Future of Journalism

Where do you think the future of journalism is going? Do you have an example or business model or idea of how it can succeed moving forward? What might be some major challenges journalists need to overcome first? And anything else you’d like to expand on.

The future of journalism will be stuck behind a paywall. So to read the rest, please sign up to my blog for $5 a month. That’s just a joke but it will soon be the reality. Unfortunately, soon everyone will soon need to pay for a digital subscription for the news and that’s going to leave a lot of people without critical knowledge. The consumers that do pay also might only have one version of a story because people will be less willing to pay for multiple news subscriptions for countering points of view. As more news outlets put their articles behind the paywall, non-subscribers will only get small portions of stories online for free. Advertisements will also get more intrusive and frequent. If news outlets get more of their revenue from subscriptions instead of ads, that could be a sea change in newsrooms as outlets work to provide more news on what their subscribers want.

There is some good news on newspapers making money. A recent story by Neiman Labs, “The Guardian actually makes money now” (https://www.niemanlab.org/2019/05/want-to-see-what-one-digital-future-for-newspapers-looks-like-look-at-the-guardian-which-isnt-losing-money-anymore/) shows a path for profitability for newspapers. It includes “making a majority of your revenue from digital sources, making a majority of your revenue from readers rather than advertising, make a digital subscription product for superfans to buy, and asking for money often”. Using all those methods, The Guardian made “£800,000 operating profit for the 2018-19 financial year — compared with a £57m loss three years previously”. That’s great news for The Guardian but even the article points out how other newspapers will have trouble replicating those results.

One other path for journalism is going non-profit. There are now pushes to make some news outlets into non-profits organizations similar to churches. That way they could take donations along get tax benefits. The Salt Lake Tribune is considering that change (https://fox13now.com/2019/05/13/salt-lake-tribunes-publisher-details-plans-to-make-the-newspaper-a-nonprofit/ ). Making journalism non-profit would make the country re-evaluate the way it views news and its position as the fourth estate.

Journalists have always been overworked and underpaid. That will never change. We have change how the public views our industry, allowing them a more inside look into our lives and how we do our work. That would create a better relationship with the public and show them just how important we can be to their lives.