though civilian journalism has become the new normal, there is still necessity for reporters to cover political press meetings, important court hearings, and even the local townhall meetings. “I have seen the future, many times. More often than not, it doesn’t work,” says Beam. Beam’s statement suggests that history always repeats itself, therefore journalists will always be needed. In my perspective, Beam’s statement is valid because the reporter has always founded its’ work on their responsibility to society. The journalist's integrity is something the citizen journalist does not account for due to their own intrinsic beliefs. As forementioned, the goal of Taylorism was to make simple tasks automated and easier to complete so that complex tasks could be taken on. If reporting continues to use technology for efficiency only, rather than the other principles, rationalization could help decrease division and promote education in various realms of today’s society.
References
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