The media has always been about making money.
In the current climate of change however, it is disconcerting to see media execs making considerable cuts to staffing levels, with no apparent understanding of the effects of their decision. It seems pretty simple to you and me. Less staff to do more work just ain’t going to happen. One Xark! article summed it up for me:
“The connection between quality and profitability has been broken irreparably. Boosting short-term profits by cutting quality is obviously a losing strategy…editors will admit this privately, but the public already knows.”
Let’s make no bones about it, the publishers and proprietors are on the side of the shareholder. And the shareholder wants a tidy return on his bucks.
This has resulted in tension as the market becomes saturated and growth slows, made worse by the recent economic downturn. How many women’s mags have folded in the past year? It shows that perhaps there’s not room for everyone. With the pressure on from the shareholders, if you can’t increase sales, then you need to cut costs.
Is this where citizen journalism comes in? Perhaps it plugs a gap for media execs quite nicely. It’s free, it’s plentiful, and the media can claim it’s all part of the ‘conversation’ between consumers and media.
Supporters of the movement say this has democratised media, allowing the masses to make the news. Look at CNN’s iReport as the most extreme version of this. It’s a user-generated, user-policed site where people can upload news stories without the need for any of those pesky things like skills or experience. It’s also the same site which wrongly broke news claiming Apple Chairman Steve Jobs had had a heart attack, causing Apple shares to plummet.
I admit I sound a little cynical here. And I’m not against the theory of citizen journalism. Consumers are what float our boats – of course we need to listen to what they have to say. But I don’t believe sites such as iReport should masquerade as news sites. However low the public’s opinion of journalists is, (a recent MORI poll shows just 19% of the public trust journalists) the fact is that a journalist must work within a set of standards. Or face the consequences. Citizen journalists don’t. That’s not to say they aren’t valuable contributors, or that some citizen journalists aren’t more conscientious than their paid competitors.
However the birth of the citizen journalist has coincided with a shift of focus from old school journalistic skills to new multimedia skills. The recent Newsquest reorganisation shows how new media is affecting the traditional role of a journalist. Subeditors are being scrapped in favour of multimedia journalists, who will be responsible for,
“writing news and features; subbing and designing pages; shooting video; taking pictures; working the new content management system; blogging and writing news stories online; processing pictures for print and for the web and looking after trainees”
It’s clear that publishers see the money moving to the web. Yet it’s unclear how stable the preferred advertising-funded business models are in the long-term.
Press Gazette makes gloomy reading
Until a tried and tested business model for modern media rears its head, it looks like journalists must be open to the possibilities that multimedia may bring.
