The downfall of journalism
By Tamar Belfont
Newsroom dissatisfaction is nothing new to society. The rise of digital media in the early 2000s not only created extensive restructuring of newsroom but it also prompted much internecine warfare largely along generational lines.
Old-school newspaper men predicted incorrectly that the internet would create an apocalypse for good journalism.
Newsroom employment across the United States continues to decline, driven primarily by job losses at newspapers. More people are viewing the news through social media. Who wants to pay $1.50-$3.00 a day for a newspaper when you can wake up and go on your phone and check out the news through apps such as CNN, ABC news now available on your iPhones, laptop and tablets. According to a Pew Research Center analysis of Bureau of Labor Statistics Occupational Employment survey data realized even though digital-native news outlets have experienced some growth in the employment line, few newsroom positions were added in order to make up for recent losses in the broader industry.
From 2008 to 2017, the newsroom employment in the U.S dropped by 23% which isn’t a shocker to a lot of people including myself. Journalism in the newsroom has been competitive due to social media. Social media, for example, we was receiving news on Twitter, our current president tweets all his news with the world through social media. In 2008 about 114,000 newsroom employees such as reporters, editors, photographers and videographers worked in five industries that produce news. By 2017, the numbers declined to about 88,000 a loss of about 27,000 jobs.
The decline in overall newsroom employment was driven primarily by one sector which was newspapers. Newspaper newsroom employees dropped by 45% over the period from about 71,000 workers in 2008 to only 39,000 workers in 2017. Also according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics once again the newspaper publishers lose over half their employees from January 2001 to September 2016.
Of the five industries studied, notable job growth occurred only in the digital-native news sector. Sadly since 2008, the numbers of digital- native newsroom employees increased by 79% from about 7,400 workers to about 13,000 in 2017. The increase of about 6,000 total jobs, however, it fell far short from offsetting the loss of about 32,000 newspaper newsroom job during the same period. According to sources, a separate Pew Research Center analysis of reported layoffs at newspapers and digital native news outlets found that nearly a quarter of the digital outlets examined experienced layoffs between January 2017 and April 2018, despite the overall increase in employment in this sector.
Taken from all the information provided, I believe journalism only going downhill due the lack of the truth.
Bringing false news makes it a lot harder for other journalists who are providing accurate news to find jobs in this field. It makes it harder for journalists to find good sources. A journalists job is to tell the truth, provide accurate news for the world to see. Their making a name for themselves, therefore why share false news. When you provide accurate news, your gain more followers, other journalists would want to work with you, you get hired in bigger companies such as ABC News, FOX, and others. Also, another reason for the downfall of journalism in the newsroom is social media. In today’s society, we have so many different platforms that gives us news, gossip, latest fashion, and others. We lost to internet sites such as Google, where you can google anything and become more knowledgeable of the research.
