Cash, Crises and Journalism

Cash, Crises and Journalism was perhaps the best session so far at the Journalism in Crisis conference, with financial woes and funding of the media among the topics covered.

Ian Reeves opened by asking who will pay a journalists wages, and displayed compelling data by Rob Grimshaw on the impossibility of relying on online advertising.

According to Grimshaw, to raise $50 milliona year, a website would require at least 844 million page impressions.

Reeves moved on to show how public funding could be the way forward, giving examples of blogs, such as Ana-Marie Cox, and radios like NPR, sustained by public-funding.

Questions remained about whether the system is scalable and could sustain larger news organizations
Journalism as a charity case

“The idea that journalism is a charity case has become a mainstream idea in recent months” opened Harry Browne

Browne concentrated on foundation-based media, mentioning the Centre for Public Inquiry and Transitions Online as glowing examples.

But problems remain, as organizations would have to chase the whims of funders, and investigations on the donors themselves might be excluded from the news agenda.

Dimitra Dimitrakopoulou raised the point the Greek media and government began covering the financial crisis in August 2008, creating a panic in the public.

Since then, according to Dimitrakopoulou the Greek public has blamed the two institutions for scaremongering and encouraging the crisis by “pushing it” before it’s time, with newspapers and television trying to outdo each other in impressing the public.

Counterpoint

Matthew Fraser took the opposing view, lambasting the international media for not seeing the financial crisis in time. He put this down to five main factors:

1 - Competitive pressures for scoops. In the modern media environment, journalists are just too busy to do off diary features like the potential state of the economy.
2 – Lack of professional training among business journalists, with most of them coming from Oxbridge but not having any financial experience.
3 – Business journalists simply have short memories, like everybody else, and failed to see the signs of the oncoming crisis.
4 – “Implicitly, everybody in the industry knows that business journalists don’t rock the boat of the audience with their careers”.
5 – Finally, many journalists were cheerleaders for the businesses, were having a great time in the club and simply had no interest in raising the alarm.