Who will pay for journalism?

"Newspapers are by far the main source of news as well as agenda setters compared with radio, TV and online, according to research for the Australian Broadcasting Authority in 2001 (now the Australian Communications and Media Authority)” (McKnight & O'Donnell, 2008). Yet according to Jay Rosen newspapers are virtually extinct and journalism is moving to a purely online platform (ABC, 2008). When journalism mediums such as newspapers move online there is an assumption that advertisers will move with them and the economic advertising business model of newspapers will continue. This is not the case. In terms of newspapers most advertisers have already jumped ship into new online and broadcast platforms. Even if all advertisers followed papers online the price for advertising is much cheaper. “News Ltd chief executive John Hartigan has summarised the commercial flaw in the online model. ''The problem is an online reader generates about 10 per cent of the revenue we can make from a newspaper reader. So for every reader we lose from the paper, we need to pick up 10 online'' (Hills, 2008). Why?
Online audiences have the ability to pick and choose as compared to a broadsheet paper where everything is in the viewers gaze. It is relatively easy for anyone to set up an information site or a classified site therefore reducing readership of major journalism sites and therefore reducing the pull of advertisers. The second problem with moving the current business model online is summarised by Murdoch. “The Australian-born media giant, with interests spanning the globe, says the news industry has been ''cannibalising'' itself - giving away what it produces at great cost. But last week, as he announced a massive $US3.4 billion ($4 billion) loss for his News Corporation, he pledged to shake up the newspaper industry by abandoning the hybrid business model that media proprietors had hoped would replace an old, broken one. Within 12 months, you'll have to pay if you want to read his papers, including the Herald Sun and The Australian, online” (Hyland, 2009).Within this debate over the new business model for journalism arises the question, who will pay for journalism?
There are numerous theories about this including sponsorship, philanthropy, niche market advertising and tapping into offshore audiences. Let us first look at the way current journalism is conducting business and paying for journalism on the Internet. The basic examples are sites such as smh.com.au which provide infotainment on their online site and news in their printed paper. While this is attracting new advertisers to the site according to Roy Greenslade (ABC, 2009) this is not a viable model. Roy believes anyone who changes their content and alienates their readers between mediums will not survive in that their audience will not follow them online. In essence they are attempting to build a whole new audience online, where audiences are already saturated with information.

ProPublica is the next example, a business which allows journalists to investigate whatever they are interested in and then sell the story onto news organisations. Of course this assumes that large news organisations will survive in the new media environment and therefore pay for journalism.

Subscription based online journalism, such as the Capital Times is the next option. This paper has operated since 1917 and is now purely online. While the carry over of readers to an online format has been successful this is once again not financing as many journalists as have been in news rooms in the past. This is because the cover price alone is not enough to fund the production of an entire paper, advertising has previously covered the difference.

Roy Greenslade said, “Journalism is a broad church,” (ABC, 2009) and these sections are slowly fragmenting into separate sites. This is tapping into the niche market which Erin will talked about. In this sense advertisers can pick a more interested market for their products. The ‘Drive’ section of the paper becomes the ‘Drive’ website and advertisers for cars or mechanics can use this platform. This reduces the problem of the ‘global audience’ where advertisers cannot tailor their advertisements to a set demographic because a student from America, a journalist from Australia and a mother from Scandinavia are all accessing the same journalism site due to the new global audience. Once again this will not support the current amount of journalists, but maybe the new media environment can simply not cater for this large number of journalists, and maybe it shouldn’t have to. It comes down to the question of who is a journalist and what value is allotted to their work.

Citizen journalism is a term that has arisen out of the problem of the changing media landscape. The ability of everyone to access the tools of journalism has allowed everyone to share their views and information, in essence be a journalist. But is this journalism and can citizen journalism be valued the same as professional journalism? Off the Bus is a project which aims at merging the two. Off the Bus is a project created by Jay Rosen which encourages a network of people interested in the same issue to supply information and opinion on the issue. Based on this a journalist can come in with their own research and the provided information and create a story with significantly less journalists then were previously needed to do the same task, but equal or greater amount of information. Of course this relies on individuals supplying information; however the existence of blogs seems to prove that people do feel the need to share information for no fee. Does journalism, therefore need to be paid for at all? Should journalism make money or does it exist outside of the platform it is currently on?

There is no doubt that journalism can make money, however all of the facts are currently leading to the conclusion that journalism in the future will involve less journalists and less profit margins if any. This does not mean a poorer quality of journalism because citizen journalism and independent information sharing has led to a greater collection of knowledge and knowledge collection for journalists to tap into. BBC online is the widest used news service providing further evidence that journalism is valued and that large media groups are the most trusted for such information. “Alarmed at the decline of regional commercial TV news, the British Government is taking £130 million ($260 million) from the annual TV licence fee, paid by Britons to fund the state-owned BBC, to help prop up news programs by independent network ITV” (Hyland, 2009).

