A Modest Proposal for Boring Journalism

Abstract

This chapter argues that the solution to the problem of covering hate in digital journalism resides in tactics that have been key to legacy journalism’s normative success: slow, painstakingly careful reporting, comprehensive interviewing and adherence to Associated Press style guidelines. These keys to legacy journalism’s past success have been in many ways the antithesis of what has been successful in digital journalism and, hence, this chapter argues the solution to the problem that hate groups pose does not lie in “digitization” but in “journalism.” This proposal is not meant to ask digital journalism to shed its digital practices in all situations—indeed it would be financially dangerous and technologically counter-intuitive to do so—but rather to treat reporting related to hate groups as operating in a different category entirely; a category that demands the best of digital journalism’s normative legacy.