Category: Technology Author : Steven Hodson Posted: December 15, 2008
Tags : new media, newspapers, old media
Hand wringing is almost becoming a watchable sport when it comes to the nose diving that was once the unshakeable world of old media. Every where we turn lately we are hearing dire prognostications of the death of newspapers. It is a subject that people on both sides of the old media – new media fence love to talk about. New media evangelists rub their hands together in glee over the potential changing of the guard while old media employees start worrying about how the mortgage is going to get paid.
Today saw a once member of old media – Tom Foremski; a former Fortune journalist now a blogger on Silicon Valley Watcher, post some thoughts about what is happening. While he agrees that old media is in a death spiral he doesn’t believe that the citizen journalists of social media are any real replacement for old media news.
This has left media companies in a very tough spot. As their traditional sources of revenue have been disappearing their new sources of revenue are unable to cover their costs. And the current economic crisis is magnifying this trend to an ever greater degree.
The media death spiral has become steeper and faster…
This is a huge problem because as a society, we need media professionals — citizen journalists cannot fill the breach.
He also doesn’t believe that this idea of news being free is sustainable regardless of which side of the argument you are on
News is not free, and it is not a commodity. News has been made available for free, and it has been made into a commodity but that is not its future because there is no future in that model. You will have to pay for it.
That means the end of the news aggregators. That means the end to arguments that the news aggregators send high volumes of traffic to the online publishers. What is the use of more traffic when it cannot be monetized to support the work of the news organizations?
I agree with him that the free model as being evangelized by Web 2.0 and social media mavens isn’t sustainable in the long run. As free flowing with money as advertising might be, even it has a finite limit especially with being able to provide reasonable livings for all parties involved. Just as Tom points out how sliding revenues from traditional advertising is cause failures of paper after paper the same thing could happen within social media.
Where I don’t agree with him – up to a point – is his assertion that citizen journalists can’t fill the void being left by the shrinking of newspapers. His argument is that traditional journalism is what helps maintain high quality standards, prevent misinformation or to counter the spin of corporations and governments. His insinuation is that these aren’t the type of things you will find with citizen journalism and I would definitely disagree with him on this.
Sure the big advantage of old media is that news was a centralized medium and as such was a lot easier to control out it was written, how is was researched and how it was disseminated. The problem with new media is that there is no centralized dissemination which makes it harder for people in general to do their one stop news shopping as it were. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t some citizen journalists / bloggers out there writing well researched and quality news type posts.
There is also a problem of perception which isn’t helping the adoption of citizen journalism any easier as a real viable alternative. Old media is perceived as being a news source you can rely on whereas new media has been young kid on the block with no respect for tradition and run by people with mercurial temperaments. In other words new media is all about MTV sound bites of opinionated semi news.
Even though this is really far from the truth until the point where new media can over come these types of perceptions it will always be considered as substandard in relation to the real news.
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Dec 15, 2008
I have a challenge for you Mr. Hodson: substantiate your claim that citizen journalism is a viable alternative with documented examples. Not one or two, but deep and wide examples.
Name 10 major news stories in which a “citizen journalist” not only did all the original reporting, research and fact checking, but left the house to do so. Name 10 citizen journalists who have done it more than once and are making a living doing so. Name 10 citizen journalists who do reporting involving a nation in which they do not live, or from a war zone. Hell, name 10 news stories – not celebrity gossip, not a review of some product, not derived from a press release, not working off an old media base – which were originated, researched and developed by this website.
I'm not saying it doesn't happen ever, but its a rare thing. Matt Drudge is still the common denominator of the online citizen journalist and 90% of all news blogging is just people feeding off reporting done by others.
I've yet to see a Web 2.0 evangelist provide a detailed picture of viable, self-sustaining new media alternative which connects to actual efforts going on now. I haven't seen a deep contemplation of what would happen if bad old media imploded before the new model was working.
In reality, Nick Denton, one of the biggest blog entrepreneurs out there, is hacking and slashing his holdings in anticipation of a collapse of the advertising bubble. And it is a bubble – when more and more people are put out of work – be it by the economic crash or by the new media world – people can't buy stuff. What happens to ads when there are no consumers? Lots of Bubble 2.0 hasn't actually made money yet, and depends on ad dollar supplies which would be a bit unrealistic in good times.
