What the hell happened to Journalism?

The BBQ Pit
41

Basically this, combined with “there’s no money to pay for it anymore.” Print revenue has gone through the floor so fast and so hard it’s a wonder the planet hasn’t suffered a catastrophic tectonic failure as a result.

Part of the reason is because most people don’t read the newspaper anymore, because everything is on the internet. So advertisers think “Why am I paying you all these dollars for a print ad, when everyone is online?”

And it’s well-known that people don’t engage with online ads greatly (and anyone who tells you otherwise is in advertising and/or likely deluding themselves), so the rates for online ads are much lower. Which means less money for journalists. Which means fewer journalists. Which means fewer stories, and of a lesser quality than might be considered optimal. Which leads to fewer readers. Which leads to fewer advertisers.

You can see where this is going.

Thanks to The Internet, there’s also unprecedented pressure on journalists to get the story out first - they’re no longer competing just with other local media outlets, but pretty much everyone with a smartphone and a social media page.

For example, at a well-read regional newspaper I used to work at, we had no local competition in the area when I started there - basically, if we didn’t report on an event in the area, it didn’t get any coverage and no-one would hear about it.

And we covered a lot of stuff, from school fairs and local cricket team results up to state and sometimes national politics (pretty much everything has a local angle, if you know what to look for).

But by the time I left, however, people were getting a lot of news off Facebook and the like, often from people with a lot of spare time running “Wallaby Creek Community News & Happenings”-type pages, and budget cuts meant there were fewer journos doing a LOT more work, with no extra pay.

Journos are under insane amounts of pressure and there are fewer and fewer of them to do the job - people want their news RIGHT NOW.

To continue using the aforementioned paper as an example, later in the proceedings, when we reported on the Wallaby Creek Community Centre’s annual fair, by the time the paper came out the next week, everyone who was at the event had uploaded something about it and head of pictures to social media so most people didn’t particularly care anymore - which meant the journos basically had to go to the event, take heaps of photos, then sprint back to the office and do a writeup pretty much that afternoon, then get it online by dinner time (or maybe lunchtime the next day).

Now multiply that by every single major event in the area, and multiply it by the people getting pissed off we couldn’t come to their event (because we only had two journalists covering an area the size of a small European country) and you end up with over-stressed, burnt-out journos, unhappy readers, and diminished editorial coverage.

Also: It saddens me greatly to say this, but from a readership numbers side of things, clickbait articles absolutely work. I’ve seen the figures.

You run a headline with a “straight” headline like “Residents fed up with unpleasant water taste” and you’ll get some readership clicks. You run the headline “People complain something’s off with town water” and a standfirst like “Residents of one Queensland town complain their water tastes disgisting. The local council’s explanation is fishy, to say the least” and you will get so many clicks, which - from an advertising perspective - are critical.

Yeah, it’s bullshit, and journos hate it too. But it works. And for the record: Journalists don’t usually write those click-baity headlines, either, so don’t blame them.

42

Once upon a time there was this thing called a printing press. It was the only available means of conveying quickly updated written information to the general populace. You could make massive amounts of money with one, by printing classified ads.

That allowed one to indulge one’s hobby of journalism.

Then this far more effective, more immediate and cheap means of convening written information came along.

Printing presses ceased to make money. There was no more money for journalism.

43

Under that rubric, everything can be redefined as a “hobby.” That’s really nothing but an insult.

44

Question. What does “The Desk” mean in a newsroom and “Man’s” it? - Thanks.

45

“The desk” is the “copydesk.” It refers to the copy editor who edits a writer’s work for publication. When there are several copy editors working on a shift, the chief copy editor’s “desk” is called “the slot.”

46

Thank You Acsenray!!! No, R-E-A-L-L-Y, I was unhip to the slang. I posted this earlier, but maybe you missed it. I guess it means… no more “Desk”, yes?:frowning:

47

Yep.

Oh, and “the rim” refers to the copydesks that report to “the slot.” Traditionally, the copydesks were arranged in a U shape with the chief copy editor in the “slot” of the U and the reporting copydesks around the “rim.”

48

Ah! Ignorance defeated. Thank you again, Acsenray. Note. I am assuming that historically the “rim” was occupied by a hard drinking, cigar smoking, sleeves rolled up to the elbows, “If your mother says she loves you, check it out”, God resided?

49

Overt alcohol use was already banned from newsrooms by the time I started working in the business (and tobacco use was on its way out to the loading dock), but from the stories, everyone in the newsroom was like that.

50

I work in the TV side of things but we’re in the same boat. Our newsroom is pivoting to internet and mobile outlets and concentrating on NOW and LIVE.

Folks like to bitch about it but when you look at the numbers it shows they are engaging on their phones and computers, not on TV. And it’s fuck-all damn near impossible to monetize.

I know the world can live without car crashes and shootings, but an informed democracy does need information to be viable, and I do worry for our future in that regard.

51

What’s so difficult to understand about that? There could have been evidence of drug overdose and none of a struggle.

