NUJ and the Rise of New Media

I’ve just had a good long chat with Lawrence Shaw who handles new media issues at the National Union of Journalists. Amazingly enough we were at the same school together. Small world!

Firstly we talked about general new media issues affecting journalists, a cause of fierce debated in the NUJ it seems. Lawrence’s personal view is that blogging has been very fashionable lately but it is already starting to level off and may start declining.

There will always be a place for it of course but the fact is that most people’s lives are pretty mundane and motivation levels to keep posting quickly drop off. This development brings forward the prospect of greater convergence between traditional media and new media.

People who are really interested in discussion will continue to blog and as they will be creating and publishing content, these bloggers in effect become journalists. In fact people are already starting to turn their blogs in to commercial enterprises. The future for journalists will certainly continue to involve more and more on line work, including preparing digital reports with video and photos. This could be a positive development as it improves the skills base of journalists and should help them to command higher salaries.

The greatest risk to traditional media seems to come not from on line media but from the media owners themselves who are more concerned with profitability. Apparently newspapers have a higher rate of profitability than leading companies such as Tesco and HSBC. This is being achieved by driving down costs and in the exaggerated belief that traditional print media is in terminal decline in the face of the arrival of new media. Fewer journalists have time to investigate stories and have increasingly become dependent on PR. It was this development that has helped corporations and political parties in their efforts to set the media agenda. (How and to what extent set the media agenda determines voting patterns is an issue which is discussed in the posting on 20 December 2006).

The internet, Lawrence argued, does have the potential to change all this. The fact that the internet could be an agent for political change is highlighted by the reaction of the Chinese government. Its potential for good should not be underestimated and with the quality of traditional media, especially print who rely more on centralised news feeds, declining the internet is increasingly becoming a source for different points of view.

Political parties are still harnessing this technology. An online presence is essential but how open can they leave debates on their own platforms. To find out what people think about issues it seems that we have to go back to the concept of either setting up sites which are related to specific issues, away from the main party website, or setting up front sites. Political parties will continue to try and influence debate and will undoubtedly make use of the technology available to track the sites people view and then tailor their messages accordingly. The ease with which individual’s online activities can be traced to build profiles is barely recognised by most people. It provides a power tool for search engine owners, businesses and politicians, to sell their products in a more targeted way.

On a more global scale the ease with which online activity can be monitored or blocked means that good old fashioned radio might still be the best way to get messages across in China.

What we have is a situations where individuals believe that the internet and new media can help open debate and challenge views. This is the great potential. Rather than undermining journalism this will make more of us journalists – even though we may not realise it! Sorting the truth from the lies online and sorting the valuable contribution from the crackpots will also ensure that there is an increased role for investigative journalism.

There also remains a great interest for variety of sources and as traditional journalists and bloggers move closer together Lawrence predicted that within five years the latter will be able to become members of the NUJ. Traditional media will also survive because of their social nature. People like to casually flick through a publication on a train or to spend their Sunday mornings reading a paper. Just like TV failed to kill radio, so the internet will fail to kill newspapers. In the process the demand for objective analysis of all that gets published will increase. We will need more journalists, not fewer and more of us without thinking will fill this role through our own on line activity.

Lawrence is a man who is optimistic about the future for journalists. For those involved in political communication life will probably become more complicated and require greater professionalism. The technology to target audiences effectively already exists and so we can look forward to the tussle between politicians and the media continuing online in much the same way it has done on traditional media, but with greater sophistication.