The sustainable future of journalism

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News generators that offer free summaries lack professional journalists who can capture the essence of a story and present it to a large audience.

Do you still buy the newspaper every day? Or maybe you only do it on Sundays? If any of these apply to you, you are probably in your 40s and belong to a shrinking minority of citizens wherever you live in the world. You may see the news on your mobile as you consult the pieces of information that Google News offers you for free. Perhaps you are one of those who follow the news on TV or listen to it on the radio. Either way, the chances of you paying for the news are very slim compared to your parents, let alone your grandparents.

In a sense, we are in a golden age for news. Twitter, TikTok, YouTube and of course Google all offer news stories. Facebook encourages groups of friends and family to talk and exchange notes about the top local news stories. What’s the point of paying money to buy a newspaper or subscribe when you can get a summary of the most important news absolutely free?

The most obvious answer is that none of these sites hire professional journalists who are well aware of how to get to the heart of a story and present it to a large audience. Recall the resounding success Robert Moore and his team achieved with the British television network ITV on January 6, 2021 when, anticipating potential trouble before Joe Biden’s inauguration and suspecting the Capitolio would be involved, he entered the building accompanied by a cameraman and a producer, becoming the only group of journalists who can cross the border. Or remember the devastating first of two Financial Times journalists when they surprised US intelligence in October 2021 with the story that China had tested a new supersonic missile with devastating space capabilities. Both pieces of news were delivered by experienced, full-time journalists, armed with expert gifts on the one hand and a bundle of luck on the other.

Television news survives from advertising, and the huge sums that once paid much of the cost of news gathering have now migrated to Google and other online sites. Newspapers like the Financial Times are now as dependent on paying customers as they are on advertising. Many digital newspapers are free, even if they charge for their paper version; however, this business strategy cannot be sustained over time. In 2019, I edited a report for the UK government on the sustainable future of journalism, examining both the news industry’s plight and potential prospects for the future.

The report noted that while the government was not entitled to provide general support to the information sector, there were certain types of news that were considered particularly important to maintain the government’s honesty and ensure proper information among citizens. The report labeled them “news of general interest”, highlighting their particular importance at the local level. Good governance – especially good local government – ​​needs experienced reporters who can not only make decisions on public funds at the local level, but also cover the management of schools and hospitals and court decisions. Without this coverage, we will no doubt see these local government functions mismanaged and making unfair decisions or wasting public resources.

It is necessary to design with particular care a mechanism for providing financial support to the information sector. However, the best form of financial aid is the voluntary payment that a citizen makes when subscribing to an online (or even physical) news source. Subscriptions to quality news online are on the rise, just think of The Economist and The Guardian, two newspapers that are experiencing an enormous increase in their international readership. On the other side of the coin, we have other more populist news sources, such as British dailies The Mail or The Sun, who are still reluctant to ask their online readers for a subscription, even though they do charge for their online versions. . A division that becomes worrisome as publications such as The Sun or The Mail tend to spread serious news with some skill, along with others with a more provocative tinge. They have been important resources for promoting media literacy. And local newspapers have become the glue that holds communities together over the years. The survival of these news sources is even more necessary for good governance or as a means of warning citizens than the future of a press aimed at wealthy readers.

Lady of the British Empire Frances Cairncross is a British economist, journalist and academic. She is the author of The Cairncross Review: A Sustainable Future for Journalism. Previously, she was editor-in-chief of The Economist and columnist for the Economy section of The Guardian.

She is an Executive Fellow of the UCLA School of Public Policy and past Chair of the Executive Committee of the British Institute of Fiscal Studies. Between 2004 and 2014 she was Rector of Exeter College, Oxford.

Organized by the World Editors Forum of the World Association of News Publishers (WAN-IFRA) in conjunction with the Canadian Foundation for Journalism, World News Day is a global journalism campaign to highlight the value of journalism.

Source: La Verdad

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