52

Eh, don’t sweat the pedantry. There’s seemed to be an uptick lately in the grammar naziing around here lately and I attribute it to the overall slow down of traffic to the boards these days. You know, there’s not enough other stuff to get grumpy about, so let’s pick on nits.

[Post submitted for Gaudere]

53

You miss my point. My intent was not by any means to insult serious journalism. My point was that it was never a money making proposition. It was something publishers could indulge in because they had such a money-spinner (their printing press).

54

Now those guys just move to Thailand to work on the papers here, where they try handily to re-create the lifestyle of Hunter S. Thompson but end up looking like a bunch of overaged frat boys.

55

Not all newspapers were co-owned with printing presses. What made newspapers profitable were (primarily) classified advertising—which was killed by Craigslist—and (secondarily) display advertising and (tertiarily) other paid items such as paid obituaries and wedding announcements (as opposed to simple unpaid death and wedding notices) and (fourthly) subscription fees and direct purchases.

Pretty much all those have gone. But if people really valued journalism, they would be willing to pay for access to it. They don’t, so they don’t.

56

And there’s an increasing number of people out there nowadays who are effectively engaging in journalism as a hobby - people running things like the Wallaby Creek Community News & Events Facebook page, for example.

They’re not (generally) traditionally trained journos; they’re not trying to juggle advertising and editorial demands - they go to events, take some photos, do a little write up (sometimes only a paragraph or two) and put in on their wesbite.
On one hand, they are engaging in journalism - but they’re not usually generally regarded as Journalists by other journalists (who went to university or have decades of experience, and generally work for an established or respected masthead*, are subject to editorial oversight, etc etc). And

The reality is that while anyone with a smartphone and a social media account can (and does) cover community events, the more serious stuff does require traditional journalism. But proper journalists cost money (because - shock, horror - they have bills to pay, rents or mortgages to keep up with, food to eat, and families to support; just like everyone else) and people don’t want to pay for that - either by advertising or by subscription. And as you end up with more people doing journalism essentially as a hobby, you’re going to find the only people covering some things are those with an interest in it; which means they have an opinion on it, which probably means they

I’ll give you an example: When I worked at that regional paper, I ended up doing a lot of sports writing (the irony is still a subject of great amusement among my friends and I wears later - my lack of interest in sports is legendary.)

The thing is, because I had zero fucks to give about the local sports team’s results, it meant I reported on their stuff impartially - when they won, I’d quote the captain talking about what a great game it was, when they got their arse handed to them, there was a story on that too that didn’t try and sugarcoat the fact they’d been spectacularly and embarrassingly pwned.

And the sports clubs (and our readers) all respected me for it, because they knew they’d get a fair story out of me - because I’m a professional.

Without a professional journalist covering it all, you’re going to get more bias (people get very passionate about their sports, after all) and things like inconvenient facts being left out of stories. It wasn’t unusual at all for clubs to ask me not to report embarrassing scores (such as the fact the local rugby league club got thrashed 118-9 or whatever) and the answer was always the same - I’m reporting the facts; this time they don’t suit you but I bet you’ll feel differently in the future when they do.

Journalism is actually quite an involved profession and while I don’t think you need a degree to be a good journo by any stretch of the imagination, the job is nothing like what you see in TV or movies and there’s a lot of misconception about the media and what journos actually do, too.

*That’s industry jargon for a newspaper - the bit at the top of the front page which has has the name of the paper on it is known as “the masthead”, as in like the top of a sailing ship’s mast. The term is also often used for purely online news wesbites, too.

57

Which is precisely what I said in my first post.

58

Differences (apparently) between British and American newspaper jargon:

(1) The large name on the top of the front page of the paper in a distinctive typeface is the “flag”
(2) The “masthead” is inside (usually on Page 2) and has a detailed listing of the name of the paper, and other information, such as the contact information, the name of the owner, the publisher, and all the corporate officers and editors, and other legal details. Example: http://web.sbu.edu/friedsam/archives/Songer/images/mseattle2.jpg
(3) We don’t use the term “journos” in America. We call ourselves journalists or reporters or editors.

That doesn’t translate to “hobby.”

59

I take that back. It’s much more common for the masthead to appear on the Op-Ed page. It appears on Page 2 for the publications I work for.

60

I think you are being offended for no reason.

When a newspaper publisher could make more money out of just running advertising and tabloid nonsense, but instead chooses to spend his or her money on serious journalism because he or she likes doing so, it’s a hobby to them. I’m not saying it’s a hobby to the journalists anymore than making radio controllers for model planes is a hobby to the electronics engineers who design them.

But it’s a hobby to the publisher, hence it stops getting funded once he or she is no longer able to fund it easily.

You’re probably going to say serious journalism is far too important to be just a hobby. And while I basically agree, I think it would probably more accurate to say that serious journalism should be far too important to be just a hobby. But unfortunately the “rich man’s hobby model” has been a common funding model in recent centuries, and it has come to an end.