During the last weeks of August, my sister-in-law connected me to a journalist friend, hoping she could help alleviate some of the career stress I was feeling heading into my final year of undergrad.
When my sister passed the phone to her friend, I was surprised to learn that I was being connected with a former CBS News Denver television correspondent, who left her career in journalism to pursue public relations. She told me where she went to college, how she moved around the country to work in TV, met her husband — a former photographer for CBS — and eventually left journalism altogether to start a family.
After advocating a career in public relations, which I am sure I would despise, she gave me the same routine most people did about working in journalism: “you’ll never get any sleep,” “you’ll have to stay on the move” and my favorite dig of all, “print and written journalism are dying, maybe you should look into TV.”
I have heard that same line from multiple people since I decided to pursue journalism as a sophomore in college. My academic advisor told me the same thing. I’ve heard it from family members and customers at my restaurant job. It’s like being told, “cute dream … what’s your backup plan?”
While physical newsprint may be seeing its last days, written journalism isn’t dying, it is transforming. The digital era has prompted a shift from printing newsprint to publishing online, keeping the structure of print alive.
The New York Times predicts a trying future for journalism, acknowledging that only a quarter of newspaper outlets that were open in 2005 remain alive today. But the Times also explains that journalists have been searching for new technology since the 1980s, when software engineers were investigating software that could deliver news via tablets.
The technology we have now has made everything overly accessible. Instead of thriving in an internet environment, newspapers are taken for granted. No one wants to pay for good journalism anymore when paying for news used to be a daily expense for Americans. I was once guilty of this, too — I know I used to close an article the second I ran into a paywall.
Because of social media, everyone thinks they know everything, devaluing the work of the people who search for truth as a job. Journalists now have to compete with citizen know-it-alls to stay relevant.
Now, as The Times explains, news needs to be made marketable. Some brands, like Time Magazine, have cracked the profit code, predicting 2024 will be their highest selling year. Non-profit news organizations are popping up across the country in small, underserved communities, just for the sake of keeping journalism truthful.
Print journalism is at a point where it must adjust its informative purpose in a way that is economically sustainable. But that doesn’t mean written journalism or the idea of newspapers is done, it means journalists need to become craftier to keep our industry alive.
When I imagine the future of journalism, I see newspapers finding their way online, and enough consumers willing to pay a dollar a week to read impressive news. I see talented journalists on social media, combining their passions for writing and content creation.
Just like every other field in the world, journalists are adjusting to the digital era, which seems to be moving too fast for many industries to keep up. I advise all the print-deniers out there not to count the traditional format out yet. Honest journalism is invaluable and will adapt in due course.
Photo by Hayden Walker on Unsplash.