NDM News: The future of journalism

NDM News: The future of journalism

1)

Referring to it as the 'iron core of journalism,' Shirky values accountability journalism so much as it's time and time again it's been effective in being able to scrutinise people when no one else has. Whether it's to do with 'relative corruption' or just general misconduct, he establishes it as being a 'public good.' The example he uses to display this is the 2002 Catholic Church crisis in which the Boston Globe was able to expose the Church for allowing the abuse of children by Father John Geoghan. Without the Boston Globe uncovering this, who's to say that the issue would have ever raised to the public eye.

2)

Shirky essentially says that the relationship between advertisers and newspapers isn't at the best terms as advertisers tended to be both 'overcharged' and 'underserved' by the publications. Advertisers couldn't even make the switch to another platform with this as there aren't that many others that can help promote their brands the way a newspaper can. In terms of replacing major revenue-generators, he cites Craiglist, Monster and Match as these of course would grant you the most profit possible.

3)

Shirky suggests that nowadays, audiences consume news stories on social media as oppose to the publication that it actually came from. Subsequently this has resulted in decreases in readership of papers such as the New York Times and Shirky describes this as 'the audience (is) now being assembled not by the paper, but by other members of the audience.'

4)

It's suggested that if the internet had been widespread in 1992, then the 'public reuse of documents' would have perhaps made individuals in the church cease from their wrongdoings as criticism of it would work to hold them accountable or put them under fire for their actions.

5)

Shirky argues against paywalls as it's making what should be 'an infinite [public] good, [...] a finite good.' Accountability journalism is needed within society, so restricting others from being able to access it only has a damaging effect.

6)

A social good is a good or service that benefits the largest number of people in the largest possible way. Journalism can be regarded as being one since as said with the previous examples it works to hold those, whether they're an individual or an institution, accountable to society and get rid of it when wrong is being done. The example regarding the 2002 Catholic Crisis is a standout for this.

7)

Shirky suggests that although newspapers can't be replaced there should in fact be 'a class of institutions or models, whether they’re endowments or crowdsourced [...] that produces five percent of accountability journalism.' However while these models are put in place, he cites that the danger is there'll be a 'long trough of decline in accountability journalism,' and this will only lead to things like corruption being able to take place more easily.

8)

It's imperative that these brands stay in business since as well as just provide general news, since as made clear above, without them we wouldn't be getting the level of transparency with certain things that we currently do now. Things like the Panama papers and Amber Rudd allegations are examples of these as without publications like The Guardian, we would be completely unaware of any wrongdoing that took place.