The Future of Journalism in a Turbulent Economy: Innovation, Freelancing & Digital Marketplaces

We are living in uncertain times surrounded by all kinds of challenges, some really scary. Presently nothing seems to bother us more than the subdued state of global economy which points to a turbulent future ahead. It has caused rumblings across the spectrum, impacting lives everywhere.

Journalism as a profession has not remained untouched by this turbulence with both traditional and digital media facing  significant challenges visible in the form of reduced funding sources leading to layoffs. Downsizing is the new normal in the media with job uncertainty at an all-time high. With the threat of compromised quality looming large, many news outlets have chosen to hide their content behind paywalls while some appeal to the conscience of readers in their bid to seek financial patronage.

There is no denying that the quality of information suffers under such circumstances because there is no money for extensive research and what we often love to describe as public-interest journalism. It was perhaps this kind of a scenario that threw up ideas and terms like "gig economy" over a decade and a half ago.  The coinage is  attributed  to  Tina Brown, a former editor of The New Yorker who is believed to have used it for the first time in 2009 to describe a trend characterised by people seeking  short-term freelance jobs within a digital marketplace. 

Given the growing uncertainties of the profession the number of freelance journalists keeps rising across the globe.  But this is not an easy option considering that freelancing is still viewed as unremunerative with most media outlets unenthusiastic about carrying stories from part-timers whose quality they cannot be sure of. Only well-established journalists, having spent years in the profession, manage to get their stories or columns published regularly as freelancers. But for the majority it is still a struggle. 

It is this majority that needs a reliable platform to sell its stories, one that can connect it to end users after ensuring quality of the content being offered. The void that has long been felt has now to an extent been filled by innovative enablers like 5wh.com, a digital market place for professional journalists to sell their products and services to news media outlets. Their products are made to undergo a rigorous vetting process to ensure quality and full satisfaction for the buyer.

Such endeavours hold the promise of revolutionising the media scene as they take into account the overarching concern about conventional revenue models in the industry losing their relevance in the changed economic scenario. The emerging challenges call for out of the box thinking and innovations that work in favour of all the stakeholders.   

Stakeholders in the media industry must not lose sight of the fact that conventional news models are slowly but surely yielding space to the more innovative ones because of a growing realization that news that does not sell is no news at all. The fact is that in today’s changed economic scenario news and sales are like two sides of the same coin. One has no meaning without the other.  If stories don’t find an audience willing to pay for them they don’t really matter.

Old school journalists may sneer at this commodification of news but this actually began long ago in the 80s with some of the most venerable newspapers in India opting for it though not on the scale that we are witnessing today. Things are now going to the extremes with media coming to terms with things like paid news and advertorials. While one must avoid the extremes as they can cause long term damage by denting the credibility of news outlets, the imperatives of marketing cannot be ignored.

People engaged in the news business enjoy certain distinct advantages and disadvantages. Their biggest advantage is that they are dealing with a seemingly inexhaustible product. Despite massive consumption news never really gets depleted. It can be repackaged several times over and presented each time in a manner that makes it look as interesting as when it was broadcast for the first time. Few other products can rival news in this respect. This is how 24X7 news channels survive. But the handlers of news have to be careful about  repackaging which is significantly different from rehashing which can rob the product of its sheen.

News by its inherent character is different from other kinds of marketable products. Unlike a piece of cake or an ice cream it can be enjoyed at the same time by a large number of people without getting diminished or becoming less enjoyable. Besides, access to news  is hard to deny in this digital age with all kinds of information just a click away. The purveyors of news, if so inclined, can create only temporary barriers to block access to the information being offered by them. But it does more harm than good to their image as there is every possibility of readers accessing the same information through some other channel or website.     

In fact, much of the marketing now depends on how accessible news is. So in their quest for an economically viable model news portals should avoid using negative tactics like blocking access to their sites. This could prove counterproductive as it defeats the very purpose of news which is to help people make informed decisions by staying connected with what is happening around them. This is why news outlets are so crucial to the functioning of a healthy democracy.

There can be no two opinions that news, unlike any other product, is directly linked to public good. But there are commercial interests involved in its production and distribution. This is an aspect that cannot be ignored with things getting more complicated in the changed economic scenario where the quest for profit is driving competitors to extremes. For the media to survive in this scenario, innovation and out of the box thinking are just as important as it is to  strike a balance between making profits and serving the public interest.