Comments on: The future of journalism: Will journalists be paying out of their own pockets?

By: Case study: social media and how it’s affected newspapers « Project : Arena

Sat, 06 Mar 2010 18:30:17 +0000

[...] can journalists, that straddle the exchange and gift economies, fund their activity without changing the nature of the relationship they have with those who give to [...]

By: Giving activities – Part 2: Professional amateur « Project : Arena

Giving activities – Part 2: Professional amateur « Project : Arena — Sun, 24 Jan 2010 23:11:54 +0000

[...] can journalists, that straddle the exchange and gift economies, fund their activity without changing the nature of the relationship they have with those who give to [...]

By: Medial Digital – Medien, digitale Medien, Medienwandel, Journalismus, Internet, soziales Internet, Social Web, Web 2.0» Linktipps Neu » Linktipps zum Wochenstart (23)

Sun, 30 Aug 2009 19:03:59 +0000

[...] keinen Cent – die NonProfit-Organisation ProPublica übernahm die Finanzierung. Es ist nicht das erste Mal, dass die NYT einen spendenfinanzierten Beitrag verwendet und dafür im Gegenzug auf Exklusivrechte [...]

By: karthikaswamy

karthikaswamy — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 18:00:35 +0000

Teach_J,
That’s a really interesting – albeit slightly scary – estimate of where journalism might be headed. It’s very possible of course – there have already been reports on MSM outsourcing science stories to research labs, and PR professionals taking up the slack in the case of news about their firms and employers. So, why not with respect to political parties as well?
I guess the onus is then on the reader to separate bias from fact, but in the world of blogging and social media the audience is already sufficiently trained to do that.
My personal pick would be nonprofit/publicly-owned journalism – yeah, there is a reason why the best news comes from places like the BBC and NPR. Perhaps, philanthropists and organizations that crowdfund could be part of it as well, contributing to the “pool” if you will of funds available for journalism.
I see your point about the media heading to some place radically different, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it continued on this way – to use Jeff Jarvis’ term – as an ecosystem of news; the main difference would be that the players contributing to it would continue to change.

By: Teach_J

Teach_J — Mon, 27 Jul 2009 03:16:05 +0000

I am wondering if we don’t end up seeing history repeat itself. Back in the 1800s nearly every town had not one, but two newspapers a Democrat one and a Republican one. Maybe we will see political parties sponsor newspapers again in order to get their opinion messages out with the news.

I think another possibility is philanthropy. News organizations could be run entirely online from the proceeds of a generous non-profit trust. They could continue to take donations too in order to build the trust in the hopes of employing more journalists.

And I think that news organizations could be built as non-profits with community support in the same manner as PBS/NPR, especially if, like many PBS stations they were affiliated with a college or university.

Finally, we may not even yet be able to imagine how journalism will work in the future because it may be radically different.

By: karthikaswamy

karthikaswamy — Fri, 24 Jul 2009 02:33:05 +0000

Amir, yes, unfortunately this can’t last very long. Its not a very sustainable profession, one that doesn’t pay! Let’s hope its a transitory phase though, since the news industry is still just experimenting with new media monetization. One thing’s certain – media is indispensable, so we’ll have to come up with some creative solution to save it!

By: Amir

Amir — Thu, 23 Jul 2009 16:06:31 +0000

I am writing as one of the young, future journalists this post is concerned about. I know there are no jobs, so I’m not under any illusions of getting a nice salary when I finish College. I know I’ll probably be a broke freelancer for a while. For the right story I would even be willing to spend my own money to get it published.

There is, however, a limit to everything. If I cannot make enough money in journalism to have a nice life, I will make that money somewhere else. The news industry will go through an incredible brain-drain over the next couple of years if they think that freelancers will take jobs that pay no money simply for the honor of getting a by-line.

By: karthikaswamy

karthikaswamy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 21:02:40 +0000

Simon,
Yes, unless the news industry figures out a way to tap into online revenue it is not going to have a sustainable business model (they should perhaps learn from Google but they’re not really being helped by precise Web metrics).
The sad thing is that sites like the Seattle blog you mention are left to do much-needed journalism without any sort of revenue stream because no media entity has the money to invest in it. It’s perhaps fun and interesting to do it on a “good cause” basis for a while but it remains to be seen how long such projects can go on.

Mark,
Much as I believe in the distributed nature of content and contributors on the Internet, I agree that there needs to be some sort of demarcation between in-depth journalism that is borne out of time and resources spent on a story and mere reproduction of content. There was the recently proposed system of “kitemarks” that would authorize some form of certification of content depending on sourcing and analysis but then again the question becomes who do you trust to do that, and would that make new media much too hierarchical. But regardless of those questions, if journalists need to be paid, their content needs to be valued, and there is no better determinant of that factor than money!

By: karthikaswamy

karthikaswamy — Mon, 20 Jul 2009 20:55:03 +0000

Paul,
Absolutely. The inability to monetize the product of journalism is making it more and more of a side profession, and that’s why it’s scary because hardcore “slow-brewed” journalism (as you’ve rightly called it) can only be done right with experience and training. Also, it’s a full time job. Projects like HMI are good because they tap into this expertise while still allowing the nonexperts to do the less specialized stuff, and hopefully make it cheaper to do serious journalism. Yeah, the exodus of journalists to the PR and consultancy industries is not good for journalism, but perhaps unavoidable till the news industry figures out a way to pay its employees.

By: Cool Links #50: It’s All Golden « TEACH J: For Teachers of Journalism And Media

Mon, 20 Jul 2009 19:42:16 +0000

[...] This post is scary, from the Online Journalism Blog, it is about the future of journalism and journalists paying out of their own pockets to do journalism. I’m sorry, but I can’t see very many people wanting to do this. Not many people [...]