No profession seems to be
safe from the rationalization of labor, even journalism. Nicole S. Cohen
explains that when an author no longer has access to his or her work, then the
quality of that work diminishes. This makes me question the quality of articles
and news stories that I read in the media. I was astonished to discover that in
some instances local news stories are written by journalists who actually
reside halfway around the globe. How can these journalists write accurate and
descriptive stories on local events or people, when they themselves cannot be
there first hand to experience these situations or interview these people? If
media companies continue to increase outsourcing or even worse, use computer software
to generate media reports, then can we even say that journalism still exists?
Furthermore, if companies are paying journalists from other countries 35 cents
for their labor, how is this ethical? All
of these changes in journalism are compelled by the fact that these companies are
under pressure to continuously increase the amount of articles published. As
consumers of media, we need to find a way to communicate to companies that
quality coverage still matters.
References
Cohen,
Nicole S. (2015). From pink slips to pink slime: Transforming media labour in a
digital age. The Communication Review 18(2): 98-122.
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Alicja
And that is the challenge: "we need to find a way to communicate to companies that quality coverage still matters". In a day and age where 140 character newsfeeds are the popular mode of information gathering for the average individual, how can we still make it clear that quality journalism is still important? Even in the case that an article is well-written and probably a very good source of information on a topic, I can find myself skimming. What we are calling for might actually be a trickier task than we believe, considering that this seems to be a societal shift in absorbing information rather than merely a fault of news outlets alone.
ReplyDeleteMoving against the trend of "local content" being supplied by a journalist halfway around the world, my local paper The Guelph Mercury, started getting citizens to write articles for free and submit them. Citizens often do this out of frustration that a topic isn't being covered by the paper or isn't being covered well enough. I suppose that's one way to run a paper, do such an awful job that your readers have to do it for you. But I don't know if this is a good thing. I wonder how the professional journalists who actually work at the paper feel about this. Isn't their work being undermined by saying that anyone can be a journalist? And perhaps anyone can.
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