Has journalism taken its final breath? Many say yes. Some can even remember where they were when they heard it. It was said to have happened on an unseasonably cool Sunday morning in late August of '08. To say it went out with a bang would be an enormous overstatement. The shallow breathing had been going on for a number of years, but had gotten much worse the last few. Most people who have maintained some semblance of objectivity and reason in life new it was just a matter of time. This was not a surprise to them. The forces against pulling through were just too strong.
Interestingly, I am not sure journalism itself saw it coming. When you travel through life working off of false premises, you miss a lot. This is certainly one of those scenarios where they did it to themselves, so you cannot feel too bad. There were plenty of missed opportunities along the way to straighten themselves out, but they were just too far gone.
So how does something like this happen? Well, you work at, and they have been working very hard to bring about their downfall for decades. It is a little sad, because it was once a proud industry and we actually looked up to many of these people. At one point, they almost held a celebrity stature, but no more. Maybe that explains it. We all know what happens to a lot of celebrities when they grow up. They self-destruct. It's a mental thing. This actually turned out to be complete self-destruction and only a miracle, or themselves, can bring it back.
As is the case with many events like this, there may not be one single reason. If you look closely, you can at least identify a couple of obvious factors.
1: The Nature of Selling News.
News is a business. In order to stay in business, you need to sell your product. In this case, the product is news stories, which brings in customers, which then brings in advertising dollars, which pays the salaries, etc. Uninteresting stories, no ad dollars. Stories that jolt your consciousness, more ad dollars. I guess it does not say much about people in general that what sells and is interesting to them is misery, negativity, suffering, etc. Those are the stories that bring in and keep the customers, and help to increase advertising dollars. Positive uplifting stories and selling ads doesn't mix, in case you ever wondered.
Real quick, think of the last positive story you heard on the news. It is hard. What comes to mind for me is the Berlin wall being torn down, Baby Jessica being rescued, Moon Landing (although I didn't see it), and... that's really all I can think of. Basically, positive news is just not a big seller, so what journalism did was to seek out negative stories. The more negative and horrific the better. Even in sports and weather journalism, what do they mostly seek out and lead with as their top story? Of course, negative events and news if they have it.
This alone did not single handily bring journalism down to its current state, but for many that see the pros of positive, rewarding, motivating, and inspiring information going into their minds and subconscious, many just said enough is enough. They just realized that "being informed" of nothing but death, car crashes, scandal, failures, hardship, and misery is just not adding to a productive happy life. They in turn found something else to be informed about. It is indisputable that this type of information constantly being fed and programmed into the minds of humans is highly destructive. Just think what it does to a developing child.
2: Scared Straight Journalism.
This seems to be the real culprit. If you have not heard by now, the media (TV news, newspapers, news programs, magazines, many websites) all originate from a handful of media companies. That is fine, but somewhere along the way these media conglomerates decided it is not enough to write and report the news. They decided they are going to have a biased agenda that they will support and propagate. This is when journalism as a profession really began its decline. Most media has lost all semblance of objectivity and balance. Why? The only thing I can guess is that they believe they can somehow sell more advertisements.
I am not sure this is working for them. Have you heard of a successful newspaper recently? Most are failing miserably, and it's not the Internets fault. What happened is that in their effort to promote and support a particular agenda, they lost a whole bunch of folks (customers) who see through them and their stories. If you work in the media, and you decide to go against the grain, as one media outlet has done, you will incur an on slot of abuse from the rest of the industry. Nobody really understands why. But guess whose news programs usually win in the ratings? The lone holdout.
So now, if you want to be in journalism, earn a living, and stay employed, you better appeal to the other 90% of people in your field including the people up top. Don't worry about the majority of potential end-users of your product. That would make too much sense. You can no longer write or report on a story in an objective, reason oriented, and balanced fashion. You must skew things to the side of the agenda you are inexplicably promoting. You must find stories and information that promotes or supports your agenda.
Most journalists today are afraid and that is immensely sad. They will go to jail to avoid revealing a source, but then turnaround and lose all credibility by not being objective in their writing and reporting. Go figure. They know that if they work on stories in an objective manner, but the story goes against the media industry's general bias, they will stand out, and of course you wouldn't want to do that.
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