Is journalism doomed?

Are we, in the words of Dad’s Army’s Private Frazer “all doomed”? I’m talking, of course, of the future of Scottish journalism.

Talking to ex-colleagues still working in journalism these days, the atmosphere is funereal. It is timely that this week a new online community, The Scottish Future of News Group, has been set up by the Daily Record’s Iain Hepburn, to ponder this prickly question.

At Craig McGill’s recent Scottish Social Media dinner in Glasgow, Iain launched an impassioned defence of the value of journalism. His argument was essentially that unlike the legions of bloggers in their pyjamas whose contributions are little more than opinions, journalists do the hard work of checking out facts to make sure that stories actually stand up.

He’s right, of course. Proper journalism – good old-fashioned digging around, finding out things the authorities don’t want you to know, verifying the facts and then publishing – is a noble calling and serves a very important purpose in public life.

At the same dinner, Stewart Kirkpatrick, editor of Scotland’s latest newspaper, the Caledonian Mercury, claimed there has never been a better time to be a journalist and that we are entering a new golden age for journalism in Scotland. I worked with Stewart at The Scotsman and I glory in his spirit. I wish him all the success in the world with his new venture, but I cannot share his sunny outlook for journalists.

Journalism will evolve into new forms as the contours of the digital revolution become more apparent. Paper may become a thing of the past, people may even, if Rupert Murdoch is correct, be prepared to pay for some of the online stuff they have been used to getting for free for the past few years.

But what journalism will not do, if current trends continue, is pay journalists – certainly new recruits – a decent living wage. Journalism must be one of the few occupations in the world where people entering the profession are paid less in actual terms now than they were 20 years ago. Journalism was once a reasonably well-paid profession. For the past two decades or so, greedy newspaper proprietors have squeezed more and more profits out of the business while wages for new recruits have gone down and down and down.

Newspaper owners have systematically destroyed newsrooms up and down the country. Experienced reporters – with contacts, a nose for a story and proper grammar – have been forced out the door and replaced by cheaper weans willing to work on a shoestring. Today, journalism is a low paid profession with no sign things will get better.

While in the past, the bosses bled the business dry, today, thanks to the advertising slump and declining circulations, they genuinely don’t have the money to pay good salaries. If one of my kids asked about getting into journalism I’d advise them they’d be better off stacking shelves in Tesco – at least there they might eventually earn a decent wage.

Unless media groups can find new and innovative ways of making money from the net, the outlook for journalists is looking grim on the financial side. Good quality journalism that holds a mirror to authority and entertains and informs us is worth paying for. I’d certainly fork out for high calibre information from the likes of the FT and The Economist, and my hunch is that amid the oceans of junk on the internet, there may be a flight towards quality paid-for journalism. That way lies hope. I haven’t worked out what Stewart’s model is for the Caledonian Mercury but I hope he’s cracked the conundrum of how to make money out of online news.

Most journalists are feeling unappreciated, under-paid and unloved – but they still have much to offer. I believe that in the near future, smart businesses and organisations that want to stand out from the rest of the digital dross will realise they need to produce high quality content.

Journalists are excellent communicators with much to offer. The challenge in the future is how to position themselves as providers of top quality content.

We’re not all doomed – we’re just not quite sure where we are going.

www.breenmedia.co.uk

Can Rupert Murdoch save journalism?

Rupert Murdoch has thrown a huge rock into the media pool by announcing he is planning to start charging for some online News International information.

How to make cash from internet news sites is the biggest conundrum newspapers face in the 21st century and no one has cracked it yet. Having given the shop away years ago by providing print news online for free, most commentators believe there is no way back. Why on earth would consumers used to getting their news free from any number of web sites suddenly start paying for the privilege?

I don't have a clear answer, but I do have a growing sense that as people start getting to grips with explosion of 2.0 information, there will be a marked shift towards quality. The reason for this is that amidst the diarrhoea of digital information out there, there is actually a lot of really good stuff that is worth accessing - and maybe even paying for.

Take Twitter. At first, many people simply couldn't fathom the point in receiving instant messages from thousands of complete strangers every day, much of it mind-numbing trivia. There's no doubt that none of us has the time to read all of this stuff, but used properly, Twitter can be an extraordinarily effective tool. The trick is to follow people or organisations who post information that has real value - whether it is a tech nerd keeping you up to date with the latest digital developments, someone who supports your football team who roots around the net for articles, an airport tweeting about flight delays, or your favourite restaurant alerting you if tables become available at the last minute. All of this is good stuff.

In turn, if you post useful information on Twitter, on blogs, or on social media sites, you can establish yourself as an expert, build relationships and win business.

This flight to quality that I sense is happening, could persuade some of us to pay the likes of the New York Times, the Guardian, Daily Telegraph or the FT for our news. It's a big ask, but my old boss at The Scotsman, Tim Luckhurst, who now plies his trade at the Centre for Journalism, believes that if newspapers can charge for content, then they can reinvested it in high quality journalism. He notes, quote correctly, that the legions of citizen journalists who micro-blog from the streets of Tehran about the Iranian elections are good for democracy because they defying attempts at censorship. However, amateur journalists are highly opinionated and are not trained to be critical, objective and accurate. If you want information you can trust, you need professional journalists - and charging for online content might allow struggling newspapers to continue supporting great journalism.

Love him or loathe him, Murdoch has an uncanny knack of spotting where the media market is going and jumping into that space early. If he's right, and others follow, the Dirty Digger just might turn out to be the unlikely saviour of journalism.

www.breenmedia.co.uk