April 24, 2011

Entry 10: The changing role of Journalism in the Internet era

Journalism used to be confined to the boundaries of paper, television and radio. But in this digital age of ours, the birth of the Internet has changed the face of journalism. Here’s an introductory video of how Internet has played an integral role in journalism.

With this, the question now is will journalism be able to seamlessly integrate itself and keep pace with the evolving digital age or will it just slow to a halt and degrade the integrity of journalism itself? Chris Ahearn, president of Media at Thomson Reuters shares his opinions on the critical issue journalism in the Internet age:


First, journalism is not synonymous with newspapers and today the discussion has focused too much on newspapers alone. Second, journalism will do more than survive the Internet Age, it will thrive. It will thrive as creators and publishers embrace the collaborative power of new technologies, retool production and distribution strategies and we stop trying to do everything ourselves.

I agree that the bold will survive and the timid will fail. However, the newfangled aggregators/curators and the dominant search engines are certainly not the enemy of journalism. Nor are they the salvation. They do not always refrain from doing evil in their pursuit of profit and audience. And they do fail to “do unto others” at times -– some do steal and use complete or near-complete copies of our and other work and use ad networks such as AdSense to unlawfully monetize without sharing.

We see a world that opens up the newsroom and news gathering process to allow the highest quality and valuable content to flow better from creators to publishers. This new network of syndication is predicated on serving the needs of publishers and their audiences – not what one organization or another simply wants to produce. It is inherently multisource, with rights defined and carrying multiple revenue streams, be they subscription, a la carte, bulk purchase, link-back or revenue sharing. This is a network based on choice and it must be collaborative.

This is the B2B content network the world needs now – and that is what we are building.

We see this platform as an open network that applies consistent metadata to create “intelligent information” designed to help publishers and broadcasters better manage their own and 3rd party content. This is not about locking publishing partners down or blocking search engines – but is about helping all content producers to develop new revenue streams as both a publisher and syndicator of their content. It is about letting the creator choose the most appropriate monetization model for he or herself. We fervently believe that value must always be conferred to the original creator – whoever that is, big or small, incumbent or insurgent.

It will allow publishers to right size their coverage efforts and stop wasting resources on writing the umpteenth undifferentiated story that is available elsewhere. Let’s be honest, too much resource and money is spent on regurgitation as opposed to unique and differentiated labor. It will allow creators to specialize on meeting the unique needs of their audience and will foster creativity. Coupled with responsible behavior by all participants in the link economy – and I do mean all, both incumbent and insurgent – we will see the evolution to a new golden age of journalism and much, much more.


Future of Journalism

With so many differentiating methods of receiving news, be it via Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, online news websites, and even citizen news, traditional journalism has to accept all these changes and adapt themselves to it. In this digital age of ours, it allows us to watch first hand of crisis or world events happening thousand miles away and really observe through the eyes of the average person and the honest opinions that rumble within them. What do YOU think will happen to journalism in the future?

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