Dystopian Plot-lines For Today’s Journalism
Michael Hedges January 13, 2020 - Follow on Twitter
The arrival of this New Year was difficult not to notice. For the media world there would be no slow and easy glide into routines established in the hysterical last decade. Seeing car crashes during the morning commute, figuratively, are now normal. 2020 already has burning things falling from the sky.
 To brace us for the dystopia, the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University - hereinafter referred to as the Reuters Institute - has compiled the thoughts of news media executives on where it’s at, so to speak. They should know, all 233 of them from 32 countries. And what they see is what you get.
They are confident, writes principal author and Reuters Institute senior researcher Nic Newman in a summary (January 9), in 2020 prospects for their companies; 73% vs 6% not confident. But for journalism, so so much; 46% confident. The news business is taming the beast, is seems, but more ferocious animals are out there. Public broadcasters are least confident for their enterprises, 46%, mostly over budget cuts, streaming services and “attacks on news output from populist politicians and commercial media owners.”
Into the weeds and on to the important stuff, half of the news publishers see “reader revenue” as the the financial engine of success. For all but the bravest, that means paywalls. Nic Newman’s caveat: “Growing competition for a limited pool of people prepared to pay for news is likely to be a challenge this year as subscription models mature. Heavy discounting is already widespread and churn rates are likely to become an increasing worry for those that can’t prove consistent value to audiences.”
“With more high-quality journalism disappearing behind registration barriers and paywalls, the democratic dangers may also become more apparent in the year ahead,” said the report. “The fear is that serious news consumption will be largely confined to elites who can afford to pay, while the bulk of the population pick up headlines and memes from social media or avoid the news altogether.”
But 60% of the news publishers appreciate Google, the mothership for YouTube. This is because, the report noted, many have benefitted financially from various Google initiatives. Far less love is expressed for Facebook, just 25% said the social media giant does “enough to support journalism.” A significant majority (56%) have no expectation that policy initiatives like the EU’s “link tax” will make a difference in business prospects. News publishers have all but written off advertising revenue; Facebook and YouTube take most of it anyway.
News publishers remain completely vexed by fake news, particularly from their elected representatives. The vast majority - 85% - agreed that “news media should do more to call out misleading statements and half-truths by politicians.” Fact-checking has become an important part of editorial content but some of those surveyed worry it doesn’t impact “large parts of the public.” Cited a problematic by one US publisher is “the lack of consequences for a President who lies repeatedly has only emboldened a generation of politicians to give up any commitment to truthfulness. It’s grim out there.”
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The endless - and useless - war between legacy news publishers and the tech world has several battlefields. "Both sides are good people," to quote a well-known media phenomenon out of context. News, and the publishers who deliver it, earned high esteem for informing the public. With that came lots of money. That started slipping away half a century ago. By the time publishers noticed, internet technologies had redesigned distribution of information and just about everything else. That, too, came with lots of money.
Those who study media economics have made interesting discoveries about paywalls, the seemingly indispensible cookie monsters meant to extract cash. Publishers love paywalls, generally, because their shareholders want more money. Readers are less excited, particularly those desiring access to multiple sources.
Thoughtful predictions for the coming year in digital journalism and publishing have appeared in recent days. As with recent years, the insight is mostly doleful, evidence persuasive and solutions painful. One thing stands out among all these predictions: money. Easy money from advertising, paywalls, billionaires or, even, governments is not going to save news publishing. Some of it can't be saved, some shouldn't.
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