Abstract
Smart media operators have moved on from death-of-print debates to innovate for new audiences, says
Lately journalists have been on trial, literally and metaphorically. Ethics have been scrutinised and in some high-profile cases found wanting; working practices turned upside down by technological advances; employment imperilled by the general financial downturn. So what next?
In the UK, for instance, the print media has been in a state of flux for at least 15 years. The Society of Editors’ annual conferences in the middle years of the last decade seemed perennially to include discussions about facing the future. For the most part there were more questions than answers.
It is clear that the historic decline in the readership of printed newspapers will not be reversed. The sales of UK national Sunday newspapers in June of this year was more or less half what they had been 10 years ago. With print advertising in the doldrums too, the inevitable response from most newspaper companies has been a contraction of editorial budgets.
Nevertheless, after a decade at the beginning of the century when there was more despair than action, the last five years have suggested that journalism can adapt to the modern world. Even in the print arena, innovation can bring rewards. The London Evening Standard, not a million miles from closure until Alexander and Evgeny Lebedev bought it and made it free in 2009, is now profitable and recently increased its circulation to 900,000. The i, introduced as a cut-price, stable-mate for The Independent, has increasingly gained a distinct identity, as well as a significant audience. And the average, combined circulation figures of the UK national dailies still stood at around 7.5 million in June.
The increasing dominance of the internet, which had seemed so threatening to traditional news business models, has ultimately provided opportunities as well. Even though the paywall versus free-access debate shows no sign of being resolved, arguably more people consume journalism now than at any time in the past. Its tone and content may divide opinion but the reach of Mail Online (well over 150 million unique monthly users) is hard to ignore, particularly when it is remembered that its group – Associated Newspapers – was a relative latecomer to web publishing. The Guardian, having been an early pioneer of the online realm, is now clearly identifiable as both an internet brand and a newsprint one.
But if the media industry feels like a more positive place now than it did 10 years ago, there is still a great deal of uncertainty about its future. In part this stems from a realisation that, just when traditional media companies had started to get to grips with the digital age, new players arrived at the table. Social media is long enough in the tooth for us to know that, for all its wonder, it is not going to replace journalism. But the success of Huffington Post and BuzzFeed have demonstrated two things: first, that online-only news and entertainment publishing can be successful; and second, that it is possible to gain a substantial web audience without having a print backstory.
Social media is long enough in the tooth for us to know that it is not going to replace journalism
ABOVE: Print readership is in decline but newspapers are adapting to chase new audiences
Credit: Bloom Design
Indeed, it can be advantageous to be a step away from the mainstream. That in part reflects the low esteem in which the dismissively termed “MSM” – mainstream media – appears to have been held by many in recent times.
The British press reached its nadir with the phone-hacking revelations that engulfed the News of the World three years ago. The subsequent Leveson inquiry exposed a lot of uncomfortable truths about the press in this country (as well as details about the nexus involving newspapers, politicians and elements of the police).
Yet the inquiry failed to draw a line under the debates that raged under its judicial auspices. In some respects that was perhaps inevitable. It was not, after all, able to look into the criminality that had led to its establishment (because of on-going cases) and many of the wider issues it examined were open to highly subjective analysis. Leveson’s conclusions about press regulation were thought-provoking and his fundamental propositions – that self-regulation needed to be both independent and have some form of external oversight are hard to disagree with in principle. The problem is in the interpretation.
That both sides in the wrangling that has followed have sought to argue the toss about what is and is not Leveson-compliant (to borrow that awful phrase du jour) has been thoroughly depressing. It has had the result of reducing press regulation to points of (alleged) principle, while it is the practical impact on journalism and on the public that ought to define a regulator. One might wonder whether those who place so much store by Leveson’s inquiry simply by virtue of its status felt the same about the Hutton inquiry into the events leading up to the war against Saddam Hussein, or any judicial inquiry for that matter. In the increasingly desperate, post-Leveson debate, dogma rules.
To a degree, regulation is frankly a red herring. The system operated by the Press Complaints Commission was not perfect but it was not – and I admittedly have an interest to declare as a former employee – the kind of complete failure that some have presented it as. But the question of what should succeed the PCC has become important because it symbolises a much wider and more polarised discussion about what role “the press” or “the media” in Britain should play.
And fundamentally, it is the existence and nature of that debate which exemplifies, as much as any financial indicator, why journalism’s future is important and potentially vulnerable.
Trust has, after all, emerged as the key conceptual battleground post-Leveson. There are those who would seek tougher regulation, prompted, they argue, by sections of the British press who have shown themselves utterly untrustworthy. On the other hand, for those who argue in favour of a lighter-touch system, trust in journalism is only possible when it is unencumbered by regulation that has any, even theoretical, link to the state. But these measures of trust are not apolitical and can seem divorced from the day-to-practice of the trade.
Aspiring for a more accountable press is one thing; but it is often a short hop to intellectual snobbery and the dismissal of certain types of journalism
For, while issues of trust may have been given a sharper focus by the hacking scandal, but it is the public’s improved access to information online, and the role of social media which have been game-changers on a day-to-day basis. They have already allowed immediate – and often vocal – scrutiny of journalistic activity by citizens.
It is stating the obvious to say that mainstream media outlets are producing more content with fewer journalistic resources than at any previous time. The suggestion sometimes follows that this is a recipe for inaccurate and inadequate reporting. Yet with the instantaneous accountability that comes with Twitter-bombing or email campaigning, so there is no place for journalists to hide. As an experienced hand said to me recently, the days when journalists could take a few liberties because nobody else knew any better are long gone. And that is undeniably a good thing.
Yet formal campaigns for greater trust in the media (which often imagine a halcyon and imaginary time when journalists were held in high public regard) can create problems if they become intertwined with a desire for a different tone, as they seem sometimes to do. Aspiring for a more accountable press is one thing; but it is often a short hop to intellectual snobbery and to the subsequent dismissal of certain types of journalism wholesale.
The reality of the interaction between journalism and its audience is that it is predicated on myriad factors, not only trust and a mutual belief in the delivery and receipt of “proper” news. That was true 20 years ago; it is even more undeniable now.
When BuzzFeed started its life the focus was on fun. But it has since found space for more serious journalistic endeavour. The Daily Mail may be the kitchen-table read for conservative middle England; but Mail Online’s sidebar of shame, despite its rather different style, still has a mass appeal. The Independent and The Guardian might promote the quality of their foreign news reportage, but there is room on their websites for amusing lists and videos.
Newspapers worked – and still work – because they had a mass appeal: news, comment, sport, puzzles, lifestyle tips, book reviews, and a lot else besides all in one place. The early response of publishers to the digital revolution was to forget that simple fact. Instead, the focus was often on replicating online the ideals that the print brand was known for, as if the purpose was to cater for the same audience via a different format. Only in the last five years have we seen the kind of online diversification which ought to have been the natural response of most publishers to having a potentially much wider reach.
Journalism’s future is bright if it can be many things to many people. Trust is a part of that package and criminality is most definitely not – but neither of those concepts should become albatrosses that hinder innovation and expansion.
