An Intersection of Ideals: Journalism, Profits, Technology and Convergence
Stephen Quinn
Convergence 2004; 10; 109
DOI: 10.1177/135485650401000409
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Abstract:
Journalism needs advertising and advertising needs journalism: advertising pays for good reporting just as good reporting attracts customers for advertising. Problems arise when the equation becomes unbalanced, such as during the recessions in the early part of the twenty-first century.
Stephen Quinn
Convergence 2004; 10; 109
DOI: 10.1177/135485650401000409
Abstract:
Journalism needs advertising and advertising needs journalism: advertising pays for good reporting just as good reporting attracts customers for advertising. Problems arise when the equation becomes unbalanced, such as during the recessions in the early part of the twenty-first century.
This paper asks the key question of whether editorial managers and journalists are embracing convergence at this time for business reasons or to do better journalism. It begins from the perspective that media organisations around the world are adopting various forms of convergence, and along the way embracing a range of business models. Several factors are influencing and driving the adoption of convergence - also known as multiple-platform publishing. Principal among them are the media’s desire to reach as wide an audience as possible, consumers who want access to news in a variety of forms and times (news 24/7), and editorial managers' drive to cut costs. The availability of relatively cheap digital technology facilitates the convergence process. Many journalists believe that because that technology makes it relatively easy to convert and distribute any form of content into another, it is possible to produce new forms of storytelling and consequently do better journalism. This paper begins by defining convergence (as much as it is possible to do so) and describing the key competing modlls. It then considers the environments that lead to easy introduction of convergence, followed by the factors that hinder it. Examples of converged media around the world are provided, and suggestions offered on how to introduce convergence.
The paper concludes that successful convergence satisfies the twin aims of good journalism and good business practices.
Conclusion
Convergence produces many challenges, for both journalists and publishers. Both groups need to find a way to gather and fund news for different platforms without compromising the needs of their audiences, and while maintaining ethical business practices. In essence they need to find ways to blend the twin aims of telling the truth and making money.
Ari Valjakka, editor in chief of one of the world’s most successful media companies, Turun Sanomtt, has warned of the danger of trivialisation of quality journalism when the same journalist ’shovels’ the same story from one medium to another without producing content appropriate for the medium. ’But when you utilize the strengths of different media - speed of [the] Web, text-TV and radio; visuality in television and background material in print - this danger turns into strengths.'56 The key issue here appears to be the editorial and social values of the news managers.
Ultimately convergence is about doing better journalism. The role of journalism is to tell stories with a purpose - to help citizens make choices in an increasingly complex world. Or as Kovach and Rosenttiel put it so elegantly in their excellent book The Elements of Journalism, journalism needs to be a product of ’sense-making based on synthesis, verification and fierce independence'.57
If managers introduce convergence as a way to save money, reporters could become too busy to verify the information they find and resort to publishing material supplied by professional spin-doctors. Journalists could get so busy providing content for multiple platforms that they simply do not have the time to reflect or analyse. But under wise leadership, convergence offers opportunities to do better and more socially useful journalism. How to resolve this issue will provide academics with material for years to come. Indeed, the Academy can provide the reflection and analysis that the industry needs to help resolve the dichotomy with which this paper started.
Conclusion
Convergence produces many challenges, for both journalists and publishers. Both groups need to find a way to gather and fund news for different platforms without compromising the needs of their audiences, and while maintaining ethical business practices. In essence they need to find ways to blend the twin aims of telling the truth and making money.
Ari Valjakka, editor in chief of one of the world’s most successful media companies, Turun Sanomtt, has warned of the danger of trivialisation of quality journalism when the same journalist ’shovels’ the same story from one medium to another without producing content appropriate for the medium. ’But when you utilize the strengths of different media - speed of [the] Web, text-TV and radio; visuality in television and background material in print - this danger turns into strengths.'56 The key issue here appears to be the editorial and social values of the news managers.
Ultimately convergence is about doing better journalism. The role of journalism is to tell stories with a purpose - to help citizens make choices in an increasingly complex world. Or as Kovach and Rosenttiel put it so elegantly in their excellent book The Elements of Journalism, journalism needs to be a product of ’sense-making based on synthesis, verification and fierce independence'.57
If managers introduce convergence as a way to save money, reporters could become too busy to verify the information they find and resort to publishing material supplied by professional spin-doctors. Journalists could get so busy providing content for multiple platforms that they simply do not have the time to reflect or analyse. But under wise leadership, convergence offers opportunities to do better and more socially useful journalism. How to resolve this issue will provide academics with material for years to come. Indeed, the Academy can provide the reflection and analysis that the industry needs to help resolve the dichotomy with which this paper started.
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