Is a lack of curiosity in young journalists a failure of journalism?
If journalism doesn’t make people feel uncomfortable then it kills curiosity
Paul Bradshaw has started an excellent series on his blog that explores the thorny question “Are journalists born not made?”
“Are good reporters born — or made? Can you teach the curiosity that all good journalists possess? The persistence of the best reporting? The creativity of the most compelling stories? Every so often I hear a journalist say that you can’t — that those qualities are ‘innate’ or “can’t be taught”…”
As Paul notes, its a line of thought that “lacks the very curiosity and persistence that journalists are expected to aspire to”. Its something I’ve been equally curious about since I started to get involved with journalism training and journalism in general.
Paul starts his series with curiosity and it prompted an interesting conversation on Twitter. They got me thinking about where curiosity sits in the born not made “bullshit”
Curious?
“Curiosity is a state of increased arousal response promoted by a stimulus high in uncertainty and lacking in information”.Encyclopedia of the Sciences of Learning
Curiosity has been subject to a lot of studies. Psychologists, education specialists, even computer scientists have tried to understand it and quantify it. The general thinking is that curiosity works in two ways*. Firstly as human beings, we are always seeking new information and experiences just for the thrill of it (because dopamine!). But we may also seek new information because it it helps reduce ambiguity. Finding out about new things is pleasurable. But not knowing can be deeply uncomfortable (pesky dopamine!). Curiosity scratches both of those itches.
Now, we might argue that those who choose journalism as a career might be possessed of a more acute measure of curiosity**. That itch could be more acutely felt. And that’s what the conversation around Paul’s post made me wonder. What creates the itch?
Journalism as an irritant.
Journalism’s job is, for the most part, to highlight the gaps around us. Its to show us the things that make us uncomfortable. Journalism creates curiosity — it's an extrinsic motivation for people to say “I don’t like this. Why are things this way? What can I do to change that?”
Journalism’s job is to create the itch.
If those in journalism believe that there is a new generation of young journalists coming through that don’t have any curiosity. What does that say about how journalism is playing its part in creating an environment that makes people ask “WHY?”
*If only it were that simple. There’s a great research paper called The five-dimensional curiosity scale: Capturing the bandwidth of curiosity and identifying four unique subgroups of curious people. which covers some of this.
**The paper above is useful here as it identifies five ‘curiosity types’ that might make for an interesting frame against which to assess journalists and find out