photo by Cheyenne Thorpe
Slow News: A Manifesto for the Critical News Consumer by Peter Laufer was originally published in Italian. The book later received a U.S. publication in 2014.

Slow news is a response to the 24 hour news cycle, the innumerate web publications, and the endless social media circle of misinformation. To call it a “new” movement is disingenuous because it was born out of the slow food movement from Italy and the slow food movement can be described as a return to traditional means of food production and consumption. Likewise, slow news is a return to form, both for consumers and producers of news.

News and food is not an apples-to-apples comparison. There are, however, many parallels that can be made between the way nourishment is consumed and the way news is consumed–not just the effects on the consumer, but effects on the community, and producers as well. (more…)

Markos Kounalakis calls for a sense of urgency from news agencies to protect democratic institutions. Kounalakis is Stanford University Hoover Institution visiting fellow, and has worked as a foreign correspondent for NBC. He recently published a book Spin Wars & Spy Games which looks at the relationship between the diminishing western correspondence and the rise of non-western journalism structures.

Peter Laufer discusses slow news with Italian documentary crew IK Produzioni. Photo by Abbie Winn

A movement needs to be followed. For slow news to spread beyond the confines of isolated thought, ideas need to be exchanged and passed on. The University of Oregon is currently researching and even teaching slow news.

“The role of slow news at the university is part of our academic curriculum to teach good journalism and to figure out ways to get off the addiction of the 24-hour news cycle,” said the James Wallace Chair in Journalism at the University of Oregon, Peter Laufer.

There are instances where the news media are expected to respond with expediency—namely, breaking news events. And there is value to breaking news reporting when those reports can warn people of immediate threats to their lives. But for all good breaking news reports can herald, there is a degree of harm that can be caused by journalist in the chaos of the first 24 hours.

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Logen Molen, former publisher of the Register-Guard presents at the Slow News Conference held by the University of Oregon.
Photo by Cheyenne Thorpe.

Former Eugene Register-Guard publisher, Logan Molen, addresses the role of Slow News in the 24-hour news cycle and slow local news. Molen proposes his ideas for the future of slow news.

Camilla Mortensen, Editor of Eugene Weekly discusses the history of alternative weekly news papers and the slow news function the papers perform. Photo by Cheyenne Thorpe

Slow news as a concept is not new. To followers of slow news, it is a return to practices that were in place before the internet, and before the 24-hour news cycle. Slow news publications exist. Some are in their infancy and others have existed since before the internet in the form of alternative weeklies.

Eugene Weekly was founded in the 1980s and is still in circulation. Like many alternative weeklies, the paper provides a biased point of view on local events.

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Wonkak Kim plays a reconstruction of Mozzart’s Concerto in A major using a basset clarinet. Photo by Cheyenne Thorpe

Wonkak Kim, University of Oregon School of Music and Dance professor, performed the adagio for Mozart’s Clarinet Concerto in A major and talked about the slow reconstruction of the lost concerto sheet music and the unique basset clarinet created specifically for playing the concerto.

“I think the most effective way to capture the audience is rather than pouring a number of notes and dynamic into the audience, is to draw everybody in towards you and that works when things are slow, when things are soft, and when things are calm,” Kim said.