What If Journalism & Capitalism Just Don’t Mix?
News should look to non-profits, not video, for its savior
Bear with me, everyone. The essay you’re about to read is brought to you by a vacation downashore during which I read 1984, Animal Farm, and Brave New World.
Just before my vacation, it was announced that the recently rebooted MTV News would be rebooting again with a “pivot to video.” The site’s crack team of writers was laid off and the industry wailed its laments, worrying that the written word was being undervalued in exchange for ad-rich, happy-shiny video. Then came plenty of arguments that video is just another trend, like blogging and podcasting before it, that the media clings to as a life raft — a Band-Aid fix, and one that isn’t very profitable to boot.
Of course, as I sat on the beach reading all-too-prescient dystopian fiction, I too was lamenting “the pivot.” That’s because I, like Neil Postman, believe image-based media like video are inherently shallower — and thus worse for consumers, journalism, and democracy — than text-based ones.
However, this confluence of news and light summer reading also allowed me to come to terms with the fact that journalism as we know it and capitalism are just straight up incompatible. They may coexist and sometimes they may even thrive simultaneously, but in the end they go together like oil and water, sexist Doctor Who fans and the march of time, or Ivanka Trump and feminism.
Historically, journalism (or the act of gathering and presenting news and information) has most often taken the form of newspapers. Readers paid a small fee in exchange for information they felt was important to know. Soon after their creation, relatively speaking, newspapers began selling ads as additional sources of revenue. But readers still paid for the paper and the information they received was funded by their interest in the product.
Today, not enough readers pay for information to fund the gathering of it. They’re not interested. End of story. As capitalism dictates, if people don’t want to consume it, then it shall not be made.
And why should they? The internet hosts an unlimited supply of fun, free things to do. During every “pivot to video” panic, the plot point that always gets left out of the conversation is that newspapers had way less competition just a few decades ago. There were literally fewer ways to entertain yourself. Plus, not everyone was picking up the dailies to be considerate citizens; they had comics, and crosswords, and move times, too.
When the internet came around newspapers screwed up big time by not requiring that readers paid for the information they received. This was a misstep, to be sure. Had that information been the only thing available on the internet, perhaps advertising could have bridged this gap. But it wasn’t, and it isn’t, and advertising doesn’t pay the bills. People have to, and they won’t.
So now we have news organizations competing for smaller and smaller audience fragments, for fewer and fewer seconds of attention. But not only is journalism as we know it not compatible with the trials of post-internet capitalism, it isn’t even compatible with the global competition that comes with it.
Traditionally, journalism depends on reader trust in order to continue the buying-producing cycle. Thus, at its purest, journalism relies on stringent ethics to survive, and veracity of information becomes its one and only sales pitch. But competition, especially competition for money, especially competition for money in a desperate market, corrupts. When journalism depends on reader attention instead of trust to continue production, entertainment rather than ethics brings in the money. And without ethics, there is no journalism. There is only content, its obnoxious step-cousin.
So, journalism is no longer sustainable as a capitalistic enterprise. As we now know, for various economic and cultural reasons, it is not a cash cow. But to many it is important and worth pursuing. Worth purchasing. What do we do in a capitalistic society when a niche group wants to produce a niche product? We acknowledge that said product is not a profit-making industry, but that it is worth something besides money — our time, our love, our attendance. Those dedicated supporters fund and run the business themselves and spend the rest of their time convincing others it is important and worth pursuing. We call it “non-profit status.”
Yes, reader, my Orwellian vacation led me not to the front lines of a proletarian revolt (yet), but to the soapbox to speak in favor of turning all journalistic enterprises into non-profits. Those who want it and think those who can’t afford it should have it will build it up, and like many a ballet company, museum or research laboratory, others will benefit from the labor.
Could I instead advocate for state-subsidized media or public media? I could. But in the shadow of a free press-hating administration alongside the specter of “fake news,” I don’t think that’s a winning battle. At least not now.
Non-profit journalism is nothing new. ProPublica, the Center for Public Integrity, NPR, and many more organizations are funded this way. What I’d like to see are more examples like The Lenfest Institute for Journalism, which, thanks to a philanthropic gift, is the sole owner of the Philadelphia Media Network, a group of three news organizations that have struggled in the for-profit world of late. This structure is a recent development and its benefits are not yet clear, but it’s certainly an experiment worth trying. Anything’s better than “pivot to video.”
TL;DR: Ad supported capitalist media corrupts journalistic ethics. Instead of pivoting to video, news organizations should be pivoting to non-profit status.
Like what you’re reading? Sign up for BOOM letter, a weekly newsletter for better citizens through media literacy.
