Churnalism
 The website churnalism.com is run by the Media Standard Trust, UK,
and now there is another in the U.S., churnalism.sunlightfoundation.com.
Both sites would help you to check if the story you read in the
newspaper is a product of real journalism or churnalism, "just a
spin-off of another story posted elsewhere".
In the FAQ of churnalism.com we find the word defined by Nick Davies,
"Journalists who are no longer gathering news but are reduced instead to
passive processors of whatever material comes their way, churning out
stories, whether real event or PR artifice, important or trivial, true
or false" (Flat Earth News, p.59).
The word churnalism is credited to BBC journalist Waseem Zakir who
coined the term in 2008 and explains, "You get copy coming in on the
wires and reporters churn it out..." In the same year, Sally Jackson
explained it further as "a form of journalism in which press releases,
wire stories, and other forms of pre-packaged material are used to
create articles in newspapers and other news media in order to meet
increasing pressures of time and cost without undertaking further
research or checking".
But all the 'churnalism detectors' like churnalism.com or
churnalism.sunlightfoundation.com would not be able to check all the
sources, what is available on the social media like twitter or in more
detail on facebook. This is a need of the times. In the rat race to be
the first with the news, whatever the news is, the journalist has to use
all the resources available. When meeting deadlines, he may not be able
to acknowledge all his sources, or make any cross references for
accuracy. And sometimes his sources too could be churned up material and
not original. The news about churnalism.com itself had been churned out
by many newspapers, adding nothing and without any useful analysis or
investigation before placing it in front of their readers.
 Most of science and technology news would be churned out from press
releases, and people who do the press releases do not mind, as long as
their message is conveyed. As new technology comes into the media
services, it only increases more news outlets, but to cater to the same
people to provide the same information, they have to compete for the
limited amount of advertising available to them for their very survival.
This new churnalism, has been considered crude plagiarism. Just like
churnalism, plagiarism is inevitable and has been with us from the time
man began to acquire knowledge and experience. Story tellers, poets,
dramatists and novelists had used the same legends, themes, incidents,
over and over again, throughout the ages, and continues today, because
there is nothing new anyone can say today, what has not been said
before. We are all churning out the same things. It applies for new
discoveries too because they are all really re-discoveries.
Prof. John McManus, in his book, 'Don't be Fooled: A Citizen's Guide
to News and Information in the Digital Age', talks about imploding
journalism and an exploding inforsphere, and has introduced the SMELL
test to know fact from fiction. What is the Source and Motivation, where
is the Evidence, what is the Logic, and what is Left out.
Though there is heavy criticism today about churnalism among
journalists, it has been with us ever since the development of print
technology and publishers began to pour out pulp fiction. The writers
who churned out such pulp fiction were called hacks, instead of
churnalists. Then the infection spread to the movies. While a writer
could churn out a pulp novel in a few days, there were born script
writers who could churn out film scripts even faster, and such novels
and such scripts became ever so popular and minted money for the
publishers and producers. They used the same cliches, same phrases, same
situations, same characters and the same plots over and over again, but
the readers and filmgoers loved them.
A churnalist is probably a more professional name than a hack writer,
because the term hack is believed to be from hackney, a horse which was
easy to ride and available for hire. It also sounds more respectable
than a hack or a hackette. During the 18th century, where the hack
writers worked was called "Grub Street", which was the background to
Alexander Pope's 'The Dunciad' (1728) and Anthony Trollope's 'The Way We
Live Now' (1875). Anton Chekhov had to write newspaper articles to
support his family and William Faulkner churned out Hollywood scripts.
Speech writers for politicians and businessmen also have to churn out
page after page about social issues and propaganda, but they have to
also master the art of saying nothing with as many words as possible.
We have to admire writers like Ida Pollock, who has 'churned out' 123
novels and is working on the 124th, at the age of 105, dictating it to
her daughter aged 69. (Fran Wetzel in The Sun, 29/04/2013). Ellie
Robins, Editor at Melville House, uses the term page-churners. She
refers to James Patterson who published twelve books last year and will
turn out thirteen this year. Patterson has admitted to using several
co-writers.
Churning out novels is also an academic exercise. Last November
University of Alabama students and professors joined 256,000 writers
across the country for 'NaNoWriMo', National Novel Writing Month, to
write a 50,000 word first draft of a novel within a month. (UA
newsletter, 08/11/2012). Writing at a fast phase is becoming easier by
the day, by using all the digital technology available.
Sometimes our stomachs could 'churn' and we can 'churn up' the mud.
We can also churn up the milk into butter.
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