The online world has presented some unique challenges to journalism. Readership of print media is falling in most developed countries (paradoxically, it’s rising in India), but readership of online news outlets is going up. So much so that US newspapers such as the Seattle Post-Intelligencer has stopped print runs and exists solely online, while others such as the Christian Science Monitor have only weekend print runs.
The future of journalism is something which should bother us end-users too. So far, a viable alternative to the current ‘giving things away for free’ model for online journalism hasn’t been found. Even for media behemoths with large online presence such as the New York Times, finding advertisers in such difficult times has been quite a challenge.
A few journalists and analysts in the media field have come together to write a book titled 
Journalism is Dead. Featuring articles from multiple top journalists, it’s a must-read for those interested in media and news in general. You can read up individual articles, or even browse through the book itself. Discussions range from case studies to potential new models such as micropayments and subscription models has been discussed.
An interesting point raised in Journalism is Dead is that while larger media houses will survive, smaller ones must innovate to stay afloat. And the way it suggests to go about this is to create unique local content. It’s a good idea, but I don’t think that itself will save them. Another point raised is that while the going was good, most media houses simply didn’t make strong strides in the digital media field.
Journalism is Dead authors sound pretty pissed off, and genuinely believe that micropayments / subscriptions can save their boat from sinking. I don’t think so. For the past so many years, the Internet has offered access to free information for so many people that the free, advertising supported model isn’t going away. I feel that subscriptions only work for highly niche fields, like someone subscribing to the online version of Science. Or quite a few other magazine for that matter – but magazine content is something periodical, say weekly or monthly. People will be willing to pay for that, but not for daily news. There are too many free outlets for daily news right now to shift to a paid model. Try shifting to a paid model, and your media outlet is dead. Maybe not in the long term ‘free’ with the current setup is not possible, but there will be startups who capitalize and take away traffic with free offerings.
A major problem is that most newspapers (and people working in them) don’t ‘get’ new media. For them ‘blogging’ is this weird thing which, if at all it needs to be touched, needs to be touched with a 60-foot pole. New media is so much more performance oriented, and they simply do not get it. In a newspaper you can slap an ad on anywhere and still get paid for it. Look at the hundreds of classifieds. Is each and every one of those advertisers getting value for money? Some are, all aren’t. Online publications have to ensure performance of ads, because they get paid for clicks. Traditional print media companies think that just slapping on ads to a web page is the end of the story. It isn’t. It’s about optimum placement of ads with optimum colors being used et al. Simply changing the background color of an ad can make a difference in the number of clicks being received! And it is these small things that most traditional media firms just don’t get.
What I feel is that journalism is not going to be dead, but it will change its form. Gone will be the days of huge organizations with hundreds of staff on roll. I see journalism as a profession becoming more of a freelance job. People will pay to consume in formats such as Amazon Kindle and cellphones, but by and large as the focus shifts to digital media, media outlets will have to adopt leaner models. There will be nuclear team behind the operational running of a website – a few editors, a few web admins, a few graphic designers – but a majority of tasks will get done by reporters working on their own and filing stories for multiple outlets for a one-time fee. It happens these days too on a much smaller scale. However as media firms strip down to leaner organizations, emphasis will be laid on individual performance. And this model does work. Take Gawker Media for instance. They have a lean team behind their network of blogs, raking in millions in advertising revenue (significant when divided amongst few), and performance bonuses are based on traffic brought in by the stories filed.
In specialized fields which won’t and can’t survive on advertising, subscription models will come into play. Micropayments isn’t gonna happen unless media outlets can decide on a universal payment processing system – which is a laughable dream. Micropayments are going to crop, propietary systems made by different media cartels…and then die a miserable death because they will never be able to reach a consensus on one system to adopt.
Do check out Journalism is Dead. It’s cute how traditional media folk stumble around trying to understand this thing called the Internet.
