“Free” Press

The free press, often lauded as a bastion of maintaining an informed public in both our American democracy as well as those around the world, is under attack from myriad sources nowadays. Not a day goes by where a politician or government official finds themselves above criticism or mere observation by the general public, instead undermining democracy rather than face their critics. By trashing unfavorable journalism and media, often equating reputable organizations to suppliers of fake or extremely biased news, as a standard instead of as an exception to the rule, these “officials” have reduced the public’s receptiveness to supporting reporting and ethical journalism.

Hand in hand with this disruption of quite a bit of the public’s trust of journalism is another massive attack that comes in the form of lack of monetization for smaller news organizations as well as those that don’t subscribe to wholeheartedly prioritizing salacious or “clickbait” content. In today’s highly sensationalized, extremely fast-moving world, more traditional reporting has fallen by the waysides as it’s not immediately appealing to the widest demographics of both consumers and advertisers. In the past 15 years or so alone, almost 1800 local newspapers have closed (BBC article) as a result of these issues of subscriber retention and advertising troubles, which is just a sad correlation to see represented in data. Not only is this reality troubling on the basis of many journalists, writers, and editors losing their jobs in a highly competitive industry, but also because this loss of informative reporting will be incredibly detrimental to the overall health of our democracy. We’ll start seeing less society-changing exposes, each of which likely being replaced with celebrity lifestyle tips or “You Won’t Believe What Just Happened” titles followed by relatively inconsequential substance. Nowadays, only 24 hour news media has the resources to maintain their current business models.

One of the biggest hurdles that news organizations must leap over now that they face such overwhelming opposition is transitioning their forms of monetization and company values to keep up with the times (and the Times). In terms of finding payment for their companies, news orgs should look towards digital subscriptions with incentives, such as faster story output for subscribers and increased sale of products and services in addition to actual reporting, all the while never downplaying the importance of journalism and news reports (10 Ways News Media Companies Can Move Into a Profitable Future). Additionally, there needs to be an industry-wide conversation in which news orgs clearly state their personal values for reporting. Sure, there’s plenty of space in the world for breaking news reports, entertainment tabloids, and more opinion-based pundits, but if these companies want to be credible media sources they need to value the morality of watch-dogs and journalism above that of only producing the most “gotcha” news possible.

The podcast conversation with Nicco Mele did address some of these issues. He believed that peak advertising took place a few years back, and that the amount of content available has stretched ad dollars too thin. He suggested that two revenue changes for news orgs would remedy some of these issues, specifically requesting subscription models and switching paywalls out with incentives to promote subscriptions instead of walling off content. He also stressed the importance of keeping advertisers and marketing separated from the journalism and reporting teams, while at the same time meeting halfway to actually fulfill a surviving business with employees and expenses.

People need to realize in the age of quick consumption and heightened advertisement that there should be a free press, but that we must also support the press through direct subscription and paying opportunities if we don’t wish to see important journalism fall to the wayside.

Credits:

10 Ways News Media Companies Can Move Into a Profitable Future – Editor and Publisher

Why Local US Newspapers are Sounding the Alarm – BBC