Under Pressure

Today's globalized and networked communication environment has transformed the world of journalism.

Anyone equipped with a basic digital device has the ability to create and disseminate news with a hashtag that can go viral within seconds. This has undermined traditional, rules-based journalism with its well-defined editorial gatekeeping, fact-checking and professional standards.

Citizen journalism and user-generated news vie for attention with fake tweets and doctored videos, animated gifs and auto-play videos, ‘hacktivism’ and trolling.

This post is a result of the 2015 n-ost Media Conference, "Translating Worlds," which took place in November 2015. For more essays on foreign reporting and theses on photojournalism, please see the brochure below, or visit our website on the conference.

Global electronic superhighways are choking with traffic as ever-more people get online. In 2015, there were over 7 billion mobile subscriptions, 2.3 billion people on smart phones and nearly 3.2 billion people connected to the Internet. 

Who can sift fact from fiction and separate half- and quarter-truths from the truth? 

A frenzied free-for-all

The digital deluge is leading to an information overload where those who shout loudest get heard. It is leading to sensationalist reporting devoid of sober analysis. Politicians and corporations hire trolls to propagate their views on social media. The media ecosystem has become a frenzied free-for-all where exclamation-ridden copy redefines the boundaries of debate and discussion. 

While the power of journalists and editors has eroded, marketing gurus now promote news as a commodified and branded product. Polemical debate has become a hallmark of many news outlets seeking higher ratings or more traffic for news sites. Journalism's role as the fourth-estate is increasingly undermined by commercial interests and political sponsorship. 

The world-wide reach of this form of journalism is growing given the dominance of US-based global news media: traditional news and current affairs outlets like CNN, the New York Times International, or Time; financial news such as Bloomberg, CNBC, Fortune, or the Wall Street Journal; online portals including Huffington Post, Buzzfeed and VICE; as well as the social media like Google, YouTube, Facebook and Twitter, which are used to distribute them globally. 

Greater diversity, greater polarity

At the same time, there is a greater diversity of global media voices thanks to international news broadcasters such as Qatar’s Al Jazeera English, which claims to restore balance in its reporting on the global South. To its critics, however, the network's coverage of events in Libya, Egypt and Syria show it to be a supplement to Western reporting, rather than a real alternative. 

More conflictual to mainstream Western media is the Kremlin mouthpiece, RT (formerly Russia Today). Launched in 2005, its increasingly vocal criticism of Western foreign policy is reminiscent of Cold War propaganda. 

Apart from English, RT broadcasts in Spanish and Arabic, claiming a global reach of over 550 million viewers. It also appears to have a sizeable following for its critical, controversial and anti-Western sentiments aired on YouTube.

There are, of course, questions of trust affecting information and analysis emanating from a traditionally authoritarian media system such as Russia's. Yet trust also remains a great challenge for media organizations in the Western world, where worries over resources and ways to monetize digital media afflict journalism.

Deadlines every second

Information which was previously collected, collated and edited by professionals is now distributed on social media for free by unqualified bloggers and trolls, both paid and voluntary. 

News organizations have to find new audiences in the digital era, even as they struggle to cling on to their core readers, listeners and viewers. Increasingly, we are seeing a more conversational style, an unabashedly opinionated and visually-driven journalism in a 24/7 environment where the audience expects instantaneous information.

 Journalists who used to get flak for failing to provide contextual background now face ‘deadlines every second’ and expectations to blog and tweet, and upload video. They must be multi-skilled to survive in a mobile, multi-media age.

Journalism as a business is in decline. In 2015, newspaper publishers in the United States had total revenues of $27 billion, a decline of 44 percent from 2007, according to figures released in March by the US Census Bureau.

Clickbait

News is being replaced by sensationalist ‘clickbait’ to draw visitors to websites. Rather than employing journalists, media organizations hire young digital natives to monitor and count clicks and monetize page views. Readers are reduced to consumers seduced into clicking on ever-growing listicles. This is now the standard practice for most media organizations.  

The reason is straightforward: to generate traffic and increase—or at least retain—the advertising revenues that form the foundations of commercial media edifices.

This business model is being put under tremendous pressure itself as more consumers use ad-blocking tools. In 2015, 198 million users worldwide actively deployed such software. This has forced news organizations to ‘invest’ in promoting ‘branded content’ in what is described, without a trace of irony, as ‘native advertising’, identified only in small print as being ‘sponsored’ or ‘paid-for’ material. 

Since this blurs boundaries between advertising and editorial content, the widespread and not-always-scrupulous use of such practices can compromise journalistic integrity and credibility. As journalism becomes increasingly routine, it raises questions about the susceptibility of news consumers to manipulation and malpractice. 

Growth of image-makers

In a data-driven information system which increasingly depends on algorithms and news apps, media organizations have yet to master the art of dealing with rapidly changing technology and its capacity to circulate rumors and false information. 

Beyond the major state-based media outlets and commercial entities, the growth of image-makers and propagandists from non-state actors is also important; for example, the extremists who use Hollywood-inspired political and cultural messaging as a recruitment tool via social media and the Internet. 

We have yet to fully comprehend the political ramifications for journalism in an age where copying, remixing and sharing are common. 

The 2015 n-ost Media Conference, "Translating Worlds," yielded five essays on the challenges facing today's foreign correspondent, as well as a series of seven photo-theses concerning modern photojournalistic practice. The complete works can be found in this brochure.