Slow journalism: A new genre or a return to traditional journalism?
Speed is an important criterion in journalism. It is a race among reporters to get to the scene of an incident first or to reach the case file first. This race in the nature of the profession has taken on a new dimension with the development of internet technologies. The importance attached to speed has overshadowed in-depth research, verified information and reliable sources.
In parallel, data production has grown disproportionately with the shift to digital. The amount of information published digitally doubles every four years. According to Caroline Sauvajol-Rialland, a French journalist and academic working in the field of infobesité, more information has been produced in the last 30 years than in 5,000 years of history.
In the digital age, where 24/7 broadcasting and breaking news are considered acceptable, the time taken to produce a news story can be measured in minutes. In digital news channels, where the race to be the first to publish developments in a superficial way continues, it is quite common to enter a few lines as news with the sentence “Details to come”.
In this race for speed, both producing and consuming news by digesting it without being bombarded with information has become a luxury. At this point, slow journalism has been added to movements such as slow food, slow city, slow travel, slow fashion. Confronting fast and superficial journalism, slow journalism was first proposed in 2007 by Susan Greenberg, a journalism academic who worked as a reporter for organizations such as Reuters and The Guardian. Slow journalism, which aims to slow down time in a profession such as journalism where minutes and even seconds matter, is defined as news that tells a story rather than generalized information, includes different perspectives, uses a variety of sources, is thoroughly researched and is not concerned with speed.
Greenberg, who argues that there is a positive correlation between the time spent in news production and the quality of the news, introduced the concept of slow journalism based on the slow food movement. Greenberg thinks that the characteristics of slow food, which requires time for its production and consumption, has a known source and contains a story, also apply to news, and that we access daily news digitally and free of charge, and that the traditional press is losing readers. Greenberg thinks that slow journalism should be a genre that recognizes stories that others miss and takes time to research, and that this genre in the industry should grow with high standards for the profession.
Can it cure news fatigue?
Journalist Joshua Benton, Founder of the Nieman Journalism Lab, says slow news has been proposed as a way to re-engage with people who have turned away from news due to news fatigue. Benton thinks that slow news can be seen as a potential solution to one of the main problems of journalism: news fatigue. He says that by publishing fewer stories and curating news, slow news media would offer an alternative to the fast-paced news supply in today’s media landscape.
According to University of Sydney communications academic Dr. Megan Le Masurier, slow journalism is not a new practice. Although there have been forms of journalism that have been produced and consumed slowly for centuries, Le Masurier attributes the emergence of slow journalism to the speed-driven, declining quality and overproduction of journalism in recent years. What is new, she says, is the emergence of new media organizations embracing slow journalism and experimenting with new business models to fund their practices.
The relationship between slow journalism and investigative journalism
British media theorist Hugo de Burgh defines an investigative journalist as someone who discovers the truth and conveys it through any available media. While the in-depth research and critical perspective included in the definition of investigative journalism facilitate the academic definition of slow journalism, the active role of the reader in the production and consumption process is the difference of slow journalism in practice.
Many publications adopting the slow journalism approach have been launched in recent years. In 2008, Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, a former correspondent for Le Figaro, started publishing the French-language magazine XXI, which analyzes events away from current affairs. With its name referring to the 21st century, the magazine promises free journalism. Published quarterly, XXI is a collaboration of journalists, writers, photographers and comic book writers. For Patrick de Saint-Exupéry, objectivity in journalism is meaningless. The journalist needs to be subjective in his/her work, and this subjectivity should reveal the stories that are hidden in the corners and little talked about. Like the story of Italian Christian missionaries living in the Central African Republic, published in XXI.
An antidote to the media in a speed race: Delayed Gratification
Delayed Gratification, one of the most well-known publications in the field of slow journalism, was founded in 2011 by journalists Rob Orchard and Marcus Webb in the UK. The publication, which means delayed gratification, is published quarterly on 120 pages. The main source of income for the magazine is the subscription system. The publication says that modern news production consists of advertorials and repetitive press releases, and points to slow journalism as an antidote to this.
Crowdfunding for slow journalism
Another well-known name in slow journalism is De Correspondent. The Dutch-language Dutch-language organization launched its online publication in 2013 after raising more than 1 million euros through crowdfunding. This was a great achievement for an organization whose first language is not English. De Correspondent rejects the daily news stream and adopts the principle of in-depth and chronological work on a topical basis with specialized journalists. In 2015, De Correspondent started to translate its content into English, and was in the process of launching a new English-only publication. Founded in the US, The Correspondent raised 2.6 million dollars through crowdfunding. As of January 1, 2021, it ended its publishing life, which started on September 30, 2019, for financial reasons.
Free from preconceived ideas and news zap
Éric Fottorino, a journalist who worked for many years at Le Monde newspaper, where he also served as editor-in-chief, launched Le un magazine in 2014. The magazine, which is published weekly, believes that too much information in a stream muddies the issue and therefore focuses on a single agenda topic. Le un, which believes that an ad-free publication can be free and generates income through a subscription system, is prepared with the contributions of writers, scientists, researchers, artists, economists, sociologists and anthropologists, as well as its readers. Le un promises its readers a magazine that sheds light on the fundamental issues of our time, free from preconceived ideas and news zap.
Slow journalism organizations
Tortoise, ProPublica, The Atavist, The Sprawl, Long Play, Slow News, Zetland, Ricochet, Jot Down and Krautreporter are other examples of slow journalism around the world. Despite its active agenda, it is also possible to see examples of slow journalism in Turkey in recent years. Fikritakip, which publishes with the motto “To remember what the agenda makes us forget” and archives events in chronological order, Gezegen24, which adopts good journalism practices based on research and knowledge as opposed to superficial and disposable journalism, İklim Newspaper, which is open to trying innovative journalism formats and is research-oriented, and Kuest Medya, which researches what is happening with its own curation and transforms it into design stories without getting lost in the dust cloud of the agenda.
(The original story in Turkish: https://www.newslabturkey.org/2021/08/25/yavas-gazetecilik-yeni-bir-tur-mu-geleneksel-gazetecilige-donus-mu/ by Seda Karatabanoğlu.
