Across the generations: the evolution of journalism

Camillo Barone is based in New York and is an intern at the tech company NewsGuard, where he uses his research skills to analyse and verify the reliability of websites. Born in 1997, he studied journalism at the LUISS Guido Carli University in Rome while working as a correspondent for Class CNBC, the Italian television channel of pan-European broadcaster CNBC Europe. He freelanced for various Italian outlets, including Il Tempo, before moving to New York in August 2022 for a Master's at Columbia University School of Journalism.

I began by freelancing for several local newspapers. For me, journalism is a dream, it's a source of passion and amazement, before being a profession and I think this is a feeling that unites different generations of journalists. My interest started from reading the writing of Oriana Fallaci [an Italian journalist famed for her fearless interviewing of political and revolutionary leaders in the late 1960s and 1970s]. In particular her book Un Uomo (A Man), which I discovered when I was just 15, convinced me that I wanted to try – it pushed me from a very young age to want to work in the industry.

The first serious story – as I like to call it – was an in-depth report on a visit made by Pope Francis to the city of Campobasso, in southern Italy, one year after his election to office. It was the 5th July 2014, I was 17 years old, and I remember my astonishment and disbelief at the choice of destination. The holder of the highest office in the Catholic Church was in Molise, a small region forgotten by most. I was surrounded by very important foreign correspondents and listening to their questions and interacting with them was a remarkable lesson in journalism that I will always remember.

The web represents the main resource for the future of journalism – if it wants to continue to be alive and speak to everyone. However, I'm convinced that the difference between those who produce information and those who collect news will remain. Professional journalists who work for major news outlets will be the only journalists who have the authority to distinguish between what is true and confirmed from what is not. Influencers– driven by different, equally legitimate interests – are involved in a different profession.

Newspapers will always be bought by aficionados for cultural reasons, but they lack the agility and speed that today's con-sumers demand. They will become a supplement to the online dimension. The journalism of the future will have to be able to carve out a space from the intense, hectic private and professional routines we all have.

At the moment, it is the only means at our disposal to reach certain groups of people, especially the young, who are far away from the traditional world of information. The new generations use these tools to inform themselves, so that's where journalism must be. I do believe information can be conveyed in 15 seconds– a good journalist must be able to simplify things and be concise. But an alternative method, often used on TikTok, is where major international newspapers offer a glimpse of the news and then refer people to their website for more information.

For me, there are two ways of interpreting this question: in terms of the publishers and the consumers. Those who work in this field, holding important positions, have a duty to verify a news story and confirm each source. Public service, if we want to call it that, must be authoritative. If those spreading fake news and sharing information of dubious origin are the major news-papers, the sources the public has always relied on, then we are all, indiscriminately, victims. It is a different case when people consciously choose to inform themselves on obscure sites and blogs, despite having all the necessary tools at their disposal to avoid doing so. In my opinion, they are not, therefore, victims.

That's right, Oriana Fallaci. I don't agree with her later views, but what she achieved between the 1970s and 1990s remains, for me, invaluable. It taught me the importance of independence, the absolute search for truth and the value of individual human beings when it comes to stories. I'm also lucky enough to have had great teachers, learning from some of the best-known journalists on the Italian scene: Gianni Riotta, Annalisa Cuzzocrea,Alberto Flores d'Arcais, Giorgio Casadio.

From the journalists of past generations, I would steal a certain elegance, a refined way of dealing with colleagues, sources, politics.

The audacity they have – and which my generation partly shares– in defining themselves as free people, far from any preconceived notions or predetermined representations.

Former chief foreign correspondent for The Sunday Telegraph, Colin Freeman has reported from wars, revolutions and conflict zones including Iraq, Somalia, and Libya. He is currently reporting from Ukraine for publications including The Telegraph and The Spectator, and recently published his third non-fiction book, Between the Devil and the Deep Blue Sea: The mission to rescue the hostages the world forgot.

