Journalism in the New Economy

When looking at how journalism fell to the point it’s at now, it’s interesting to note that this demise was about a decade in the making.

The damage done to the industry isn’t a side-effect of the 2008 housing bust or the waning recession. Journalism’s cancer was largely self-inflicted. The decline was a long time coming; the signs were there but we didn’t see them. Industry leaders failed to identify some problems early—like matching decreasing print revenue with internet ad sales—and they didn’t take other issues seriously—such as addressing the roles of internet, print, and cable-based news outlets.

Like cancer, these issues were hard to detect early, but easier to cure. And easy to detect later, but harder to cure.

Perhaps the catalyst of all this was hubris born from success. Success itself is not the cause of decline, but hubris, this outrageous confidence born of the success, was. It lead to a culture of overshadowing less than pleasant data in lieu of more favorable metrics. People were penalized for bringing uncomfortable and unpopular facts to the table. There was, and still is, a denial of negative data. It’s really interesting how the industry as a whole dealt with this, they would discount negative data and amplify positive data. Anytime that there’s ambiguous data, editors would take the positive spin on it: “Things are fine. We’re going to be fine.”

I used to believe that perhaps the industry became lazy. It became complacent. It refused to do anything innovative. We as an industry refused to change. We refused to do anything bold. We hoped to just live off our past successes. And the world passed us by.

But it’s more likely that we over reached. That we went too far. Too many bold moves. Too much growth. Too much adventure. Outrageous arrogance. We can do these massive acquisitions. We can go into areas where we have no expertise. We can do anything because, you know, we are great.

All of the hubris and undisciplined thought, the fact that we took risks that hadn’t caught up with us, it was all the silent creep of impending doom. These were indicators that not only do you have individual cases of denying risks, but also a culture of a denial of risks.

This should give all journalist great concern. Perhaps this is why the industry is flailing about. And since we as an industry have taken that fall, we only now realize that we are late in the game in change its course. Journalism didn’t fall visibly in the last decade, but it did incur a decline into the creep of impending doom.

Now we have a cumulative peril, which is more dangerous than the individual misgivings the industry failed to address earlier in journalism’s downturn. This peril leads to an erosion of confidence of the industry, both internally and externally. And this erosion that is very hard to get back.

It’s as if someone put off taking care of their health for years and years and years. And then one day, Boom!, they have a heart attack. Well that person can’t just wake up the next morning and say, “I’m going to make up for twenty years of neglecting my body in the next week.” This is how journalism has declined, a long period of decline by not acting in its best interest punctuated by a dramatic event.

Years of poor health: heart attack.

It is in this way the journalism is grasping for salvation. Journalism needs a charismatic hero, who is going to ride in like John Wayne and save the day. We need a cultural revolution that is going to change how American’s consume journalism. We need a technological break-thru that will change how news outlets disseminate information. We need an innovative new business model that is going effectively monetize our content and draw more advertisers. We need a radical organizational transformation that is going to revolutionize journalism and shock it into greatness again.

(I privately wish for a young Harvard drop-out to start a Silicon Valley-based journalism start-up that rivals those of the media moguls.)

These are all examples of the industry’s grasping for salvation. Anything that is a form of reaching for a silver bullet, is grasping for salvation.

But there are no saviors. There are no wise old men.

There’s just us.