A packed room at the Frontline Club and a panel of passionate speakers made me feel that people do actually care about journalism. The debate was framed around a question that everyone felt was a bit crude: “Is New Media Killing Journalism?”
It was in celebration of UNESCO World Press Freedom Day and it became clear that what was at stake was what we mean by journalism.
Speaking for the motion Andrew Keen was clear that he wants authoritative professional journalism – not amateurish “we-media”. Veteran newspaper editor and analyst Kim Fletcher agreed with Andrew that he is not against the Internet but he is deeply fearful that we will lose our esteemed mainstream professional news media through a thousand job cuts. Quality is dieing as New Media is born.
Funnily enough, super-clever BBC presenter Robin Lustig agreed that the professional must be valued above the amateur, but he welcomed all the paraphenalia of New Media and said that it is up to the journalists to adapt. Robin’s enthusiasm for New Media was given a global perspective by Nazenin Ansari who pointed out the value of the blogosphere in preserving communications in and out of her native Iran.
The speakers from the floor were over-wealmingly in favour of New Media. Even the NUJ’s Jeremy Dear now realises that you can fight job losses but you can’t stop change when it offers to so many opportunities for new forms of journalism.
But what struck me is how much in common both sides had. Both Robin and Nazenin, for example, were clearly resistant to sharing too much of their media space with the public. Robin said that only about 1% of the audience ever interacted. It felt like he was comfortable with that degree of involvement.
In other words, put a bunch of journalists in a room and they will disagree about the role of New Media in their industry but they will agree about keeping the public at arm’s length. I think that is unsustainable.
Kim Fletcher rightly pointed out that the old business model for journalism is in rapid decay. I can’t understand why he is not more enthusiastic about engaging with the public to create a new way of supporting journalism – as opposed to the old monopoly that sustained a clique of journalists. The public are so enthusiastic about journalism that they even do it themselves – for free. Doesn’t it make sense to harness that through New Media technology?
For me the real question is not Is New Media Killing Journalism? but How Can We Use New Media To Make Better Journalism? Some answers here.
Hey Charlie,
From my very very narrow perspective — implicit in these discussions always is that people are talking about political journalism. That’s probably the most interesting form of journalism and the one with the largest amount of well-paid professionals.
But only a few traditional media outlets can match some of the best of new media in terms of coverage of things like telecoms and media policy. Now, I know that’s a very narrow, niche field, but I would imagine it’s replicated in all sorts of relatively mundane but wider interest areas like gardening, auto maintenance, etc. Even in the more professional fields like financial and legal reporting, new media sometimes clobbers the competition. In financial reporting and analysis, for example I think Seeking Alpha and the Motley Fool are the equals of the much larger players. And many many law professors and solicitors have excellent blogs.
And the amateur / professional nomenclature is a bit misleading in the specialty fields. Someone with a journalism degree is the professional reporter covering Northern Rock whilst the blogger working in an investment bank in the City with an MBA is the amateur? I don’t think so…
If people of any stripe want to contribute their take, facts or analysis on a particular issue how can that be anything other than a good thing? If these newspapers cannot compete, let them go out of business…
I’m reminded of (my personal hero) Mark Cuban’s comments on cinemas, which if you swap out ‘newspapers’ for ‘cinemas’ is applicable here:
http://www.blogmaverick.com/2006/01/18/what-business-are-theaters-in/
That’s my take.
Russ
My belief is that the two will work together, and that ‘citizen journalism’ can provide authenticity for professional journalists. All the people with their camera phones and blogs can provide the fragments which journalists can weave into a story. I wrote a bit about this here.
Taking on board Russ and Dave’s points – which is really that we shouldn’t get too hung up on who is doing journalism where so long as it’s good – your first point is one that really interests me. What is “good” when it comes to reporting the world these days? How is the technological and social context we live in changing how “good” is defined?
And the 1% Rule, if we want to call it that, is troubling and it’s amazing that it doesn’t get discussed more. When you think about it in the context of journalism, you can easily wind up with a similar number of people creating news content as a percentage of the population as were employed by traditional newsrooms, and with a remarkably similar socio-economic profile. What responsibilities do the 1% have to the rest of us, and what structures could we create to broaden participation in shaping content? Surely that’s got to be part of “good”…
And where is the demand for that involvement from the third sector and civil society organisations?
Hi Rosie,
Thanks for your points. I think that the idea of what is ‘good’ journalism is changing from a relatively arbitrary definition created by an elite of media-makers. It is shifting to what I like to call ‘relevance’. Journalism has to justify itself, not just in the market-place but also in terms of how it provides social and public value.
As for the 1%. 1% of most audiences is actually a vast number. 1% of the Guardian’s online readership is about one million – 1% of its paper readership is still 3,000 people. That is still quite a few more than work at Farringdon Road. But I agree that interactivity and even UGC is just one element of networked journalism. Connectivity is about all sorts of techniques such as crowd-sourcing that share authority and power rather than surrender it.
As you astutely point out, if some citizens are more networked than others then they need to attend to their resonsbilities, too. But I guess that the 1% has always applied to all sorts of civic activism. Politcal activists for example tend to be 1% who do 99% of the work. erhaps the difference with networked journalism is that everyone can be involved at some point, but perhaps only 1% of their lives.
regards
Charlie
“Kim Fletcher rightly pointed out that the old business model for journalism is in rapid decay.”
I’m incredibly keen on new media, and participate in it as fully as I can, but I’m also an experienced journalist with 25 years experience in the print world and I’m currently terrified by the fact that, yes, the old business model is in rapid decay, but no, there is no new business model that works yet.
On a practical level for journalists, that means that revenue from the old business model is drying up rapidly. I have been used to the fact that word rates have barely changed since I started writing, but more recently they’ve been effectively declining. And though I’ve been producing work for the web since 2000, very little of that pays anything at all.
Citizen journalism is brilliant, and a kick in the arse for the old model, but much of it tends to agglomerate existing news sources. At some point we need experts and specialists to produce words: I’m just not sure how we’re going to be paying for that in the future.