Journalism, public expectations and pay
In a year where there are some serious elections taking place in the west, the public expect their media to get to work. But what happens to that coverage when there's no money to pay them?
No Ai was used in the writing of these posts. This substack will be changing to paid soon. Please read on.
Balanced Reporting.
Its important for the public to be informed.
Its a pinnacle of democracy and a free and fair society.
No argument from me.
So when I saw a friend re-post this tweet after Kamila Harris announced she would be running for President of the United States of America in the November 2024 elections, I felt like I had to say something to manage expectations.
The poster above should be able to expect all this from the media. But have you seen the state of the media?
State of the media
For staffers, there have been year on year job cuts. With 20,000 reported to have been shed in 2023 by American site Poynter.
In the UK Reuters reported year on year shrinkage in wages and long hours in journalism, lay offs reaching a new record and newly qualified journalists possibly never being able to get a full time role.
The switch to freelance is just as bad.
Have you seen the broadsheets of the UK offer £351 for an article, that might take a freelancer weeks of research and interviews to coordinate and put together?
Pace that out to a weekly salary and that can easily come out to less than minimum wage. £351 is also a good rate, usually its much less- take a look at rate for the job the NUJ put out on magazines and newspapers, and what people realistically are paid, and the delays taken.
Readers of this blog will be aware that TikTok videos from amatures do better than BBC newsrooms and the NYT- link here.
A stable career, or the love of it
Journalists, at least the decent ones not in it for ego, want to deliver the best quality product, but it is just not stable if you want to afford to eat, or pay rent, or live.
This is from a journalist group I belong to, from people with great humour and long in the profession, but with clear eyes on the state of it.
Journalism in context.
Some people will tell you it’s because the big powerhouses of journalism are owned by very few, but I can tell you that even independent magazines struggle with coverage, money and internal politics.
Its not any better at Independent magazines.
Just because they dont belong to the fleet street elite, or old money and constantly asking you for crowdfunding money to get the ‘truth’ to you, there are journalists behind them that didn’t get paid, and there are many dark secrets they’re keeping too.
You just dont know about them. Yet.
Unbalanced, echo chambers
So, when you get biased coverage, know that there are many reasons behind it.
Who owns it, whose paying for it, who gets paid to be able to stay in those roles (usually someone with a rich spouse, or old money, but definately financially stable- and that money didn’t come from journalism).
So if you don’t get the coverage you need, consider if you pay for your news sources?
Do you get it online?
Do you only visit one paper? (which will give you only one angle.)
Do you use an aggregate service like Apple News? (who curate the news you see anyway.)
Do you watch it on TV, or YouTube or a Podcast? How varied are your sources? and your speakers?
You can see how easily an echo chamber is created.
How existing views can be amplified by an algortithim.
The villified journalist
Being a journalist on social media also means being villified online.
Attacked, connected with the story, rather than reporting it,
Trolls taking it, editing it, and taking it out of context.
A freelancer can, and often is, bombarded, and recieves horrific threats, and without a newsroom to protect them, it’s not easily dismissed, it’s not funny and it’s not OK.
But there is very little the law and the police do to prevent and stop it.
Mental health and income power are further reduced, and poorer news eminates as a result.
I don’t deny that some journalists want it to be all about them, they make themselves a personality, they put themselves as the center of the story, they say they are the champion of democracy and get sued as a result, expecting everyone to rally behind them, crowdfunding their legal cases, when in actual fact they are the bulwark of stepping on others to get their name as the byline. Celeb journalists with huge egos.
The well-intentioned or uninitiated think that they are supporting someone decent against a very dark enemy.
Check out the long list Tulika Bose put together this week of plagarism within journalism. Journalism is a business she says, it’s like a “larger store ripping off a smaller one reproducing the same item”.
But it is those journalists that give journalism a bad name, because even their reporting might be seen to be exposing ills, it is done in the most heinous ways.
Which lose the integrity of the story and the credibility of journalism itself.
Money into Journalism
This might sound crazy in a cost-of-living crisis, and while wars rage in Sudan, Congo, the decimation of Gaza, and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. But if you want to know the truth, the real truth, then that’s the role of journalists.
So they need to be funded, properly, to be able to pay rent, eat and have job security.
Because journalism, news and reporting affects everything we do, it informs and propels policy. Should it be housing issues triggered by Grenfell, or US election nuances, it affects the whole world.
If it goes wrong it is propaganda, if it goes right it could be the difference between peace and life.
Funding writers
I have had to choose paid work over being able to write this substack, it’s not the work I have expected, but it uses my investigative skills.
So with all this above, can I thank you very much for subscribing to this substack.
Two of my funders said to me that they saw it as an obligation to fund writing - one was the husband of a journalist, and the other used to work as a journalist, and I am very grateful for them funding this substack.
Unfortunately I cannot continue to write for free, this substack takes effort so…
If you are a paid subscriber - thank you.
All other subscribers: I will be making some posts free, for a while, and then they will be behind a paywall.
All exisiting posts will be behind a paywall from Sept 30th 2024.
Thanks for your support.
Please consider funding some writing you believe in, even if it’s not me, and allow a reporter to continue their work, work that will inform you, the public, and influence choices and hopefully our world for the better.
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No AI was used in the writing of these posts.
