sutton049

The attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that killed at least 12 people today is probably the largest deliberate killing of Western journalists since the bombing of the Los Angeles Times a century ago.   It draws attention to the fact that journalism is becoming an increasingly dangerous profession and reminds us that at least 61 journalists were killed worldwide in 2014 alone. It may sound indifferent, but such attacks actually signify an important reality: journalism matters. In an age where so much “journalism” involves coverage of entertainment, celebrities, fashion, food, and lifestyle topics, journalists that question social values and pursue accountability in ways that anger or offend should to be celebrated. Nobody attacks those who write or say insignificant things. Asking questions that some people don’t want asked is journalism at its best and that kind of journalism needs to be revered. Charlie Hebdo has a history of lampooning politicians and providi...

The majority of newsroom hires in many news organizations today are digitally oriented personnel with titles such as web developer, data scientist, interactive digital designer, social media editor, engagement manager, and digital content editor. These job titles say a great deal about news organizations' strategies of servicing audiences across platforms. They also reflects the reality that screens are now the primary way most people get information and entertainment and that visual display of information has increasingly become the norm in recent decades. There is now a public expectation that news and information will be conveyed with some visual display of information, such as infographics, slideshows, multimedia presentations, mapping, interactive graphics and data bases, video and interactive video, and calculators. The growth in digitally oriented personnel in newsrooms is producing a growing struggle about how news stories should be told and what fo...

Media ownership transparency has become a goal of media reform advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, but is often simplistically presented as a solution to problems in media performance. As I have shown in my research over time, it is not the form of ownership that matters, but the owners themselves. There are good and bad corporate owners, good and bad private owners, good and bad family owners, and good and bad foundation owners. And many owners whose media perform badly on issues of social service and public interest don’t care if the public knows who they are. This is not to oppose making it easier for the public to know who the owners are—in some cases (especially in southeast Europe) owners sometimes hide behind shell companies, investment firms holding their shares, and even individuals fronting for them. Gaining transparency may help identify consolidation and concentration for antitrust and pluralism analyses, but lifting those veils alone is not going to solve the...

Expert journalism is playing an increasingly important role in the provision of news and news analysis. Its emergence and growth is taking away some of the functions of legacy news organizations, establishing new competitors, and creating new opportunities for cooperation.   Expert journalism is a novel form of journalism made possible because of the developments in digital media. Written by persons with high levels of expertise, and designed for those whose interests in specific topics are greater than that of the average newspaper reader, television viewer, or digital news user, it is providing alternatives to news previously available only through print or broadcasting. This type of journalism is practiced by scientists, economists, bankers, medical doctors, and civil society organizations focused on issues, regions, and conflicts. These producers work to provide accurate and, often, balanced content. It is also practiced by specialized professional journalists who provide new...

The most important change in news production today is probably the deinstitutionalization of journalism—the separation of journalism from structural arrangements that significantly influenced its development in the twentieth century. The practice of journalism was heavily influenced in the past century by regular employment in news enterprises, hierarchical arrangements and organized beats, trade unions and professional associations, and common values and training.   These created strong institutional influences on journalistic work from employing organizations and professional colleagues. They provided institutional support to journalistic practices, journalistic specialization, and expanded news and information provision. The arrangements provided the foundation on which better journalistic working conditions and compensation were built.   The newsroom was a construction of the institutional arrangements and became the focus of journalistic life. The newsroom ...

Legacy news organizations (newspapers, magazines, and broadcasters) are confronting three critical relevance challenges as the digital world matures: Changing business configurations and characteristics, declining value of traditional news and informational content, and unhealthy attitudes toward audiences. These challenges will need significant attention if they are to be successful in the new information environment.   During the twentieth century news products were widely used, fast-moving consumer goods. Because media operated in relatively inefficient markets, news organizations were cash-producing investments with high cash flows that yielded high profits. Newspapers had asset-heavy balance sheets and excellent equity positions. The business drivers of the legacy news industry in the latter half of the twentieth century were g rowing consumption in absolute audience sizes (but declining penetration that most executives ignored). Companies changed high prices for advertis...

