NEWS DELIVERY is changing from a traditional hierarchical model to a more collaborative approach, the Parnell Summer School heard yesterday.
Helen Shaw of Athena Media told a panel discussion entitled Citizen Journalism and Beyond that the media was going through a phase of transition and journalists need to recognise the shift in power.
Although the professional media may worry about the loss of power to the internet, it was a “very exciting and liberating environment” for citizens, Shaw told her audience. It was “very difficult” for media organisations to get used to the rapidity of change, but they needed to reinvent the idea of news content because, through the use of Twitter, Facebook and blogs, people were now empowered to tell their own story.
While newspapers had always been able to adapt to "what's been thrown at them" in the past, they had been slow to face the trials of the online world, journalist Rosita Boland of The Irish Timessaid.
The biggest challenge was that print and broadcast media had become more inclusive, she said, adding that where 20 years ago the only way to interact with a newspaper was through the letters page, people could now comment on most articles.
“This is good because it keeps us on our toes but it comes with its own set of challenges.”
Boland cited problems in the US newspaper industry and how, due to cutbacks, more and more news was becoming syndicated.
“You have homogenous news . . . instead of having your paper’s voice and perspective, you’re getting the same story being told across the place.”
She said some newspapers in the United States were asking people to provide content for the “soft news” pages like parenting or the arts and warned of the dangers of selling this as professional journalism.
Newsrooms were expensive to run, but that investment was needed because “if you don’t have that then people are not going to be able to trust what you are doing”.
Former RTÉ broadcaster Mark Little said journalism was entering a “golden age”. In his lecture Write Here Right Now, Little said he felt the marketplace was changing and journalists would become more akin to “freelance service providers” rather than part of an institution.
“I think the core institutions will shrink but I don’t think there’s any lack of demand for storytellers in the world today.”
Little said people needed to stop thinking of the survival of newspapers as a physical product and start thinking of them as “a valuable service to the community”.
He said the business model for journalism was changing and newspapers and TV stations needed to get away from the ratings model and look at what is valuable for readers.
“At the moment all we are capturing is what people are buying, what people are watching, but what I think we have to do is find out where this goes next,” he added. “To find out what the readers, what the viewers find valuable in their lives and so far, we are not measuring that.”
