The Fate of Journalism

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It is 2019 and journalism as we know it is undergoing massive changes. Print-newspapers are losing billions in ad-revenue, corporations are buying out multiple print-media companies (diminishing the integrity of these news sources), downsizing newspaper companies at the local level are leading to an overexploitation and/or loss of the editorial staff’s labor power, and most importantly, print-newspapers are becoming too expensive to produce. For some newspaper publications, in order to survive the hard times and generate revenue, many journalists are being forced to write pieces and articles that that mostly appeal to human interest stories, rather than reporting on more important news topics. Furthermore, more subliminal attempts are being utilized to save the journalism industry, we see this in films like All the President’s Men and Spotlight, both being movies that seek to paint journalism in a favorable light with the underlying motive of hoping to inspire citizens to pursue careers in journalism by valuing the “power of the press” even in the face of possible incorrect reports and the other slew of issues a journalist might encounter. We see these messages to be presented in the 2006 documentary, Woodward and Bernstein: Lighting the Fire, as well as the ‘Journalism’ episode on Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, which both share an overarching theme that is presenting journalism to be a weakening industry in these contemporary times with threats arising not only from competing media sources, but from unconventional entities like, corporations and politicians; moreover, both of the videos seem to emphasize how the harms to journalism poses a major threat to democracy as we know it to exist, and attempts to figure out a way to save the fate of journalism through various platforms, whether that is by turning to the web or by sticking to revenue gaining techniques. 

There were a couple of things that stood out to me in these videos. In the 2006 documentary, there is a part where one of the women are being interviewed about the television industry and how it contrasts that of print-media journalism sources. She explains, the ‘buyers’ are not the audiences and they ‘product’ is not the news material, rather that the audiences are the products and the buyers are the advertisers. The reason why this was very significant to me is because advertiser-dominant news reporting hasn’t only affect the television-news industry, since the 1830s this is shown to be evident as advertiser-supported newspapers, called the “penny press,” begin rising in the journalism industry, as explained by George Rodman in his book Mass Media in a Changing World. It’s important that we understand the moment when advertisers took on a dominant role in the functions of the press, and it’s imperative for the journalism industry to seek out revenue forms that won’t compromise the material or integrity of journalists who wish to report and publish in accordance with the ethical standards comprised in the ‘canons of journalism.’ Rodman explains the ‘canons of journalism’ to be an ethics code that was adopted in 1923 by the American Society of Newspaper Editors in response to tabloid press. In Last Week Tonight with John Oliver, a moment that really stood out to me was the part where Billionaire Investor, Sam Zell (who acquired several news companies that were going out of business) was in a meeting with his journalist employees, explaining to them his vision for them to write with a focus on what “readers want” aka ‘puppies’ versus what is “more important” aka ‘Iraq’ (as used in his example). Zell strongly considers it to be “journalistic ignorance” to deny the significant of human interest stories over hard news or more vastly relevant news stories. After conveying this, he then proceeds to curse out the journalist who challenged him regarding the issue. My initial reaction was that Zell was very bizarre and abusive in his power dynamic. Furthermore, his vision compromises the freedom of the press and integrity of serious forms of journalism, flagrantly defying the ‘canons of journalism.’ What’s more bizarre is that Zell isn’t the only billionaire to buy out forms of print-media on the decline and attempt to enforce changes to them that negatively transform journalism in today’s society. Many of them exist and as long as revenue is the end goal, these billionaires and corporations will continue to implement their wayward money-making techniques into journalism functions.

My overall reaction to both these videos is that we need to be way more serious about journalism and protect the honesty, integrity, and the overall market that journalism falls into—this means revenue gaining techniques and online platforms are a MUST, however it shouldn’t be through careless advertisers, greedy corporations, or billionaires with societal agendas. In his book, Mass Media in a Changing World, Rodman proposes several different ideas that could potentially allow print-media to survive these troubling times, some ideas include: charging for online access to subscribers and readers; making Google pay journalists/news companies for their content the same way they would pay book authors for their intellectual property; charging royalties to online readers and websites that republish stories from certain journalist/news companies, similar to how music publishers collect royalties every time a song they own is played or used publicly; and lastly, through usage of wire services, similar to the Associated Press, which would in return, promote cooperation versus competition within journalism, which isn’t exactly ideal in this industry, however in my opinion, it is much more preferable than downsizing, not satisfying advertising shares, compromising the journalists’ view, and in worst case, closing down altogether.

The fate of journalism looms upon us, hopefully there is a future where journalists have successfully integrated with modern media sources, like the internet, and are thriving (as they rightfully should) in a society dependent on honest, imperative information.

(Additional source material provided from The Washington Post and Fortune.)