“Is it chicken or is it fish? I know it's tuna but...”
How will the public's move to online media consumption affect the quality of their news consumption and the direction of the news itself?
When I meet with my high school friends for drinks we have only one clear and now strongly enforced rule. No it's not permission to eat one another if we're stranded on a mountain…although this has been discussed. The one thing that is sure to and has spelt the end of a pleasant night out has always been when someone will unwisely slur a drunken statement about politics.
“Julia Gillard looks like a ranga clean shaven Moby…sacking Kevin Rudd was the biggest mistake the Labor Party ever made…”
This faithful statement ignited an all-night brawl that still stands between abortion and Centrelink payments in the museum of our groups rowdiest, friendship-testing nights. (Yes a table of young men spent a night yelling at one another about abortion…maybe we aren’t the most normal people). But when the dust did clear, amidst the many new death threats to add to my collection and the emotional pain that came with realising that I was friends with a bunch of Maxine McKew haters (call me back Maxine) consequently making them all around terrible people, we all learned so much more about politics and enjoyed the opportunity to have intellectual (perhaps) argument about substantial subject matter instead of just swapping embarrassing drinking stories.
This was made possible because we are all avid followers of politics whether it be through reading newspapers, online news or Q and A (back when it was good).
But will debate of this kind as well as any kind of deeper understanding of news (arguable in our case) be washed away in the tides of online journalism? Does the rapid transformation of the journalism industry threaten the journalist’s fundamental role in ensuring we live in an informed society?
Pre-internet journalism whether or not you look on such a time fondly with nostalgia or shudder at the idea of life without Youtube (where did people go to see monkeys ride segway in those days?) it's hard to argue that traditional journalism didn't work on a pretty clear and strong business model.
Businesses’ paid to advertise within the tabloid, which generated a significant revenue necessary to hire enough journalists to cover a good cross sections of news. The issue arises though when we clearly consider the harsh realities about this model in modern day as a consequence of the public's migration from newspapers to the online mode (as we looked at in previous blog post). This reality, as Online Editor of the Courier Mail John Grey attested in this weeks lecture, is that as print consumption dies so too does its revenue from ads, profit that will never be adequately replaced by the far inferior income from online ads.
Your probably wondering how this might prove a challenge for the quality of news? The main way I fear the death of journalism's traditional business model could threaten quality reporting and informed society is born from speculation about what news companies will do in order to survive.
Backed into a corner: Competition becomes more fierce - revenue raise or die out.
"The world is changing very fast. Big will not beat small anymore. It will be the fast beating the slow."
Rupert Murdoch
Journalism bodies have often been criticised for placing their commercial or political interests before their duty to report news in the public interest (excellent essay on supporting this argument). Consequently some have praised the online mode of news consumption as finally providing us with news unshackled by these commercial slants. This might indeed be an accurate advantage of moving to this brave new world, however, we mustn’t forget to consider how this migration might effect news companies commercially and how this will force them to alter what news they present to survive.
One of the great things about the newspaper is the formula it follows in presenting a cross section of the news from entertainment and arts, world affairs, politics and business to sport. Alternatively online news turns over the decision of what news to consume to the individual, who is now able to skip straight through to the body of news that most interests them and even to subscribe only to this area.
Considering most of the public aren’t as interested in politics, business and world affairs as they are about the compromising new pictures of Lohan or Brangelina troubles… (Seriously have they got the fundamental ideas of “adoption of babies” and “couple counselling” confused?)how will this effect news content?
Will papers in these hard times, desperate to turn profit, make the decision to focus their limited resources on the news the majority of people want to consume? Will the ideals of the fourth estate, of keeping those in authority accountable, be compromised in favour of some new commercial model of supply and demand? News insiders (our lecturer…I just wanted to sound smart) have revealed that they are able to track not only the exact amount of traffic to stories but also where they are from and what other sites they frequent.
This threat could also tie into a similar criticism of the detail (or lack of) of online coverage of events considering the pressure to remain on top of the news and provide updates faster than your competitors (the stakes just got higher in wake of lost revenue). As the amount of journalists covering these rounds is cut back will the depth of coverage of disasters and political stories be whittled down to a collection of short paragraphs or tweets?
The journalists skill in presenting news in ways to allow us to truly comprehend and empathise with its subjects is, in my opinion threatened by these pressures. So will stories with emotional resonance and beautiful story telling in journalism become a thing of the past? For example I know my response to Christchurch earthquakes were far more potent after reading this amazing article by Vicki Anderson than by the tweets put up on ABC.com or the few paragraphs they provided on the rescue efforts and death toll.
This combined with the lay-offs and subsequent journalist shortages will mean true investigation and reflection will be swept aside in the rush to get news out to the minute.
The answer to the problems is obvious, create a business model that allows the public to enjoy all the many advantages of online media content whilst still generating profit for the news companies allowing them to fulfill their functions as 4th estate and provide us with thought provoking material to drunkenly scrap over on Saturday nights…It's just this little thing called “details” where we hit a pothole…can it be done?
(News companies are sure trying)
Human nature is never going to change, our morbid curiosity of the lives of those we perceive to be “celebrities” has been scientifically proven to be a part of our makeup. So then what would happen if journalists, in desperation to survive, did begin to produce more of these stories at the expense of neglecting to question and analyse the direction of parliament or the market trends? Accountability of those in power aside I dread the impact on our overall intelligence as a country or the quality of conversation at next weeks BBQ if this fear were to become a reality.
The problem here goes deeper than just public's questionable choice in news, its deepest fundamental roots lie in what the media themselves will compromise or omit to do to survive. We could be hearing a fair lot more about Bert and Ernie’s sexuality in a future not to far from our own, aren’t times exciting?
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