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Newspapers are in a slump and it doesn’t look like things will brighten up anytime soon. Ad revenues are down and readers are moving online. So what does this mean for the future of news?
CBC News is hosting a panel discussion on this topic tomorrow evening with some really interesting guest speakers. We recently arranged for two of them to chat with us about the decline of newspapers.
We asked UBC journalism student Catherine Rolfsen (after all, why not have a future journalist do the interview about the future of news?) to chat with Rahaf Harfoush and Andrew Keen. Rahaf is a writer and researcher and Andrew is the author of The Cult of the Amateur (and let’s just say they don’t see eye to eye when it comes to the future of news.)
An edited version of the interview will appear on Episode 7 of Spark. You can download the full interview or you can check out CBC’s Future of News website . The panel discussion will be streamed live on the site tomorrow night, and you can even post questions for the panelists.
I listened to the interview via podcast last night, and I feel I can’t agree with Andrew. He seemed to base a lot of his arguements on the sober, detached judgement of the estabilshed media. The people who give us the up-to-the-minute coverage of the Paris Hiltons of the world. That arguement kind of sinks his credibility.
Everyone working in the ” news” considers themselves to be professionals, be it on the radio, TV or in print.
Unlike many other professionals lawyers, doctors,accountants, people working in “news” journalist ,editors etc do not have a professional standard of conduct that they must adhere too or a professional body that governs them. The public has no recourse.
I’ve seem to many instances of inaccurate , false and intentionally misleading news reporting. This has lead to a distrust to what it report.
To often today, the news media is trying to shape public opinion rather than report the facts accurately. Our radio’s , tv and print news is filled with more commentary, opinion and hidden agenda’s rather than the facts.
Interesting. The part of Keen’s argument that I find more persuasive, which we didn’t have time to do more than touch on, is the idea that the free content available on blogs is posing a real challenge for the business model of mainstream media.
On the other hand, while it’s true that newspapers are laying people off, mainstream media such as The New York Times have decided to open up their content online, betting that advertising is going to earn them more money than charging people directly for access to their content. It will be interesting to see how well that works.