A Reflective Summary of Goldstein's Looking Forward

In this chapter, Goldstein (2007) narrates the evolution of journalism from the 1920s to the present. Through the years, journalists have been devising new ways of reporting in an attempt to accurately present the truth to the rest of society. Which form should be preferred is oft the topic of debate amongst reporters and academics alike. However there is also the question of how one determines what is actually true and what is false. In his time, Lippmann (1997) believed that it was impossible for the general public to be well-versed in all current affairs occurring around them. As such he felt the quest for knowledge should be left to well-trained experts, equipped with the necessary resources to uncover reliable pieces of information.

This all changed when a new band of journalists fashioned a new style of reporting; one that placed a greater emphasis on the opinions of the writer rather than simply a factual recount of events. It employs the use of anecdotes to immerse readers in the situation, invoking emotions and allowing them to empathise with subjects in the coverage. This manner of writing, dubbed "new journalism" aimed to appeal more to the audience than conventional methods did.

At the other end of the spectrum was Meyer's (1973) approach at disseminating the truth, called "precision journalism". In direct contrast to "new journalism", this particular style of reporting denounced the usage of anecdotal evidence due to their biased nature and susceptibility of lead to generalisation. Opting for a more methodical approach, Precision Journalism utilizes research tools of the social scientists in order to process large volumes of data in order to produce news which is more accurate and less deviating from reality. However due to its emphasis on facts and figures, readers often find these news dull and dreary and thus Precision Journalism remains one of the less popular methods of reporting.

Along with the dawn of the era of the Internet came along a new brand of journalism which contradicted its traditional values of being disconnected and free of bias. Blogging, as described by Wall (2005), focused on the narrative aspect of newswriting and encouraged participation by readers and viewers. Bloggers took pride in that they are common folk and not part of any grand organisation, as such this lead to a paradigm shift in what is considered to be true. Rather than having dictatorial academic entities