What Journalism Schools Do Wrong

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What is good journalism? For one thing, says PR strategist Matthew Hiltzik, it's responsible and it doesn't play into our cravings for instant gratification. When Hiltzik visited our video studio, he remarked that attention has become the currency of the digital publishing world. In order to keep site traffic peaking, some sites may prioritize the quantity of stories being published over their quality. The side effect? Reader fatigue. "I think that there's less of an understanding in the media about how damaging that potentially can be when they're dealing with serious subjects. Because they talk about them too many times. The minutia of every single tree being discussed instead of the actual impact of the forest can actually be very damaging," says Hiltzik.

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MATTHEW HILTZIK

Matthew Hiltzik is the president and CEO of Hiltzik Strategies, a highly regarded strategic communications and consulting firm with offices in Manhattan and LA. He has worked closely with industry leaders in film, finance, sports, philanthropy, tech, music and entertainment and public affairs.

As an attorney as well as a documentary producer, Matthew has enjoyed a fascinating career as the quintessential “guy” behind the guy (or the woman). He often does his best work in ways that are invisible to the public (though not necessarily journalists) but appreciated by his clients. After graduating from Cornell and Fordham Law School, Matthew began his career in politics as press secretary and deputy executive director of the New York State Democratic Committee. From there, he moved to Hollywood, as the head of corporate communications for Miramax Films while serving as a spokesman and advisor to Harvey Weinstein. In 2005, Matthew left Miramax to become President and CEO of the U.S. office of the U.K based publicity firm Freud Communications before founding Hiltzik Strategies in 2008.

Biography courtesy of The Sunday Long Read.

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TRANSCRIPT:

Matthew Hiltzik: It's unfortunate when anybody, not just the journalists, determines a storyline before they actually consider all the facts. The only time that it's good to have an ending and work backwards is if you're writing a screenplay or a book. Or maybe a poem or something similar to that.

In general it's much better—if you're in a journalistic environment—to be able to make sure that you actually are considering all the facts, and very often some of the best stories and the best reporting comes where the actual facts don't jive with what the original hypothesis was, because it actually can be more revelatory, it can be more insightful, it can be deeper and it can be more impactful if you're not going with the conventional wisdom.

That's especially bad in our environment when you have reporters who are writing about similar topics and trying to find some new way to be able to discuss the same thing that we hear over and over and over again.

One of my pet peeves is the fact that you have this tendency, and I won't point fingers at that specifically who, but in general it's too frequent that outlets and individuals are pressured to focus on the quantity of the stories that they're writing as opposed to necessarily the quality; because it really hurts themselves and it hurts the perception.

When you're looking at reporting on really serious issues, whether it be in government or local issues or energy or education or any of the things that really are very—foreign policy—that matter in our world, it's really unfortunate if you have someone who feels the need for click-bait or for other reasons to do ten stories on something when two or three of them were actually really strong, excellent reporting, but the public sort of tired of them because if they weren't the first or the second or the third and maybe they were the 68th and the 10th, by the time they get to those they're tired of the subject, they're less likely to read it and it won't have as much of an impact. There's a fatigue about subjects and I think that there's less of an understanding in the media about how damaging that potentially can be when they're dealing with serious subjects. Because they talk about them too many times; the minutia of every single tree being discussed instead of the actual impact of the forest can actually be very damaging.

Our world moves very quickly. The instant gratification is there. Anybody who...

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