Week 4: Who will Pay for Journalism?

(Idisarkette, 2010)

"Still", so what about "will be"? 

The Internet has opened up a brand new medium for business, which many, both large corporations and petit home business, gloated over after having evidently profited much from rising popularity of E-commerce over the years. Everything that begins with an “E-” or related to the Internet are seemingly profitable. Yet, journalism, unfortunately, have not been one of the lucky ones seeing big money rolling in although it has clearly developed closely with the various digital advancements.


Statistical reports (Este, Warren, Connor, Brown, Pollard & O’Connor, 2008) have indicated that online news and journalism increased greatly in popularity over the year. This increase readership of online news has however resulted in a sharp decline of the offline readership. Traditional printed news are clearly faltering and in threat of losing their ‘mainstream’ in media.


The switchover from traditional to online news is logical and, well, not-at-all surprising. Firstly, news on the Internet are generally more promptly updated than the offline ones. Online news also allows a greater extent of interaction with its readers, bring about features like citizenship journalism as well as a more open discussion and feedback channels. Advancements in Internet and communication technologies, as well as the gradually improved readiness of Internet service increase the accessibility and convenience to news on the Internet. The global nature of the Internet allows news from all parts of the world to be accessible t almost everyone, and with all the high technological gadgets, literally at the fingertips. Moreover, online news channels are generally free and freer; freer in the sense that news are not longer required to be of formal formats and language, while free simply means that consumer generally do not have to pay for it.


The ‘free-of-charge’ nature may be an attractive encouraging more to read, yet, journalism as a business suffers economically. This hence suggests a heavier reliance of news organisations, especially private ones, on advertisements. Given that the Internet provides organisations with a variety of cheap and far-reaching modes of advertisements, say Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, the competition for advertisers and commercial supports become even more competitive than before. These are all argued to have caused the news business to become overly commercialized thereby putting its focus on the wrong track (O'Grady, 2009). So, do government-owned news organisations seem to be more feasible and fitter to survive in the Internet age? Probably not in the western world where great emphasis is place on the democratic role of news media as the fourth estate.


No matter how much people are in favour of citizen journalism, most would agree that the society still need established and credible traditional news organisations. Yet, with traditional newspapers being gradual driven out of business, be it due to declining profits due to falling readership, intense online competition or lesser revenue earned due to the free-of-charge nature of the Internet, how long more will we have these up-to-standard media professionals with us in news media?


Reference

Este, J., Warren, C., Connor, L., Brown, M., Pollard, R. & O’Connor, T. 2008. Life in the Clickstream: The Future of Journalism. [Internet] Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. Available from: http://www.alliance.org.au/documents/foj_report_final.pdf [Accessed 29 May 2011].

Idisarkette. 2010. Newspaper Advertising in Singapore as Dead as the West. [Image] Available from: http://www.idrisarkette.com/newspaper-advertising-in-singapore-as-dead-as-the-west/ [Accessed 29 May 2011].

O'Grady, C. 2009. Who Pays for Journalism in the Post Print Era? [Internet] FAIR. Available from: http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=3900 [Accessed 29 May 2011].

Week 3: Journalism as a Public Conversation in the 21st Century: What is the Role of the Citizen?

(WHM, 2008)

The Internet has conquered and revolutionized communication in our present world. In the field of journalism particularly, the swift emergence and blooming popularity of the relatively category of news media -citizen journalism, undoubtedly stand as one of the biggest challenge facing journalists and other news workers. The changing practices of news media indicate changing roles of both journalists and audiences. A prevalence sign of change would be the increase establishment of active two-way interactions between audiences and news outlets – not only do audiences get a say in determine the content of a journalists’ writings, many even get to participate through writing – the work that was once only given to professional journalist (Quinn & Lamble, 2007).

(Brainstuck.com, 2007)

In Singapore, due to the mainstream news media being highly dominated by the two local media giants, Singapore Press Holdings and MediaCorp, such that both have their managements closely linked to the Singapore Government (Ang, 2003), it is a widely-known fact that the news media do not act as a fourth estate watching over the government and authorities, unlike many western countries which stresses the importance of the watchdog role of its news media. Citizen journalism, a freer form of information exchange as compared to the formal news outlets, has undoubtedly increased the freedom of information for Singaporeans, and aids in the establishing of media as the fourth estate for Singapore.

With the Internet being readily available at to all Singapore, and the increasing usage of smartphone among people, exchanging of information via the online mean has grew in popularity rapidly over the years, resulting in a revolution in the way information is distributed to the masses in our ‘conservative’ society. Citizen journalism has grown so fast and so much that even the mainstream Singapore Press Holdings had to established portals that support citizen journalism, like Stomp and Omy, to keep up with the changing media preference of its audience. True enough, contents in these sites may not be completely free, such that the posts still undergoes reviews and moderations by an editor, news media has no doubt become freer as compared to how it is, say, ten years ago.

(Social Connect Blueprint, 2010)

Although citizen journalism has cast a positive impact on many occasions, like the Obama campaign, Haiti Earthquake 2010 and Japan disaster 2011, its unrestricted nature, especially via social networking has also highlighted things in this world that some people would rather not see. Many are obviously overwhelmed by the opportunity to be a journalist, resulting in the great deal of writings posted online daily, which makes it harder for one to search through the Internet for truly vital news. Some citizen journalists may even abuse the privilege given to them.

(Wagers, 2010)

(Renee, 2009)

This hence led to concerns over the professionalism of news media, given the increasing usage of citizen journalism even in mainstream publications and broadcast. Journalist being professionals in the news media plays a much more vital role than to merely contextualizing, editing and proofreading writings of citizen journalist in order to maintain standards and credibility of news media (Tapsall & Varley, 2006). With the rapid advancement of Internet and communication technology, more involvement of audience in journalism would be expected, and since it is unlikely for us to stop technology from progressing, there is a need for journalist and news workers to constantly work on establishing measures to maintain professionalism in news media.

Reference 

Ang, P.H. 2003. Media Law and Ethics in Singapore. [Internet] School of Communication Studies, Nanyang Technological University. Available from: http://www.medialaw.com.sg/ [Accessed 23 May 2011].

Brainstuck.com. 2007. Citizen Journalism [Image] Available from: http://www.brainstuck.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/10/citizen-journalism-400x336.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011]. 

Quinn, S. & Lamble, S. (2007). ‘Citizen Journalism and Audience-Generated Content’, Online Newsgathering: Research and Reporting for Journalism. Focal Press, Burlington, 43-57.

Renee, S. 2009. Funny Citizen Journalism [Image] Available from: https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlnD5WWCwzU_V2ogoW7PXope6Skb1rayNHzNkZwLUqPN6E8W25KXaP98o3Utyjm7ZUrzW881JnJb2HximwrqXz0Q7kqp7ZVI0VhAB38Px_SQac841WDO8A7Z0p0xdomB729tSjIJV1D9DC/s1600/citizen_journalism_42.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011].

Social Connect Blueprint. 2010. Crazy Dude [Image] Available from: http://www.socialconnectblueprint.com/wp-content/uploads/crazy-dude-cartoon.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011].

Tapsall, S. & Varley, C. (2006). Journalism Theory in Practise. Oxford University Press, London.

Wagers, S. 2010. Citizen Journalism [Image] Available from: http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_PE7HXREVoCA/SZwwxYXm7fI/AAAAAAAABGs/2Ud8JqTnvYo/s400/fucked+up+citizen+journalism.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011].

WHM. 2008. Fun Journalism Quote [Image] Available from: http://moblog.whmsoft.net/123.jpg [Accessed 23 May 2011].