The Future is in your hands
By Chris Sewell
About a century ago, the printing press at the time were more focus on the pricing of their newspaper production. At that time, the future had wealth and sunny days in the forecast.
Today, the forecast is a bit cloudy because time as change, along with how the news is produce and how it reaches communities.
The cloudiness is in the form of how journalism is viewed with all the negative news that is out there today, this includes, credible and non-credible materials that the public has access to. Many of the materials out there is widely available on the internet, even though, the newspaper is not as common as it once was; meaning that citizens don’t rely on the physical paper itself, because the content is available digitally.
Due to these phenomena, the journalist is face with a tough challenge that forces them to really think about the survival of the profession and its future.
On medium, I picked out three of the best ways in which this issue can be resolved, I created a manifest from an article by the correspondent.com, titled Our 10 founding principles, you should check them out. The three principles are, we are the antidote to the daily news grind, we do not take ad dollars of any kind and we want to be inclusive as possible.
Listed at number one is their main focus, “we are the antidote to the daily news grind.”
My assumption is that this as something to do with doing things the right way and being ethical to some extent. The principle is carefully written when it’s stated, news is about what happen today and not every day. but only focusing on the sensational and not the rules. I am thinking that sensational exception is a way of describing what is trending or popular in the news and sticking to the rules means being objective by informing our communities about what is actually happening (n.d.).
Principle number two, states that “we do not take ad dollars of any kind,” this platform has its own way of funding its contents, but that’s just speaking for the correspondents and not for other platforms who use ads as a revenue generator. Therefore, being that they are ad free, they still receive payment from people who read their content and wishes to keep them running. Also, outside funding is accepted under the rule that they remain totally independent editorially (Our 10 founding principles, n.d.). Another kind of funding that I came across in the readings (that I wasn’t considering) is through events. It didn’t necessarily say what kind of events but I’m assuming that fund raising could be an example, which could include music, drinks, car shows and etc.
Principle number eight states “we want to be inclusive as possible,” by this the author means including all members of a community and their prospective. I believe that everyone’s perception of the news is different and everyone’s feedback should count, especially, if they are a part of the community that the news serves.
Finally, if these three principles don’t work then we are really in trouble and the government should step in and address the issue, with our votes.
