The (rapid) decline of the media industry
Those of us who have been classically trained in journalism (from back in the days when journalism was more than blogging and posting videos to Twitter), it’s hard to see the decline of the world in which we once thrived. Writing for a local newspaper in the 80s showed me two things that I can say are amongst my most insightful perspectives:
- Journalism has always been an engine that drives revenues
- Real “journalists” were going to be replaced over time as technology improved
At the time I was called an apocalyptic freak. I believe those were the actual words used by an editor who was, at the time, in his 60s and is still alive today. Yes, I was correct on both counts; I wish I would have marked the date because it hasn’t happened very often since.
The infographic below that I found on TheNextWeb does a pretty good job at reflecting my perceptions of the trends in media today.
As a budding freelance journalist, all I can say is that there is a wealth of opportunity out there. A decline in print media does not mean you can’t go out and find subjects to cover and there is work everywhere. Open and fast moving electronic media is the best thing in the world for anyone who can keep up with it.
Evolve or die.
Journalism used to be about finding newsworthy stories which actually had an impact on a number of people’s lives, reporting to publicize, and continuing with investigative followups then doing in-depth analysis. What we have now are lazy journalists and commentator bloggers (which I can say, I myself am one), who take stories at face value, then move onto the next puff piece story without doing sufficient investigative followups, while we bloggers argue and rant about what went wrong.
Politically motivated classical journalists no longer control the content of the information to which we citizens have access. This is a very good thing.
LMAO . . . I assume you were joking.
It’s not sad. Save the trees.