Journalists currently face one of their biggest dilemmas. Some time ago I was sitting in a cafe with three friends who had several years under their belts in the profession. As expected, the flow of our conversation brought us to the subject we have been arguing about for the last decade. One of us sipped his coffee and with a saddened sigh asserted: "Journalism is dying my friends." He then continued to present supporting facts for his argument such as low circulation, a lessening market share in advertisement and so on. When the rest started to agree with him, I could not help but to say: "My friends. What is dying is the paper newspapers you have been working for years. This is what saddens you. I can't wrap my head around it, as you are not in the business of paper import/export. You are journalists. Are you producing news or do you run a print shop?"
My harsh answer might have upset my friends, but they point to an important fact. Producing and distributing news is as old as human society. There was a time this was done by primitive methods such as smoke signals and rock scribblings. Later on people wrote them on parchment to hang them in big squares. A relatively short time ago this evolved into using the printing press and paper. With the invention of radio, writing became the voice, and with television, visuals accompanied the voice.
All these technological breakthroughs did not eliminate journalism. On the contrary, we can say that it bettered the profession. Now, with the emergence of smartphones and tablets, the area of journalism has not shrunk as many believe, but has expanded. After all, we are journalists and it is our job to report news and share it with the public. The main difference is that we used to use paper as our main method of distribution and now we use the digital format.
A complex issue
Of course the issue is not this cut and dry, and what upsets most journalists is this complication. There are several differences that separate today's technological means from those we used in the past. We can delve further into this by summarizing them into generality, availability, speed and transparency.
Throughout the 20th century visual and audio equipment, such as cameras, microphones and recorders, were used almost exclusively by journalists both because their trade demanded it and they were quite costly to acquire. Now, however, their costs are almost irrelevant compared to what they were before. Almost everyone has a smartphone in his or her pocket, and he or she can access a camera and microphone with the flick of a finger. This means that journalists also now have millions of competitors. What is more, with the availability of the Internet in our daily lives, our competitors hold quite an advantage over us when it comes to racing against time. After all, they can share their captured footage with the world in mere seconds thanks to social media.
Let us take look at the "good old days." For example, the Vatican announced that the pope would greet the public and give a speech on world hunger. Newspapers had to send at least a two-man crew, one for taking pictures during the speech and the other to note what the pope said. The information and visuals sent by these two had to be reviewed by an editor back at the newspaper and integrated on the page by a designer. So it is safe to say that at least four people had to work for a single report to reach the public.
Now things are bit different. Even a 15-year-old with a smartphone can record the pope's entire speech and upload it to a social media site seconds after the pope descends from the platform. Another can broadcast the speech live for instantaneous access. A good social media user can summarize the speech by writing the key points on his or her micro-blog. No one has to wait until the next morning to learn what the pope actually said.
Of course, many argue that this speed is a double-edged sword and leads to a diminishing quality of journalism. So let us talk about the quality of journalism before the advent of all this technology, question editorial choices and eventually ask the difficult question of who cares about quality.
Free and available
Another important factor is that the content provided by everyday people is basically free. The concept of new media also brings a whole new economic model as the old ones start to crumble. Journalists also keep social media under a close watch just like everyone else. All of us at least use one or two services such as Facebook, Twitter, Google or YouTube, among others. An important factor is that none of us pay any fees while using them. The main cost of using them is relinquishing our privacy to an extent to be shown advertisements related to our interests.
Let us be reasonable. When a product is available at nearly no cost both for buyer and seller, why would anyone chose to pay for a product that does not have the same advantages? After all, these no-cost products provide us with much more variety and much more accessibility. Why would we wait for an order to arrive when the product we need is just a click away?
Failing prime time
Let us take look at television channels then. Do you watch news reports? Even if your answer is yes, almost no one sits in front of a television and waits for the program to start anymore. After all, we are swimming in an ocean of news throughout the day. We do not need to watch some 20 news reports to understand what happened that day, especially considering that the majority of television news reports are already complied from sources we already follow during the day.
Do you know the most watched type of news reports? You do not have to look far for the answer, as it is quite obvious from the website statistics of newspapers and television channels. In this category, we see examples of lay journalism quite often. A person with no ties to journalism records a new car that is not available to the general public yet, for example, cruising through the streets. In a short time period we see that this video easily hits tens of millions of views. However, a big news agency's live coverage of a car expo does not even manage to reach 2 million people. Isn't this a problem worth thinking about?
