Events

24 August 2010

2010 Winter Lectures: The End(s) of Journalism "Paying the piper"

Lecture

This lecture - which draws on research undertaken for a doctoral thesis - explores the near-term future of serious journalism from a structural perspective. It examines the different types of organisation that deliver what we might describe as democratically-significant journalism and assesses their ability to do so in the future. We have all grown up in the era of mass media: Major commercial and public service entities have had the ability to disseminate volumes of information to large audiences to create a common understanding of ideas and events. However, technology, audience fragmentation, corporate expansionism and recession have created a 'perfect storm' that has undermined the business models of commercial media organisations large and small. Increasingly, they are either unable or unwilling to fund the level of editorial resource needed to sustain the sort of standards-based journalism that meets the democratic needs of society. On the other side of the coin, communities are becoming less inclined to pay for the news. Today’s lecture proposes that alternatives to profit-driven news media companies will be needed and that their structure cannot be left to chance if standards-based journalism is to survive in an environment where not everyone is prepared to pay the piper.