Give news a chance
Posted Jun 24, 2010 By Sheena Bolton
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Tweet ThisEMC Editorial - I picked a great time to be a journalist. There are jobs in abundance, newspapers are flourishing and readership is higher than ever. Or, not.
From the minute I began my training, I was told that newspapers were a dying industry, and that I'd better get on the Internet train if I want to find work.
Throughout four years of university, my classmates and I were constantly bombarded with examples of online writing and the concept of citizen journalism, whether it be through blogs or CNN's iReport. Gone are the days when the press were a tightly knit group of heavy drinkers and smokers who had access to public figures that no else did.
I mean, how are you supposed to compete in a print arena when your audience is able to access information uploaded from the scene seconds after it happens?
Newspapers and other publications have been in a state of decline for years. Staff are being laid off from major dailies, smaller papers are folding completely and magazines are switching to online-only mode.
When people aren't reading, relying on subscription sales is useless. And if you don't have the readership, why would advertisers spend their dollars on a losing gamble?
And it's not going to be getting any better anytime soon.
According to the a report released June 14 by the Organization for Economic Co-Operation and Development, a Paris-based think tank, Canadian newspapers will be among the top five hardest-hit among western industrialized nations when the dust of the recent recession has completely cleared.
Among the other doomsday predictions, the report suggests that young people are not reading conventional news at all, or irregularly, and with no business model in place to finance independent news production, the report casts doubt on the long-term supply of high-quality journalism.
So what does all of that mean for me? I still consider myself to be a "young person," and I can see among my contemporaries a lack of interest in the news. And sure, I worry sometimes that I may not always have a job in my chosen field of print journalism. But when you have the opportunity to work for a community newspaper you get to see a different side of the industry - the human side. As a reporter, I am removed from the business aspect of news, but what I do see are the people and their stories. I see organizations that are rife with volunteers to make their communities better. I see kids who haven't even finished (or reached) high school that have done more with their short lives than many do by the time they retire.
It is my hope that as long as there are individuals and groups like these, people will find the value in having journalists, who have made telling stories their life's work, and newspapers to print them in.
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