Journalists Heal Thyselves
May 21, 2009
The Christian Science Monitor’s “Why Journalists Deserve Low Pay” here may disturb the “we don’t get no respect” crowd. Now this is an opinion piece, so the Monitor’s editorial staff is not writing this heretical essay. The author was Robert Picard, who may be in for a verbal tar and feather wardrobe. He asserted:
Today all this value is being severely challenged by technology that is “de-skilling” journalists. It is providing individuals – without the support of a journalistic enterprise – the capabilities to access sources, to search through information and determine its significance, and to convey it effectively. To create economic value, journalists and news organizations historically relied on the exclusivity of their access to information and sources, and their ability to provide immediacy in conveying information. The value of those elements has been stripped away by contemporary communication developments. Today, ordinary adults can observe and report news, gather expert knowledge, determine significance, add audio, photography, and video components, and publish this content far and wide (or at least to their social network) with ease. And much of this is done for no pay.
Maybe a stronger union will help? Maybe journalists like MBAs are remnants of an older, more naive era. Doth marginalization cometh? For sure, unemployment, smaller expense accounts, and a different occupation may be just around the corner where the news paper stand used to be.
Stephen Arnold, May 22, 2009
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