Where's the money really going? In an online culture when things are largely “free”, one group gets paid no matter what, those who provide the physical infrastructure for the net. And last time I checked, the computer manufacturers, ISPs, sever hosts and electric companies were the only indispensable participants in the information age, and they don't provide enough ad revenue to support the whole thing. For everyone else, getting paid is an option which can go away.
Dec 16, 2008
In addition to the issues raised by skeptic about the work involved in researching and reporting the new news, “citizen journalism” will also need to improve its quality and transparency. Do “citizen journalism” outlets disclose all conflicts (real or potential) in their reporting, issue corrections, perform fact checking, and follow other ethical guidelines followed by traditional media?
Not surprising that we eliminate or reduce the amount of news printed on paper in view of the Internet. What is surprising (and somewhat scary) is we no longer distinguish between opinion blogs and journalism.
Dec 16, 2008
If you read Tom's post – which I linked to – you will see this is something that he mentioned BUT this isn't the point that I was disagreeing over. In fact I do agree that there is a place for Journalists – with a capital J</>. What I was disagreeing with him over was his assertion that citizen journalists can't have high standards. That citizen journalists aren't capable of exposing corporate and government spin doctoring.
the problem is that citizen journalism is still way to new and has yet to really find a way to centralize news dissemination the way that old media has. As Tom quite rightly pointed out in his post old media has vast resources to draw on and even though those resources are being affected by old media decline it doesn't diminish the incredible treasure trove of information old media can tap into with a single phone call or email.
Citizen journalism doesn't have those type of resources – either in money or time. Until it does it will always be secondary to traditional news media regardless of how much the social media mavens might like to pump it up otherwise.
Dec 16, 2008
John I definitely agree with you about the need for citizen journalism to step up it's game regarding researching and sourcing what they write. The problem is that the current mindset in just about every major new media news outlet is predicated on the notion of getting it out there first and then fix it later. The very demands of our readership is for the large part one of readers just wanting the Web 2.0 version of MTV sound bites.
Add on to this the financial constraints the majority of new media news outlets are under and it doesn't pay to do 5 page in depth posts. Yes the NYT or WSJ can do it because they are still built around resources that support this – both information and money. but I can ell you that as much as any blogger working in the field today might like that opportunity there are a couple of things working against them.
One is access to information. Wikipedia and Google can only take you so far. The vast majority of bloggers can't just phone up some corporation and say “Hi I'm so and so from such and such blog and I was wondering if you could answer some questions?” – I would bet money on the fact that the blogger wouldn't even get past a junior secretary. Whereas a journalist from the NYT or WSJ just has to say their name and the paper's name and they'll be talking to someone who can answer their questions.
The other major stumbling block is time and money. Because new media is being pushed out as quick news bites for quick iPhone speed reading the people – or individuals – running news blogs are constantly faced with time constraints. for them it is always a case of 'Stop the presses'. Being able to dedicated someone to a long term investigative type post that will spread across pages is almost impossible to justify. Plus on top of that they have to be willing to pay that 'citizen' journalist while they are doing their sourcing and double checking of facts – where does the money come from for all the associated costs of doing projects like these as well.
I am not saying that these types of reporting can't be done in the new media news world but I know for example if I went to Duncan with an idea that might take me a couple of weeks to pull all together and then require multiple pages to present to a readership that for the most part might read the first couple of paragraphs his response would probably be no.
Until this changes I think that new media news will more resemble the stuff you find on Extra or some such similar news shows than what you find on the pages of the NYT or WSJ. that's just the simple facts of economics and readership wants.
Dec 16, 2008
thanks Ed .. you basically said in a small paragraph what it took me 6 paragraphs in my reply to John
Dec 17, 2008
Steven/Ed – Thanks for your response. I better understand the problem. I just hope we don't see a downward spiral in quality and further encourage the bad habits of ADD readers. Regarding new media not having access to corporations like NYT and WSJ, that's just because today's security guard or other screener might not be aware of you. That will change over time. Good luck.