Media consumption is falling. According to the The Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development report entitled 'The Future of the News and Internet' (11 June 2010), the UK saw a 25% reduction in newspaper consumption during 2007-2010.
The latest figures from the National Readership Survey covering the period April 2010 to March 2011 also displayed a decline of national news consumption (averaging 4.55% per annum). Such a decline in consumption naturally means less people are spending money on consuming news.
As a consequence, if the future contains a journalism industry in which available resources can produce quality, investigative journalism and hard-hitting foreign correspondence, the money is likely to come from advertisements. However, whilst reading a copy of the Metro on the 26/07/2011, I was suddenly struck by a potential problem with this trend. Whilst reading an article focusing on City University London, I saw an advert promoting City University.
This is all well. But what happens when a newspaper wishes to cover something a slightly less ethical - like arms shipments data? Given the current trend of declining news consumption and the consequentially likely future slant on advertisement funded content, such a story may be coupled with an advert for an arms company.
Here lies the problem: ethical, non-profit organisations naturally possess less marketing resources than profit making companies (especially the less ethical companies such as those in arms production, oil companies and others which damage the environment, profit from war and exploit third-world workers). As a consequence, such ethical sources of funding cannot be relied upon to support journalism to anywhere near the same extent as corporations can.
Non-profit organisations, although normally supporting of left-wing viewpoints, have far less resources at their disposal to fund journalism via advertisements than less ethical corporations.
The huge marketing resources commanded by these companies, coupled with declining consumption revenues for media outlets may means that may see normally left-wing media outlets being forced to accept funding from such corporations to keep their media operations in existence.
Will this trend consequentially skew normally left-wing journalism towards the establishment in order to conform to the desires of these sources of funding?
Journalism is a form of political activism for many. Left wing, liberal and anti-establishment journalism is one of the pinnacles of a healthy and functioning democracy. Such a trend will serve to trample the aspirations of many liberal and left-wing journalists in the making.
This article first appeared in www.wannabehacks.co.uk