(Photo courtesy of Just.Luc via Creative Commons/Flickr)New York Times executive editor, Bill Keller, made a lengthy "column" out of responding to readers comments and questions on their website last week. The first series of questions delved into some of the big issues facing journalism today -- including what will happen to newspapers in the near future with so much media consumption moving online.
I can see two threads that must be identified here when discussing the "newspaper crisis." One deals with the user's choice of format. Dramatic shifts in media consumption from the printed to the web page can be identified, but they are only part of the story. People still consume traditional (print, broadcast) media at a rapid pace and the websites visited for news online are predominantly the same established brands. And with millions of people in America living without access to affordable high-speed Internet, these trends shouldn't come as too big a surprise.
The second is paying for content and journalists. Commercial media is starting to collapse under the weight of its behemoth holdings. The rampant consolidation that escalated dramatically in the mid 1990s -- allowing companies to continue buying more outlets across mediums and in the same markets -- have bared the brunt of such cost-cutting measures as slashing reporters' jobs in order to maintain the bottom line. It is far cheaper to produce weather, sports, or entertainment pieces than it is to pay journalists to do investigative reporting. The foreign bureaus began to close. Reporters were asked to fill the roles of news anchors instead of writers.
It is possible that the commercial model can't continue to service the public need for reporting in this country. But this could signal tremendous opportunity. The ideas and concepts can be seen throughout the myriad of proposals popping up across the field itself. From establishing a National Endowment for Journalism, to micro-payments for content by the user, to the television tax model used by the BBC across the pond, the discussion about driving a wedge between the co-dependent relationship of advertising and reporting is getting louder.
And if all else fails, we could always go for the flavored ink model.
Ah, yes. Who is going to pay for journalism? Interesting debate that everyone seems to be echoing these days.
ReplyDeleteI'm pretty much in the thick of it, and I can honestly say I don't know. But that's what makes it such an interesting debate.
I liked that you focused on the two main points brought out by questions in this story... the Consumers point of view and the journalists point of view. As a journalist i find it hard to side with the consumers since I'd like to have a job when I graduate, and hopefully one in the magazine or newspaper industry and not flipping burgers or baby sitting kids.
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