3.2 - Can you suggest any problems with the concept of postmodern journalism?

As Wall states in her article that Post modernity is the counter argument to Modernity.

 Modernity is explained as “a worldview associated with scientific knowledge and other so-called grand narratives that legitimize certain epistemologies and focus on professional/elite control over knowledge (Wall 2005 p. 158 referencing Lyotard)

In working against this worldview - Postmodern journalism revolves around the idea that there are many versions of the truth and each persons take on reality differs according to their own experience. The role of the postmodern journalist would therefore be to collect as many different versions of reality based on personal experiences.

A good example a postmodern gathering of information would be Wikipedia that works with the collective intelligence of volunteers to provide and check information. As Wales stated in the Ted talk Wikipedia is “open-ended” - new information can be entered at any time (TEDGlobal 2006); therefore the history of certain events is never set in stone. Although Wikipedia is not a relay of totally experiential stories it does include the viewpoints of many.

The problem with the concept of postmodern journalism is the issue of credibility and the reliability of the journalist to gather stories wide and varied range of people. Wall also states (quoting Moore) that postmodern journalism “rejects the meta-narrative” (Wall 2005 p.158) meaning that no-one ever steps back and takes a look at the bigger picture and facts are not checked, making a system solely reliable to the words of others.

To me the top down model of journalism and bottoms up models are two extreme ends of the scale. Journalism should encompass facts, figures, scientific evidence and the recollections of people in order to maintain balance.

TEDGlobal. 2006. Jimmy Wales on the birth of Wikipedia. In TED Talks. online video. TED Ideas Worth Spreading.

Wall, M. 2005. Blogs of war: Weblogs as news. Journalism 6 (2): 153 - 172. http://jou.sagepub.com.dbgw.lis.curtin.edu.au/content/6/2/153.full.pdf+html (accessed 8/11/11).