In olden days, in the 18th century, journalism was a very different affair from the one we know today. Most publications were either political tracts, published and paid for by people with partisan interests, or trade journals, published and paid for by those with goods to sell.
The notion of impartial, professional news reporting was unknown. While many important legal precedents were set by these publications - such as the notion that a published account cannot be libellous if it is true - they were not renowned for piously shunning any hint of bias or vested interest. On the contrary.
Today, the wide accessibility and relatively low cost of Internet access is once again, like the printing press and mimeograph before it, making publishing accessible to a vastly expanded range of people. Why even try to get something published in a newspaper, when you can just blog it? Why pay to commission content when thousands of bloggers will write for free?
In many ways, this revolution is a good thing. Who does not think the near-instant dissemination of news on demand, recommended to you by trusted bloggers or tweeters, is an improvement on having to wait for tomorrow's paper?
However, this change is breaking down the carefully structured means of funding news. For years, publishers relied on either advertising or subscription revenue, or both. Editorial and advertising at the better class of news organisation were strictly separated. Breaches of these Chinese walls were grounds for dismissal or scandal, because without the trust of readers, publishers could not sell their attention to advertisers.
This revenue paid not only for a few pages of limited editorial opinion. Mostly, it funded the massive infrastructure of primary news reporting, which at the best of times, takes man-hours and effort, and sometimes costs lives.
Newspapers are dying at an alarming rate.
Ivo Vegter, ITWeb contributor
A frequent theme among "old media" editorialists is that this revenue is being undermined. Not only is it being diverted from primary news sources to derivative channels of comment and aggregation, but it is also being diluted, because there are so many more of the latter.
One would like to think that trusted media organisations can continue to command enough of the revenue pie to keep paying for primary reporting. But the facts suggest otherwise. Newspapers are dying at an alarming rate. Changing tack from scrupulously impartial to entertainingly opinionated sometimes, but by no means always, saves them. Many hold-outs report depressing financial numbers or attract only fire-sale prices.
As a consequence, those who produce primary news will be paid less, or not at all.
The corollary is that the only people who will continue to do primary reporting are those who are wealthy enough that they can afford the time and effort, or have a vested interest in doing so.
Some will be journalists, struggling on in the face of declining real incomes, because they're committed to the cause of journalism. Some will be professionals, capable and alert to the interesting, the informative, the entertaining, and the important events around them.
But many of them will not be. Many will be companies with a product to punt or individuals with a service to sell. Many will be political candidates with a platform to promote, activists with a drum to bang, or customers with an axe to grind. And as for quality, this will be represented by popularity rankings; visibility will depend on the tyranny of the lowest common denominator. Silicon Valley author Andrew Keen calls it the "cult of the amateur".
For now, good journalism still commands some income. It is rarely a luxury life, but it's a living. If the conundrum posed by the Internet is not solved, however, this will not last.
Soon, people with the skill, knowledge and experience to discover and report primary news will find they have to spend their time at other work, if they are to earn a living. Soon, "news" will consist of special-offer vehicles, party-political tracts, execrable entertainment and ill-informed opinion, written by either the wealthy or the unemployed. It will give them a disproportionately loud voice, while the productive majority have their noses to the grindstone.
Soon, the media will once again, like it was two or three centuries ago, be the exclusive province of the leisured classes.
There is no easy solution. The copyright horse has bolted, and the news has been democratised. There have been many attempts at strengthening the tethers that link primary news and intelligent content to the revenue to fund it. A few media outlets have made brave stands, trying not only to extract payment for content people claim to desire but have long enjoyed for free, but also trying to develop the technical and legal means to enforce those demands. Most of these efforts, to date, have ranged from feeble and pathetic to farcical and draconian.
This is a good reason not to succumb to the seductive euphoria of the new-media revolution. It is a good reason not to dismiss uncritically the fretting of "old media" types. It is a good reason to recall that the phrase: "It stands athwart history, yelling Stop," was not a barb aimed by critics, but a mission statement.
That said, it is also an excellent reason to aspire to join the leisured classes.
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