Journalists don’t seem to know what to do about the “internet” problem. For more than a few years, it seemed like media professionals thought the online thing might blow over. If they hid under their desks or wrote enough narrative pieces it might just go away. Turns out, people keep going online and and some of those people read the news. Conundrum.
Columbia School of Journalism professor Michael Schudson gave a talk today at Indiana University: “The Crisis in News: Is it time to panic yet?” His talk was intended to “cover that work as well as re-evaluate where the U.S. news industry stands today.” In many regards his talk did that and there is certainly value in this kind of evaluation.
“Schudson is author and editor of several books on news media. He has received a MacArthur Foundation “genius” award and was a Guggenheim Fellow, among other honors,” says the IU School of Journalism website. He is certainly a respected scholar and practiced journalist.
After traveling to the Society for News Design conference in Denver and attending several talks about the media during this semester alone, I’m finding that media researchers and professionals tax a lot of energy on exploring the current problem space and gently touch on solutions or predicted futures.
By practice, journalists don’t predict the future. They work to stay detached from the problem space, objective. For reporting that usually works very well. But, industry experts and media researchers have a closeness with data that very few other people have. These people have unique opportunities to shape, inform and design the future of the industry.
There is certainly value in giving talks, writing books and publishing research. By no means is that discounted. Much of the research falls somewhere near the line of discussing where the industry is coming from, where it is and what may happen next.
Schudson did a better-than-most, but still disappointing version recounting the history of media and making vague crystal ball predictions. Schudson reminded us of the things we know about: local news, layoffs, revenue problems, loss of young readers and significant debt. Schudson predicts news industries will depend on other news organizations to supplement whatever their business cannot fund themselves. He suggested it’s possible but not likely that the old business model could be restored or that the American public will see a mixed economy with government news funding.
Schudson briefly mentioned that many unemployed journalists are now working at small startup news companies. This part of the conversation was brushed over. That’s the exciting stuff. Let us spend more time talking about the people who are working on new media models.
Let us talk about what news startups are doing Storyful, Newser, digg, Huffington Post or even Mediastorm. What’s working, what isn’t working? What are the take aways? Schudson has the expertise and research data to synthesize what he knows about the history of the industry with future looking projects.
I am often hesitant to go to journalism lectures because they often end up being discussions about a well researched reporting project. Schudson joked that by the end of the lecture you would know whether or not you need to panic. Humor aside, what value does this bring to audience members?
The talk successfully pulled out at least half of the Journalism School’s faculty and many others to listen to a rehashing of existing problems and vague predictions about the future. Schudson had an opportunity to speak on value and the future when a audience member asked about what faculty should teach in school. He dodged the answer and left an auditorium of academics without answers or new conversation or concept hooks.
The internet is not going away, so let’s at least take look outside the newsroom and take some risks.