On a day that offered fresh evidence of plummeting circulation at many major metros (Sunday Denver Post’s sales dropped nearly 15% in the year ended March 31), Poynter’s Amy Gahran offers a testy take on the resistance of news managers to change their mindsets and adapt to the new reality wrought by economic and technological forces.
Gahran strikes the most optimistic note I’ve heard in a while about this moment in our profession:
“…right now is a time of immense opportunity for journalism and journalists to take on a broader and even more vital role in society. It’s a chance for journalists to not only continue doing good work, but maybe also to have more impact than ever before. If they can make this progress within updated, adapted news organizations, fine. But if not, they can find ways to do it independently, collaboratively, or by founding new supporting institutions or businesses.”
Even though I consider myself anxious about the changes sweeping our profession and craft, I share Gahran’s excitement about the potential, the sense that a new journalism is being born, one that is more fragmented, open to contribution and weakened by shorter and shorter attention spans. Gahran identifies several attitudes that are toxic to the evolve-or-die imperative. I shall paraphrase and condense them.
Toxic attitudes in a newsroom today:
1. Traditional, mainstream journalism is the only legitimate source of news, and society is ethically obligated to support us traditional journalists for that reason. Good journalism doesn’t change much.
2. Real journalists do only journalism. They don’t lead a public conversation, they don’t consider ways to extend the reach of their work, they don’t learn new tools.
“There’s a common problem with all these assumptions: They directly cut off options from consideration. This severely limits the ability of journalists and journalism to adapt and thrive.”
What do you think?