A clear divide exists between generic labor and talent in media companies and it is now increasingly dividing journalists. The divide initially appeared in the motion picture industry and moved into broadcasting as competition led companies to vie for the talented people—or at least those who could generate the largest audiences and revenue for media companies. The talent concept moved into journalism with the development of television news and salaries for news presenters and leading correspondents that were far above those of average television reporters.    In print journalism, talent initially involved columnists and then encompassed a few well-known reporters. Today, the appearances of journalists at events and on talk shows, individually-authored digital news sites, and the increasing uses of blogs and social media by journalists is transforming many into individual brands that are being using to improve their social standing and connections with audience...

Journalists pretend they spend their time investigating the intricacies of international affairs, covering the inner workings of the economic system, and exposing abuses of political and economic power. Although many aspire to do so (and occasionally do with great effect), the reality is far from the imagined sense of self. Most journalists spend the majority of their time reporting what a mayor said in a prepared statement, writing stories about how parents can save money for university tuition, covering the release of the latest versions of popular electronic devices, or finding out if a sports figure’s injury will affect performance in the next match. Most cover news in a fairly formulaic way, reformatting information released by others: the agenda for the next town council meeting, the half dozen most interesting items from the daily police reports, what performances will take place this weekend, and the quarterly financial results of a local employer. These standard stories are me...

Making small digital news providers sustainable has become the holy grail of journalists and the search continues for workable business models and revenue streams. Advertising may produce some revenue, but it will never generate sufficient resources to support digital journalism because so little advertising money is available for sites with small audiences. About three-quarters of all online advertising goes to the top 10 sites and Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Yahoo account for about 60 percent of all online revenue. This leaves very little advertising expenditures to be contested among all other players--of which news providers are only a small fraction. At the same time, the prices paid for online advertising are falling because there are so many sites offering advertising, the advertising inventory is nearly infinite, and audiences continue fragmenting. This means the majority of funding for start-up digital journalism must come from elsewhere and online news sites—especially s...

Journalists and others concerned about the status of the news industry in North America and Europe keep arguing that we are getting poorer journalism because of the economic state of the industry. But when you ask them “what makes good journalism?” they find it nearly impossible to articulate the concept. Those trying to articulate the elements good journalism tend to use comforting and immeasurable platitudes and to describe it through attributes based on professional practices: pursuit of truth, fairness, completeness, accuracy, verification, and coherence. These are not a definition of quality, but a listing of contributors to or elements of quality practices. Each attribute alone is not sufficient for good journalism and degree to which each contributes is unclear. In practice, most of us settle on identifying journalistic quality by its absence or by its comparison to poor or average quality journalism. Thus we know it when we don’t see it or we describe by...

A growing number of firms are aggressively pursuing the market for information by providing material that answers online searches and employing strategies so their material appears high in search results. These enterprises are providing high quantity, low quality material on topics designed to produce many search hits and driven by the desire to make money from advertising received as high traffic sites. Some are proving quite successful. Demand Media, for example, uses about 13,000 freelance writers to produce about 4000 articles a day for which it gains about 95 million unique visitors with more than 620 million page views monthly. Its eHow.com site alone gets about 50 million users. Ask.com, Yahoo and AOL are also engaging in the market. When you make a search and are taken to answer.com, dictionary.com, wikianswers.com or hundreds of other sites providing such information to the public, you encounter this mass produced content. The business strategy is working and many of the sites...

Efforts to professionalize journalism began early in the twentieth century as a response to the hyper commercialization of newspapers and the “anything goes” approach to news that emerged in the late nineteenth century as a means of increasing street sales through sensationalism, twisting the truth, and outright lies. The impetus for journalistic professionalism originated among publishers who wish to counter the trend and it gained support of journalists who saw it as a means of improving their working conditions and social standing. Journalism training and higher education programs, professional societies for journalists and editors, and codes of ethics and conduct emerged as part of professionalism. These promoted the core values of accuracy, fairness, completeness, and the pursuit of truth. These efforts improved industry practices, pushed out the worst journalists and publishers, and creating some trust in the content of news. They also created environments in which advertisers we...