It’s Not Journalism That’s Broken; It’s the Advertising Model
(The following is adapted from the Keynote Convocation speech I gave at the San Jose State University Journalism School graduation on Thursday, May 22, 2008.)
Everyone with half a brain in this industry has finally awakened and is trying everything from remodeling how we present print products to cutting deals with Google and Yahoo to capture more of their revenue from our work. And they will keep on thrashing and experimenting.
The core thing to remember is that it’s not journalism that’s broken. It’s the advertising model.
The fact that free ads on the internet have gutted our ads in print and broadcast doesn’t mean our story coverage is bad – it just means the ad model has morphed. But I believe we will hang in there. We’re pretty smart in this business, and we’ll figure it out. Especially with the still-eager waves of young talent that keep pouring out of universities wanting to join the newspaper trade despite the drumbeat of doom and gloom.
I see these internet operations that now dig at our flanks as seeds. They will grow. We in the so-called mainstream media may meld into them, they may meld into us, but whatever happens, I know that one thing will eventually result: The news will continue to be told, and it will be told by professionals.
It has to. The capriciousness of public whim, business models and just plain bad luck haven’t managed to kill off journalism so far, and it never will.
I had a media professional tell me about a year ago that we don’t really need reporters anymore because we can just get interested folks to blog from their living rooms from wherever the news is – like Iraq, or a shooting scene, or City Hall. I found this not just hilarious, but insulting. Even frightening.
I don’t think Joe Blow could have had the same balanced eye I’d like to believe I brought to covering 9-11 at Ground Zero. Or watching any of the seven executions I’ve witnessed at San Quentin. Or sleeping alongside homeless junkies in San Francisco to understand how far their lives had sunk.
We’re not playing at this thing we do here. It is dead serious stuff. And it’s hard work. That thing journalism school teachers say about how you’d better be doing journalism because you love it, not because you want to get rich? It is absolutely true.
My first jobs paid pretty badly in places like Glendale, Lodi, and Fremont, and even London and New Zealand. But I didn’t care. I was so happy to be actually writing for a living that sometimes I even forgot to pick up my paycheck. True story. If the rent was paid and the wolves weren’t at the door, who cares? I just wanted to meet fascinating people, see amazing things, try to make a positive difference in life, and then write my head off. I couldn’t imagine anything more perfect.
I still can’t. And I know I’m not alone. There are too many of us out here to let the craft of truly gathering and writing news die.
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"The core thing to remember is that it’s not journalism that’s broken. It’s the advertising model." That has zero to do with reality. Here's reality. I can flip on the television and through the wonder of cable/satellite, I can see live or recently recorded pictures of where the news is happening. Or through the wonders of the internet, I can log onto my computer and get up-to-the-second updates of whatever I want, even if it's just a soccer score from halfway around the globe. For a newspaper, I have to wait for the writing, editing, printing, and delivering. It's no longer a newspaper, it's an oldspaper by the time I'm reading it. Changing the advertising model won't change the fact that print media can't keep up with the instantaneous reportings from other media. (And yes, modern-day journalists have long ago ditched their objectivity in favor of slanted reporting, but even fixing that won't change the chronology issue).
Maybe you are correct on the ad part of this, but you are dead wrong that journalism is not broken. When did the memo go out stating it was ok for journalists to add in their opinion? I missed it. It is now hard to determine what part of the paper is editorial and what is supposed to be news. The bias that all stories are written with is appalling. The details that are left out, the details that are vague, the slant towards whatever political, religious, environmental, etc. leanings of the writer have made most papers not fit to wrap fish in, let alone find any useful or actual news. Once you idiots gat that through your thick skulls and go back to reporting the news and allowing the reader to make up their own minds, the faster print will come back.