The Bad Guys Are Winning The War On Journalism

The Tyee and Tyee founding editor David Beers take on the massive problems facing journalism:

If grafting giant legacy media chains onto the internet hasn’t worked well in Canada, does that not leave open the potential for some tech savvy entrepreneur to start from scratch to build a sustainable journalism model?

And wouldn’t the most likely opportunity lie in local news, where the retrenchment of Big Media is leaving the market open?

The Bulldog has been bulldogging now for 14 years and you’d think the proprietor would have some cogent answers to the great journalism problem. A bit, maybe.

Newspaper Employee Numbers Barely A Blip

First, your agent has absolutely no idea how newspaper websites (and newspapers, for that matter) are surviving. I saw them disappearing 10 years ago let alone now. I can’t see the revenue model. And having been journalizing since 1977, you’d think I might know.

I understand how The Bulldog survives … by cutting expenses to the absolute bone. And often that even isn’t enough.

The Bulldog is especially helped by The Bulldog Commenting All-Stars who create content as well as controversy. I’m forever in their debts. And then we have a small group of locals who care about this community and take informing people in Ottawa very seriously.

Certainly we’re not beholden to the very strong local lobbies and industry pressure groups that we see supporting what’s left of traditional media and-or politicians which has the problem of demanding influence for their money. I believe (or at least I hope) that people come to The Bulldog in part because we’re damned independent here and we call them like we see them.

There is no way that advertising can support the infrastructure of traditional media. Advertising is everywhere and the revenue generated by it for individual institutions is miniscule due to its omnipresence. To survive in the journalism market these days, you need a niche and you need to be small. Accordingly the writing is on the wall for traditional journalism. It can’t be small enough.

Sooner or later (probably later) good journalism will find a way to survive because journalists want it to continue and believe that solid information is important to the welfare of our society. That’s how The Bulldog chugs along. Your garden-variety scribbler would have dumped this puppy a long time ago.

And perhaps not now but once the debris has been cleared from the crashes of journalism institutions, someone will be able to consolidate enough revenue to build some kind of operation that produces critical information.

Or not. At which point, democracy, human rights and freedom are in jeopardy. In fact, they will probably die and we will live in some kind of high-tech autocracy. And journalism might never rise again.

Need an example? Look to Baxter Road. Much of the Citizen building is a roller-skating rink.

Journalism at the best of times only got a small proportion of what untoward acts were occurring in government, business and society in general. Without journalism, I tremble at how wrong-thinking people could corrupt our institutions and rights. They’re out there.

A Bit Of Light In Journalism Darkness

The Bulldog survives because people such as Ron Benn (who is a great resource for this community and has no business doing this save that he feels it’s vital), Donna Mulvihill, Dan Stankovic and The Bulldog Commenting All-Stars think an informed public is a smart public. They think public policy discussion is important. And it is.

This community, and myself, owe them a great debt.

To read the article from The Tyee, click here.

Ken Gray

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