I thought I'd be bored by anything else. For people like me with a low attention span, it's ideal: you don't stick to one subject and on any given story you can focus mainly on the interesting bits. It's also a chance to meet people from every walk of life and explore worlds very different to your own. After doing a university degree in politics (there's no need to do media studies), I did a year-long post-graduate in journalism, then worked on a local paper in Grimsby, a town in the north of England. At that time a stint on a local paper was a very well-trodden route into journalism – less so today. I then moved to the London Evening Standard where I was made local government reporter, which I hated. So, in 2003 I left to go to Iraq to work as a freelance foreign correspondent. It was a gamble, but it worked out. After a couple of years there I was made chief foreign correspondent on The Sunday Telegraph in London, where I spent ten years before going freelance again.

I've spent twenty years as a foreign correspondent, starting off in post-Saddam Iraq in 2003. The high points are endless. I've always loved travelling abroad and the job takes you to places that are off limits even for an adventure tourist. One high point was reporting on the Arab Spring in 2011, when a whole generation of young Egyptians, Libyans and Syrians were rebelling against lousy, brutal governments. These were genuine revolutions, with people risking life and liberty for a better future, which was a privilege to witness. It hasn't ended happily but I still hope there will be benefits long-term. Being in Kyiv at the start of the Russian invasion last year, and watching Ukrainians who'd never fought before taking up arms, was also remarkable.

My most challenging experience was being kidnapped by Somali pirates in 2008 and being held prisoner in a cave for six weeks. It wasn't just because it was frightening. I also knew I'd be putting my family and colleagues through hell with worry. As a foreign correspondent, your job is to visit difficult places and stay out of trouble, not become a burden to others.

Another hard experience was a so-called “death knock” in my days at the Grimsby Evening Telegraph, my old local paper. I had to knock on the door of a man whose elderly father had died in a road accident. He made it very clear he didn't want to speak to me. It's always difficult to intrude into people's grief. All I can say is that it teaches you humility. 

When I began in 1994, local newspapers had big newsrooms where young journalists could learn their trade – attending council meetings, doing court reporting and so on. Today, many local papers have shut altogether or are a fraction of their size. That's a great shame. Sure, a lot of local newspaper stories are a bit “parish pump” (a polite term for boring) but they're still a good journalistic training ground – like being a rookie police officer doing your first few years on the beat. Another difference is how much work is done by email these days, rather than actually talking to people. One thing I like about being a foreign correspondent is that because interviews often require a translator to be present, many are still done face-to-face.

Apart from the demise of local papers, not much. The pay has always been lousy, but that's not why you go into it.

Thanks to the internet, anyone can have a platform – be it a website or a blog – where they can hone their voice.

Yes, it was a piece for the London Evening Standard about East End gangsters who made fake Lacoste and Hugo Boss designer clothes. Men with nicknames like “Steve the Shirts” and “Frank the Packaging”. Not Watergate, maybe, but I was very chuffed.

Not with any nuance, which is generally required to do justice to the world's complexities.

Don't go to Somalia to report on pirates! Although I did get to write a book about being kidnapped. Grim as it was, it was the sort of adventure I spend my life interviewing other people about. I'd also have learned more languages, especially the harder ones. I have schoolboy French, but in the last few decades Arabic and Russian would have been far more useful in my line of work.

There's no particular name in British journalism who inspires me, but every newspaper has feature writers and columnists whose work is a pleasure to read. A good newspaper article can be informative, profound and funny all at the same time. It's not really seen as an art form, compared to, say, novel writing, but in my opinion it's every bit as creative.

At my local paper in Grimsby and at the London Evening Standard, I learned from other journalists who were much better than me. They'd turn stories that I thought were boring or complicated into perfectly decent reads. It's the basic skill of journalism but it helps to learn by example.

Online tools such as geotagging and crowdsourcing can be hugely useful as investigative aids. Websites such as Bellingcat have done exposés of Kremlin malpractice that previously only a foreign intelligence service could manage to carry out.