Journalism is dead

You’d be forgiven for believing this if you are the sort of person that likes going to talks about journalism. What you’ll learn at these talks is that journalism is dying, journalism is dead, journalism is on its last legs; that in a few years time there probably won’t be any news because there’s no money in it; that journalists are being let go left right and centre and no one is hiring; that no one has any idea how to deal with this WEIRD phenomenon called The Internet and there’s also these things called SnapChat and WhatsApp and Twitter? People Tweet, like birds, I suppose? It’s all a bit scary.

Trust me, I have been to enough of these talks in my short life and yet I find myself accidentally attending them, because I think “one day, ONE day, these talks will be positive and interesting and it’ll feel great.”

The thing is, this never seems to happen on a frequent basis and it’s easy to get wrapped up in the idea of a trade barely functioning in its dying throes.

Rearranging deckchairs

The really interesting thing about these conversations is that people repeat them as if it’s new. I’ve been studying journalism since 2006, and working as a journalist in nationals since about 2010/11. I wrote my dissertation about how people get news on Twitter (created in 2007) in 2009/10, and my tutors who all worked as journalists were so astonished that I had decided to do it because they knew nothing about it. Can you see where I’m going with this?

From the very beginning of that time — around a decade ago — I’ve been told that journalism is a terrible industry and all of this nonsense. Think on this — the first smartphone to really be taken up on a global scale was the iPhone, released in 2007. And we are still talking about ‘mobile’ like it’s new.

Why am I throwing dates out here? Because I’m just illustrating how bloody slow we are at adapting to and understanding these new technologies.

If journalism is really a sinking ship then we’ve had about ten years of approaching the iceberg to actually do something about it, and we’ve been, what? Arranging deckchairs?

New signs of life

People are vaguely trying different things now, and to be honest, far from being the signs of a dying industry, this tells me that people still believe there is much left to fight for.

I think what is frustrating is that these decisions are being made by an elite sect of people who are just a few years off retiring and never again worrying about the state of journalism. These are the same people talking about how bad the industry is. But realistically, they won’t be working in it in ten years. So how long-term are these ideas?

For instance, is The Times decision to create editions in a digital sense, going to appeal to new readers? Do Trinity Mirror really think that New Day will be a long-term investment that will pay back in spades?

I don’t know, but none of this makes sense to me.

Looking elsewhere for inspiration

In my mind, journalism could really learn a lot from other sectors. My time at various agencies in the last year has not been in vain from a journalistic perspective — I was seriously impressed with the way that agencies have adapted to digital challenges and are pushing brands and branded content in this supposedly ‘new’ realm.

To be honest, that’s the reason I am still considering switching over for a year or two — I love journalism so much, but it doesn’t appear to love me, and that’s not objectively a bad thing. I would always want to come back and share what I learn. For me, nothing beats the camaraderie of a newsroom, and being surrounded by immensely talented, brilliant people. It’s a really special and unmistakable feeling when you get it right.

Journalism isn’t dying, but over-encumbered legacy organisations are struggling to adapt swiftly. Actually, a shift of perspective paints this as a really exciting time to be a journalist, but it’s just as tough as it always was.