It’s business as usual in the journalism world: layoffs, cutbacks, and buyouts galore.
With the boom of social media as a force for communication and the high influence of big business in industries everywhere, the newsroom has been in a state of flux for the last few years. It’s hard not to see these changes as detrimental to the values meant to drive journalism: the preservation of democracy and the search for truth.
Recently, Postmedia cut down on local coverage in the print editions of its Ottawa papers, which means yet again more layoffs of its content creators, although Postmedia has not specified what the layoff plans will be.
As a journalism student, I feel quite pessimistic about the future of my program’s industry: corporate control of the media world has shaped Canadian journalism to churn out content that will generate the most views for advertisers.
In 2016, the Toronto Star, Canada’s most widely read daily newspaper, has cut 90 jobs. Meanwhile, the Ottawa Citizen and the Ottawa Sun have merged newsrooms, resulting in more layoffs. With the exception of the CBC, the majority of Canadian media is controlled by conglomerates such as Postmedia, Shaw, Bell, and Rogers.
In order to keep their jobs, journalists nowadays have to subscribe to the values of big business media: virality and profit.
Buzzfeed and the Huffington Post, arguably the biggest, most successful media companies today, have based their content and business model largely on “clickbait” headlines and controversial thinkpieces.
We have all seen the consequences of this. Following the recent American election, it has been reported that fake news sites overtook legitimate ones in terms of readership and times shared over social media, such as Facebook. When mainstream outlets have to use the same clickbait tactics as fake sources, it can be hard to tell what’s real and what’s not—and who we should believe.
Journalism was never meant to be driven by the economically powerful. As a profession, its value was never meant to depend on the quantity of views it generated for advertisers. Journalism used to be a tool of subversion, a tool used to communicate information needed for populations to keep those in power accountable.
But corporate media has done away with this previous purpose. In the face of the 24-hour news cycle, corporations continue to devalue thorough reporting, instead prioritizing clickbait and viral stories. Understanding that it would be no good for corporations to have journalists probe into their practices, they monopolize the media to keep from being held accountable.
Media has a large influence in shaping how society thinks, so there should be particular attention paid to how media companies create content, and what kind of content they prioritize.
The giant shift towards viral, corporate journalism is ultimately detrimental to society at large—we cannot rely on information generated off of the desire for profit.
The general public needs to value media that creates content in light of the original intentions of journalism: to generate public dialogue about important issues and to hold the powerful accountable to their actions.
