Who will pay?

Who will be producing the news everyone seeks to aggregate without paying for?

With organizations unwilling/unable to pay for news’ production, and readers unwilling/resistant to pay for news consumption, will there continue to be news to aggregate?

These were questions from Donna Bogatin who finally concluded in her article that: news may be a commodity, but valuable commodities cost dearly.

In this article she also comments on Time magazines latest changes, who see 'you' as the future of the industry and this is reflective of the changes occurring in the media industry. Current technologies have made news and information more accessible encroaching on traditional means opportunities to make money.

(to see the full article visit: http://blogs.zdnet.com/micro-markets/?p=852")

And this along with the discussion that was held at the Knight Fellowships 2007 Symposium, which stated:

While the problems plaguing the print newspaper industry are clear—the bulk of its traditional revenue base is shrinking as paid advertising shifts to online web portals—no one, so far, has figured out how to ensure the survival of independent journalism in its broadest sense, and the critical role it plays in shoring up a democratic society.

(To see all information visit, http://images.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://knight.stanford.edu/lectures/knight/2007/images/symposium07-poster.jpg&imgrefurl=http://knight.stanford.edu/lectures/knight/2007/&h=291&w=225&sz=26&hl=en&start=13&um=1&usg=__lLNz94JOeGXaGSCeLXqhXv-ONtw=&tbnid=uha6S2dVd7kRsM:&tbnh=115&tbnw=89&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dwho%2Bwill%2Bpay%2Bfor%2Bjournalism%26um%3D1%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DN)

It is evident to see that WHO will pay for journalism in the future is of concern.

Previously, newspapers made/make the majority of their money from advertising. The customer's payment at the newsagent makes up only a small fraction of this income.
This was/is a profitable business model so long as print remains the dominant medium for written communication in news media world. However, contemporary times have begun to see this is not the case.

Week 5 - globalisation and localisation.

"Commercialisation and technology have combined to alter the media, with the packaging of news as a commodity that can be bought and sold being one of the greatest changes facing journalists" (Breit, 2008, in the set text, Chapter 14; 218).

This is due to globalisation especially, and with no one power able to impose change, it puts a great deal of pressure on individual nation-states to restore public confidence back into this institution.

This was a topic of discussion in class and the issue of the future was of great concern.

Something we also covered that interested me however, was agenda setting. It made me wonder, is it the mass-(news)media influencing audiences, by their choice of what stories they consider newsworthy and how much prominence and space they give them or is the mass media acting in response to audiences? From class it was obvious that within today's societies celebrity is prominant in news, but why is this? It was also interesting to note that most Australian newspapers covered the same stories and with very similar angles. It just made me think, is the world headong towards global newspapers?

Citizen Journalism: Journalism as a Public conversation

Journalism is a difficult profession, word, idea to define.

Journalism plays a pivotal role in the management of cultural goods and contributes and influences 'consensus' and culture.Meadows (2008, set text, Chapter 3;47) states that "fundamental to this argument is the notion of journalism as a cultural practice that effectively manages the flow of information and ideas in society". This then raises the argument that shouldn't journalism be a form of public communication for sustainable democracy? Or does journalism need to move beyond this? Beyond their fourth estate and watchdog role?

The view of citizen journalism and public conversation is basically that works are written by the people, for the people, about the people. That is it is the act of citizens playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. Or as Jay Rosen said, citizen journalists are the people formerly known as the audience, who "were on the receiving end of a media system that ran one way, in a broadcasting pattern, with high entry fees and a few firms competing to speak very loudly while the rest of the population listened in isolation from one another— and who today are not in a situation like that at all. ... The people formerly known as the audience are simply the public made realer, less fictional, more able, less predictable."

The question is, is this the new way of the future? And what does this mean for 'professional' journalists?

Technology has contributed to the up rise in this form of journalism as it allows more people access and availability to others to have public conversation. With the internet has come the developments of blogs and this was one issue discussed in class. Are bloggers considered citizen journalists if they are making comments, or writing about societies issues? Of great concern in our class discussion was, will this lower the current standard and expectation of 'professional' journalists? I guess we'll just have to wait and see...

What is journalim? What makes a good journalist?

Is the distinction between "serious" and "popular" press valid? How do TV news, the internet, radio news and newspapers function within popular culture? What is (and what is not) good journalism?

Is there a difference between journalism, political commentators and bloggers?

All these add to the question what is a journalist? And are there central core of activities?

This is what we have been looking at during the first few weeks of this course. I believe that the journalist is constantly evolving and that their activities would depend upon what they were reporting, their goals and objectives. As the text states “journalists who believe their function is to tell the truth…might be expected to act in a different manner to those whose objective is so strengthen society, or work for public benefit” (Tapsall, S. & Varley, C. 2008;3).

MEAA, 1999, describes journalists as people who “describe society to itself. They convey information, ideas and opinions. They search, disclose, record, question, entertain, comment and remember. They inform citizens and animate democracy. They give a practical form of freedom of expression. They scrutinise power, but also exercise it, and should be responsible and accountable” (in Tapsall, S. & Varley, C. 2008;5).

A journalist therefore needs certain attributes, including communication skills; a questioning, curious and inquisitive mind; writing abilities; news sense; knowledge of technology; listening skills; general knowledge; empathy, patience and understanding; language and interviewing skills (Tapsall, S. & Varley, C. 2008;10).

Anyone can ultimately possess these skills and as was mentioned in The Future of Journalism Summit, with the spread of technology and the tools used in the media industry, a new era of media production and consumption has begun and the “people formally known as the audience” have the capacity to comment and anyone can act as a journalist, as long as they have an authority on the matter.

So then what is the future of the journalist?

And as it was said in The Future of Journalism Summit, are all journalism students traditionalists and conservative? Doesn’t the fact that we have to use the internet and blog for this course prove that we do take advantage of the technologies at hand?

I put it to you, are we traditionalist and conservative?