There is hope for journalism
The continuing change in print journalism hasn’t been kind to everyone. Through this transition period, several print journalists have been let go as many newspapers drastically reduce the size of their staff. Nowhere is this more prevalent than at the San Francisco Chronicle, where there have been “massive editorial staff reductions.” With these firings, a sense of gloom has set in for some journalists while others still hold out hope for their profession.
Dan Gillmour, director of the Center for Citizen Media, voices his opinion in today’s San Francisco Chronicle.
There’s never been a better time, I tell students, to be a journalistic entrepreneur — to invent your own job, to become part of the generation that figures out how to produce and, yes, sell the journalism we desperately need as a society and as citizens of a shrinking planet. The young journalists who are striking out on their own today, experimenting with techniques and business models, will invent what’s coming.
Most experiments will fail. That’s not a bug in the system, but a feature. It’s how we get better.
No one says the transition from what we’ve had to what’s coming will be painless. At best, it’ll be messy.
Try to ignore the fringes of this conversation: the old-guard doomsayers and/or elitists who see nothing but woe for journalism, and the tech-triumphalists and/or media haters who can’t wait to see today’s system blown to utter shreds. These are vapid, false choices. Let’s work to keep the best of traditional media.
Meanwhile, smart people — including the ones working for traditional media companies, most of which are still quite profitable even as trends work against them — will invent, discover and use democratized media tools to create updated and new kinds of journalistic products and services. The journalistic ecosystem could end up healthier in the end, if we get this right.
What’s coming won’t be the responsibility of just a few companies or nonprofits. It’ll be up to all of us. We will get this right, if we try.
In a way, what doesn’t kill traditional journalism will only make it stronger. I’m hesitant to re-use the evolution analogy but this new media movement has created an atmosphere where only the very best and most innovative forms of journalism will fly. Journalists will now constantly be looking for the very best way to cover a story. While it doesn’t look good for some right now, both those who report the news and those who read it will benefit from the current turmoil.