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for many years, journalism had a model that positioned the news industry as essential to liberal democracy as we know it today: journalistic objectivity. it promised objective, reliable coverage of events that mattered to consumers regardless of adherent beliefs. this was supported by a lucrative, ad-driven business model.
that model today, is not as successful as it once was. the percentage of consumers who say they trust conventional news media has decreased significantly. and at the same time, newspapers and magazines are struggling to survive in the internet age, when news sources have multiplied and ad money flows to new platforms.
what then, has led to this significant paradigm shift from conventional news sources to now a significant presence and audience on the internet? did the internet lead to this or can conventional media be credited for its own demise?
journalism’s ad-reliant business model began in the 1830s. benjamin day introduced the idea of newsboys selling newspapers on the street for a penny. his american publication, the new york sun, reported news from about police courts and shipwrecks to odd illnesses, designed to appeal to the masses. it was hugely popular and soon had many imitators, establishing a system that planted the roots of mainstream newspapers as we know today.
as circulation increased, leading to a larger readership, so did newsstand’s revenue. but for the “penny press,” the real money was in advertising. larger circulations meant higher rates. instead of selling content to subscribers, publishers learned to attract large audiences and then sell readers’ attention to advertisers. this model eventually spread across the entire industry. the same model led to the rise of radio and television in the twentieth century.
ad profits allowed news mediums to distance themselves from political parties, bending further towards the support of an idealistic news industry. one that is unaffected by the color of opinion, and reports news and happenings for what they are, unadulterated by political or subjective bias.
no more does that objectivity define the news industry. the collapse of the news industry (and conventional journalism in general) can perhaps be credited to the rise of new technologies among the reasons. the internet forced news media to compete for people’s attention with facebook’s news feed, buzzfeed, mommy blogs and dating apps.
this has led to a paradigm shift in the audience and google and facebook alone took up tens of billions of dollars annually from advertisers that in previous years would have gone to news companies. according to the pew research center, print ad revenue fell by nearly two-thirds between 2006 and 2016, from $49 billion to about $18 billion. free news online encouraged readers to quit subscribing in vast numbers; daily newspaper circulation fell from 55.8 million in 2000 to 31 million in 2017.
it can also be argued that the lack of revenue and the question of news credibility in conventional mediums, were stuck in a vicious cycle. fox news was notoriously criticized for its seemingly propaganda-flavoured news telling during the 2016 presidential elections (and ever since then) in favour of donald trump. several such highly public examples can be quoted that may have led to the rise of a common disinterest among consumers in radically opinionated and seemingly propaganda financed news. the ideology of the news industry was at stake, and continued to deteriorate at an exponential rate.
the now notorious reputation of the news industry and the rising popularity of the internet, left a vacuum. a vacuum that was soon filled by independent journalists, and privately funded news agencies that operated off the internet and social media. these news agencies and independent journalists (the ones with credible sources) had the luxury of not being shackled by conventional censorship. soon giving new life to ‘mainstream news-telling’, they were noticed by audiences in a time where the title for ‘mainstream media’ was up for grabs.
nowthis news, a progressive american media website and campaign platform that primarily functions off of facebook and snapchat, distributes video news content and political campaign material to mobile devices and social platforms. eighty percent of its audience is under the age of 35.
in 2016, nowthis reported that its election coverage videos racked up about 2 billion views. it had at the time, about 4 million social engagement interactions per month. and when it livestreamed the third american presidential debate, the video received about 3 million views total. that’s second only to abc news’ stream (and abc was facebook’s official partner for the event). these numbers speak a significant amount regarding nowthis’ credibility. the platform is quite popular especially with millennials, the audience that makes up a majority of current audiences. “we’ve made a commitment to bringing content to where they live, and millennials live on a social media platform,” said athan stephanopoulos, president of nowthis.
thanks to a combination of numerous factors, may they be the taint on the credibility of conventional news sources or the popularity of social media and its constant integration into our daily lives, social media is increasingly becoming a dominant force. the medium for news-telling is surely shifting, and the sooner this is realised the better. however, it isn’t the case that conventional media is dying, those ahead of the curve are evolving.
new models for funding journalism are emerging from the current chaos. the rise of pay-for-content online publications is a positive sign. this business model makes journalists directly accountable to audiences instead of advertisers. media through this are finding audiences that realize good journalism can have a point of view and still be good. the understanding of what is “objective journalism” is changing.
to that end, conventional media needs a new model that focuses on objective truth that was central to the news-telling ideology all those years ago. audiences will accept coverage with an opinion if they feel that the writer is being fair and making a good effort to tell the truth. such an understanding might also restore some trust in the news media and encourage readers to pay for what’s indeed worth reading!