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| The Corruption of Journalism | |
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| Topic Started: Oct 1 2014, 10:42 PM (42 Views) | |
| Rach | Oct 1 2014, 10:42 PM Post #1 |
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In the year 2014 there are many worrying trends when it comes to the journalism and their relation with financing. There is what they call the separation of church and state, or rather the separation of journalism and finance thereby creating and allowing for independent and pure journalism. Unfortunately, we have seen that even with traditional media that there is now a closer relationship with journalism and finance because of the current financial difficulties to newspapers. There are also other ways in which journalism can be affected by the financial side of their companies primarily when journalism is the secondary part of a company and when journalism finds itself far too entwined in the field it is meant to be covering. The first issue is that of native advertising. Native advertising is an article produced for a news source that is paid for via advertising. I’m not sure when I first heard of it, although I see it often in Bloomberg Magazine and there was an amazing rant on this by HBO comedian John Oliver. These articles must be clearly marked as paid advertising so in Ontario at least there is a large square around them, they say paid advertising and they have a different font. In essence, this seems to be alright and indeed people from traditional media will harp on the fact that they are clearly marked as advertising. However there is a real dark side to this and that is that there are studies that says that 1/3 people can’t tell the difference between real articles and paid advertising. In essence, this is why they are valued so highly and why they are becoming essential to traditional newspapers. Banner ads simply don’t generate the revenue required, since people generally ignore them. They don’t make up the revenue that has been lost by declining subscriptions, caused by the proliferation of the news available online. Hence, news companies are being forced by current market forces to discover new ways of building revenue and surviving. Sadly, native advertising is a necessity now for what remains a very valuable part of Western Society but has the potential to taint the entire industry. The second issue is that of journalism when the companies that are doing the journalism aren’t primarily focused on journalism. Two prime examples are ESPN and Bloomberg. ESPNs primary focus and revenue comes from being able to televise games. Bloombergs primary focus and revenue comes from selling terminals for investors so that they may connect to stock markets. This sometimes means that the journalism of these companies can be influenced by the financial side of those companies. Recently, the Ombudsman of ESPN called 2013 a dark era since they had purportedly declined to co-host a report on concussions in the NFL when it was found to have been highly critical of the NFL. Futhermore, ESPN itself declined to report on the concussion report (or did so very minimally). With its recent coverage of the NFLs Ray Race domestic abuse, the Ombudsman lauded ESPN for succeeding where it had failed last year. However, this victory was cut short after one of its most famous writers, in Bill Simmons called the NFLs commissioner a liar, swore (on his private podcast) and taunted ESPN to punish him for it. They suspended him for three weeks for what they later said was for breaching journalistic standards and for calling ESPN out. However, the reaction of people was very much in favour of Bill Simmons and people accused ESPN of doing it on behalf of the NFL. Bloomberg has a different sort of journalistic issue and one that many companies have to deal with in today’s world. For a while, Bloomberg was competing with older and more traditional newspapers on China. But then a highly critical article by Bloomberg was killed by its senior staff, and the person who leaked the killing of the article was fired. People within the company said that the company in general had moved away from its core business and instead was jeopardizing it with its newspaper activities. In one way, it highlighted simply how difficult it is for Western companies and media to succeed in China when they do not allow for journalistic freedom. But on the other hand it also highlighted the difficulties in having journalism at a company whose profits and revenue are not that of media. The final issue is when journalism appears to be intertwined far too closely with what it is covering. Sports and sport coverage tends to be fairly separate. Ditto traditional newspaper such as the New York Times and politics. Although Bloomberg could be interpreted as being too closely intertwined with the businesses it covers, I think there is an important distinction between the interests of the company and journalism which is why I put it with ESPN. There is currently an issue going on called “gamergate” that I simply do not understand despite the best efforts of 346. I think the reason I struggle with it is because it is this rather strange multifaceted issue that has reared its head. However, one issue is the close relationship of gaming journalism and with gaming industry and the example of Gamespot. Gamespot is an example of this, in which they fired one of their journalists (Jeff Gerstmann) for giving a low review of a game whose producers had put a lot of money into Gamespot in anticipation of the game. This highlights the awkward relationship between the financial side and the journalistic side of the game, in an interview Mr. Gerstmann highlighted that the reason for his firing was indeed the tensions between the advertising and the journalistic side of things. All this points to is the fact that being able to provide journalism and separate it entirely from the financial side of things is difficult. Especially when companies are reliant on advertising. I believe that traditional media that is not tied to other industries remains the most “pure” but that they are at risk due to the Pandora box that is paid advertising. You would think companies like Bloomberg would be very well placed to do unbiased news since it doesn’t really require a financial model like traditional media. Rather it is simply Michael Bloombergs attempt at having his own newspaper. But when it hurts the traditional business as is the case in China we see that in turn the company will sacrifice Bloombergs project. Additionally it doesn’t help that Bloomberg is increasing reliant on China as a growing market for terminals given that America’s recovery is tempered and demand for new terminals remains low. The biggest issue facing gaming journalism seems to be the fact that it does not seem to be financially easy to succeed and hence rely heavily on advertisement. This means that they are more susceptible to interference from corporations who wish to receive the most positive press for their games that they can. Sell your soul or sell your business. In any case, these were simply my thoughts on some stories that I’ve heard and linked together. Unfortunately, I don’t know much about the gaming media for example, but know a fair bit more on Bloomberg & traditional news such as The Globe and Mail and the New York Times. Edited by Rach, Oct 1 2014, 10:47 PM.
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