Can Barack Obama save journalism?
This is not as silly a question as it may seem.
Whoever wins the election in the fall, although my guess is that it will be Obama, the fact is that he has already shaken the established order in American politics by showing that a publicly funded campaign is a real possibility.
Instead of taking money from PACs and lobbyists, Obama has shown that it is possible to raise money, and big money, using the Internet to connect with ordinary citizens.
In all the fuss about whether Hillary will drop out or not, this extremely important point has not gotten nearly the attention it deserves. This is a whole new way of doing the people's business.
Clearly a lot of it has to do with Obama's charisma and star power, but an awful lot has to do with Internet technology. He has blazed a trail that others may follow.
I'm hoping that one of those others is the institution of American journalism.
There's a fascinating discussion occurring over here, a blog/forum sponsored by the Encyclopedia Britannica people.
In a nutshell, here's the problem: Newspaper readers are moving to the Internet, but the use of advertising revenues to subsidize news gathering doesn't work on the Internet because a) Internet advertising is relatively cheap and b)the Internet allows advertisers to stop advertising altogether and find other ways (i.e. the Web) to connect with customers.
Don't take my word for it; read Jay Rosen's analysis.
If you invest in or work at a traditional newspaper company, this is terrible news--especially because of the inevitability of it all. Believe me, there is no turning back on this one.
But if you have long been troubled by the fact that it is corporate America that subsidizes the news business and uses it to advance its agenda, this is not necessarily a bad thing ... so long as we can find someone else to cover the cost of news gathering.
Here's where the Obama thing comes in.
He has shown that it IS possible to turn away from the traditional way of funding a campaign by asking for corporate donations. Instead it is possible to get citizens to cover the costs.
Similarly journalists need to realize that losing the old subsidy system could be the best thing that ever happened to them ... so long as they can develop the mechanisms to tap ordinary citizens for support.
If politicians can do it, I'm pretty confident that reporters can, too.
Whoever wins the election in the fall, although my guess is that it will be Obama, the fact is that he has already shaken the established order in American politics by showing that a publicly funded campaign is a real possibility.
Instead of taking money from PACs and lobbyists, Obama has shown that it is possible to raise money, and big money, using the Internet to connect with ordinary citizens.
In all the fuss about whether Hillary will drop out or not, this extremely important point has not gotten nearly the attention it deserves. This is a whole new way of doing the people's business.
Clearly a lot of it has to do with Obama's charisma and star power, but an awful lot has to do with Internet technology. He has blazed a trail that others may follow.
I'm hoping that one of those others is the institution of American journalism.
There's a fascinating discussion occurring over here, a blog/forum sponsored by the Encyclopedia Britannica people.
In a nutshell, here's the problem: Newspaper readers are moving to the Internet, but the use of advertising revenues to subsidize news gathering doesn't work on the Internet because a) Internet advertising is relatively cheap and b)the Internet allows advertisers to stop advertising altogether and find other ways (i.e. the Web) to connect with customers.
Don't take my word for it; read Jay Rosen's analysis.
If you invest in or work at a traditional newspaper company, this is terrible news--especially because of the inevitability of it all. Believe me, there is no turning back on this one.
But if you have long been troubled by the fact that it is corporate America that subsidizes the news business and uses it to advance its agenda, this is not necessarily a bad thing ... so long as we can find someone else to cover the cost of news gathering.
Here's where the Obama thing comes in.
He has shown that it IS possible to turn away from the traditional way of funding a campaign by asking for corporate donations. Instead it is possible to get citizens to cover the costs.
Similarly journalists need to realize that losing the old subsidy system could be the best thing that ever happened to them ... so long as they can develop the mechanisms to tap ordinary citizens for support.
If politicians can do it, I'm pretty confident that reporters can, too.
posted by Miles Maguire at 9:08 PM
2 Comments:
But wouldn't that completely eliminate the pretense of objectivity in reporting?
Supporters give money to Obama because he shares their values. They are investing in him because they expect a return on that money.
If private citizens, organizations, businesses started throwing money at journalists and various media outlets, they, too, would expect a return. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but you know the phone call would come eventually:
"I've donated thousands of dollars to your newspaper over the years, and you're telling me you can't send a reporter and a photographer out to my ribbon cutting?"
Then the implied threat of if you don't make me happy, the cash flow will get stemmed ASAP.
Right you are--that it's a "pretense" of objectivity.
But the key point is this--it's better to be at the mercy of thousands (or millions) of individual readers whom you might offend than at the mercy of a dozen or so major advertisers.
There will always be people who go away mad. It's a lot easier to keep doing what you think is right if you are risking a small fraction of your income (a reader's individual contribution) as opposed to a very large fraction of your income (from a major advertiser).
And there are other ways to achieve the goal of accuracy as opposed to pretending to be objective.
I think what politico.com is trying to do to encourage transparency in reporting and story development is a good idea, for example.
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