Murdoch spits into the wind
Here are my thoughts on Murdoch’s broadside against Google and other online leeches, published today on South Africa’s top IT news site, ITWeb. I agree with him, feel for him, and wish him well, but I’m not convinced even he’s got the clout to recork the genie bottle.
Also, published on Tuesday on The Daily Maverick: Peace, love and schadenfreude. Why is being an advocate of free-market capitalism enough to get you damned? Poor people need the free market more than anybody else.
Deprofessionalisation is affecting many occupations other than journalism. Social work, IT, medicine, and teaching are all affected. In some cases this is simply a shift of boundaries, as with the changing role of accountancy in the UK.
Some bloggers and blog aggregators are accreting the same kind of trust that traditional news gathering organisations have enjoyed. At the same time, many traditional media companies are pissing away the trust of their readers by diluting their editorial stance, by incorporating covert advertising tie-ins, by generally treating their readers as idiots, and by serving cheaply produced pablum. Some change is probably overdue, and I think there are opportunities to earn a living while maintaining high standards even in the new environments.
As you point out, a problem is the disconnect between reporting and the revenue collection point. Yet I believe many people will happily pay for others to perform a trusted editorial role. The editorial role needs to shift from one where scarcity is the main motivation, to one where an excess of low quality provides a role for a valued intermediary. When mainstream magazines are full of articles that could have been written by any random blogger, then of course their market will be eaten by bloggers.
People pay for the WSJ and FT because the amount they charge is trivial compared to the value of the information contained in the analysis of their reporters and their selection of topics. On the other hand, people are unlikely to pay much for stories about celebrities (there is a market but the value per reader is quite small), and certainly not much for regurgitation of press releases.
I think journalists need to establish themselves as brands, with editors as their customers. Editors need to establish brands based on selection of material and specific, partisan ways to see the world, which can then attract specific audiences.