Has professional journalism become obsolete?

ONE OF THE key features of the modern world is the dissemination of information. This trend most likely began after Gutenberg invented the European Printing Press, which in turn allowed for the mass production of books and literary materials.

Later, the printing press was used to produce other reading materials, most notably the newspaper, which allowed for the dissemination of information on a regular basis. So in a sense, the newspaper that you’re reading right now is a product of the Gutenberg revolution, and it was a revolution that saw the rise of literacy among large swaths of the European population.

As the world entered the 20th century, however, another information revolution took place. The radio and the television were invented, and they offered more efficient ways to disseminate information to the masses.

Later, the process of producing and distributing printed, radio and TV content was centralized by major media corporations. Newspapers, radio shows, movies and TV series (print media, radio media and screen media, respectively) were created by well-funded companies with specific agendas and goals. These media companies were essentially information factories, creating products that served specific markets and agendas.

Then the internet came along, and changed everything.

The internet is radically different from print, radio and television in the sense that it is a decentralized and egalitarian medium. On the internet, anyone with a little writing skill and a little agency can become a journalist. If they have video-editing skills, they can become a YouTuber and if they have a great voice, they can become a podcaster.

Basically, the internet lowers the cost of information production and dissemination, and the lowering of this cost has hurt journalists all over the world.

In fact, several major news companies in the US and the rest of the Western World are laying off large numbers of personnel just to stay afloat. The latest of these is BuzzFeed, a rather popular brand in the US. A New York Times article entitled “BuzzFeed’s First Round of Layoffs Puts an End to Its National News Desk” by Jaclyn Peiser had this caption from BuzzFeed’s editor in chief.

‘“This is going to be a tough week,” Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed News, wrote in an email to his staff on Wednesday. On Friday, the newsroom learned just how tough, when the company laid off 43 of the roughly 250 journalists who worked in that division, according to a BuzzFeed spokesman.

Why did BuzzFeed layoff so many journalists from its staff? The answer is simple. Like other news companies, it’s not making a lot of money, and the reason why many news companies are not making a lot of money is because they are obsolete. The Internet of Things has rendered newspapers, televisions and radios obsolete.

The Philippines hasn’t experienced these changes yet because ours is a developing country, but it is coming. Assuming that we continue our development, Filipino media companies will become obsolete just like their counterparts in the United States and the West.

That’s not to say that these companies will disappear completely. They’ll still exist, but they will become less and less important relative to the content people consume on their computers and mobile devices, and the market for information will become more intense and competitive. That’s why so many mainstream journalists both here and abroad are in a state of crisis.

They are now obsolete in a new era./PN