Convergence seems to be the current answer to the payment of journalism. Media convergence is the use of multiple media to create complex and rich sites of meaning (Burnham, 2000). Jenkins has an even more in depth view of this convergence.

“Flow of content across multiple media platforms, the cooperation between multiple media industries, and the migratory behaviour of media audiences who will go almost anywhere in search of the kinds of entertainment experiences they want. Convergence is a word that manages to describe technological, industrial, cultural, and social changes, depending on who's speaking and what they think they are talking about” (Fulton, 1996).

An example of this is the program Master Cheff which airs on television, but has extra material on the internet and contestant profiles in magazines, hence access across numerous mediums. For journalism this would mean that profits from one medium could fund journalism in another medium. This would also help with the transition of audience because newspaper stories could have special links and video footage on their site which are further developed and used on television or in downloadable full length documentary version. The convergence leads to advertising packaging and subsidisation through more profitable enterprises (Simmons, 2009). According to The Future of Journalism, “The Nine Network, through NineMSN, has the most successful multi-platform model of any of the commercial TV networks. Seven has also teamed up with a new media company to create Yahoo!7, also rising up Australia’s top 20 websites” (2009). In the convergence model online and television journalism pas for print journalism, hence allowing large media organisations to exist in the future ad ay for journalism.

QUESTIONS

1. Professional journalists act as gatekeepers between audiences and information. If citizen journalists also produce journalism will audiences be able to differentiate between what is and is not reliable information?

2. Could wire services become open to subscriptions by individuals in the future world where newspapers are no longer the buffer between wire and reader?

3. “Musicians and bands used to have to wait for big-money record labels to record, package and promote their work. There was a good chance they'd be ripped off along the way. With digital recording, there are now thousands of labels and independently produced CD's that find niche markets. An entirely new economy has emerged to support these artists. Combined with increased bandwidth, the direct sale and transfer of this independently produced music cuts the traditional music industry out of the picture” (Bryon, 2001).

If journalists were to operate in this way-merging passion with careful deployment of technology, will news and information journalists survive in this market?

4. Is convergence the key?

Bibliography

McKnight, D & O’Donnell, P 2008, ‘The winter of journalism’s content’, The Australian Online, 3 September, viewed 12 August 2009, <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,24283745-7582,00.html>

Kerr, C 2009, ‘Readers key to future of journalism’, The Australian Online, 1 July, viewed 12 August 2009, <http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,25717846-7582,00.html>

Simmons, M 2009, How Much would you pay for Journalism, Crikey, viewed 12 August 2009, <http://blogs.crikey.com.au/contentmakers/2009/02/11/how-much-would-you-pay-for-journalism/ >

Hyland, T 2009, ‘Stop the presses’, The Age Online, 9 August 2009, viewed 12 August 2009, <http://www.theage.com.au/national/stop-the-presses-20090808-edmh.html?page=-1>

Hills, R 2008, What Does the Future of Journalism Look Like? Digital Eskimo, viewed 12 August 2009, < http://newmatilda.com/2008/05/02/what-does-future-journalism-look>

The Future of Journalism 2009, Life in the Clickstream, Walkley Foundation and Media Alliance, viewed 10 August 2009, <http://www.thefutureofjournalism.org.au/life-in-the-clickstream/60-chapter-6-crystal-ball-gazing?start=5>

Hope, C 2002, ‘News in the digital age’, The Futurist, vol. 36, no. 5, pp. 8(2), viewed 13 August 2009, ProQuest 5000.

Fulton, K 1996, ‘A tour of our uncertain future’, Columbia Journalism Review, vol. 34, no. 6, pp. 19(8), viewed 13 August 2009, ProQuest 5000.

Isaacs, S 1994, ‘The golden age, maybe? Columbia Journalism Review, vol. 33, no.4, p. 69, viewed 13 August 2009, ProQuest 5000.

Burnham, A 2000, ‘Journalism.com’, The Virginia Quarterly Review, vol. 76, no. 2, pp. 203(11), viewed 13 August 2009, ProQuest 5000.

Meyer, P 2004, ‘Saving Journalism’, Columbia Journalism Review, vol. 43, no. 4, pp. 55(3), viewed 13 August 2009, ProQuest 5000.

Rich, B 2001, ‘Digital technology could lead journalism back to its roots’, Nieman Reports, vol. 55, no. 2, pp. 90(2), viewed 13 August 2009, ProQuest 5000.