I’ve just got back from seeing Adrian Monck give a very thought provoking talk at Cambridge WordFest.

The previous ‘fest’ I’d attended was BurgerFest, hosted by Dan Clough, which was just as satisfying — if for different reasons.

Anyway.

Adrian had plenty to say. Refreshingly, his thoughts came across as very well considered arguments. It is so easy for these talks to sound very snobbish, with a speaker harping on about the dumbing down of the media and how Big Brother is trash and we all should be listening to The Archers instead.

Adrian didn’t take that route. What Adrian says is that media trust is a lot deeper than just, say, Ashley Cole’s marriage problems. It’s far more subtle than the 3am Girls. We know not to trust them — it’s gossip.

But we do trust the ’serious’ news. The people out in Iraq, Afghanistan… or wherever. We do look to the BBC News at ten and think we are getting as good a picture as we can get from people who are there. But we’re not.

Adrian was selling copies of his book afterwards. Sadly, until loan day, I can hardly afford a KitKat, let alone a book, but I will be getting a copy of it very soon, I hope.

One thing Adrian didn’t touch on during his talk was one important factor: The Solution.

What can be done? Where does the responsibility lie? With the journalists?

Possibly, although I don’t know a single journalist that knowingly tries to deceive the public. I’m sure there are some, mind you, but I can’t help think the problem lies much deeper than that.

My last week at Sky News has brought home to me just how much information passes through the news machine. How can reporters on 24-hour media outlets (so that’s all of them thesedays…) expect to have time to do some real reporting when all their energy is spent merely keeping up with the world?

It can’t be done.

I propose that newspapers drop using wire copy. It’s dirty. Quotes aren’t real, facts are basic — do away with the whole damn thing. I’m not saying companies like AP, PA and AFP should cease to exist, far from it, but their current position of gate-keepers to the world should not be allowed.

Have a breaking news service available to everyone. The internet allows this. Google News is practically a newswire anyway.

Then allow media to follow it up if they wish — doing some real reporting. I’d prefer to read a newspaper that was 10 pages thick with original copy rather than 40 pages of re-written wire stuff, which is what we’re getting now.

In some cases it’s not even re-written. I was dealing with some wire copy last week and, after doing a search for an entire paragraph’s worth of text on Google News, I found that no less than 50 different publications across the world had used the exact same paragraph. No wonder young reporters struggle to define plagiarism.

Is it OK to plagiarise someone just because they write for an agency? Legally it is — companies pay for that privilege — but morally? No, I don’t think so.

No wonder blogs have taken off so well. No fool would have a blog consisting of wire copy. There would be no point. So this means when you read a blog you know you are getting something unique. You’re not going to read it anywhere else, and there’s a great satisfaction in that. One of the highlights of my news-reading week is taking a peek at the New York Times section in the Observer. What you get for your money is a series of articles that have been considered, researched and presented in a fashion that is pleasing to read. Robotic journalism it is not.

Big changes need to be made at the very top. Budgets should be given to news reporters to just go out and report. It needn’t be expensive — but it could just save an industry.

[This is my late late entry into this month's Carnival of Journalism, hosted by Journerdism.]

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