The Future of Journalism: a joint Media Alliance & Walkley Foundation initiative

Journalism has thrived on disruptive technologies. From moveable type to linotype, from print to broadcast – each shift has opened new opportunities for communication. Each shift has also transformed the economic model that underpinned journalism, often in ways that could not be foreseen.

Now, again, the digital revolution is disrupting journalism and, again, the economic model is fracturing.

Today, journalism is fragmenting among a fascinating array of news sources and social networking sites. As well, its economic model is undermined as paid advertising migrates online. Worse, the present economic crisis promises to drive advertising revenues down further.

Like all crises, the challenges journalism faces are rewriting everything we thought we knew about the news media and causing us to question the very basis on which the industry has survived and flourished for a hundred-odd years.

Whether all newspapers will survive is no longer a parlour game but a genuine consideration. Earlier this year, a delegation of Alliance staff and senior journalists visited major US and Western European news organisations and discussed the changing industry with journalists and academics.

It was both exciting and disquieting. Exciting because journalists are pushing the uses of technology to produce new and progressive ways of keeping the public informed, from Adrian Holovaty’s EveryBlock project, which collects and collates stories, photos and data, and sorts it so people can keep track of what’s happening on their doorstep, to Jay Rosen’s experiments in civic journalism, which harness the knowledge and expertise of people in all walks of life to enhance reporting.

Disquieting because the mainstream industry is in such turmoil. High levels of debt, falling revenues and collapsing share prices, have led many into a vicious cost-cutting cycle. More than 12,000 journalists have lost their jobs so far this year, on top of about 2,200 in 2007.

Philip Meyer, Knight Professor of Journalism at the University of North Carolina and author of The Vanishing Newspaper, has been in, or observing, the news media for more than 50 years. He warns that the spiral of cost-cutting and loss of quality can only lead one way and, if the expert forecasts are correct, we may soon see the collapse of some of America’s biggest media owners.

It’s the same in the UK, where Emily Bell, The Guardian’s director of digital content, recently predicted two years of “carnage” and that between five and 11 newspapers would disappear, shrinking the market by about 25 per cent. She warned the distress would not be confined to the print media, and without urgent measures, there would no UK-owned broadcaster except the BBC.

Australia is not immune.

That’s why journalists and media companies must hold their nerve and continue to invest in quality and the future of our industry. While journalism will have to adapt to the economic and technological landscape, it will be those companies that remember and nurture their core business that will survive. And it will be those journalists equipped with the skills to flourish in the new landscape who will prosper. That’s why our Future of Journalism project is so important. By researching change in the media and by inviting all sides to take part in the discussion, we hope to avoid the worst of the excesses seen in other countries. By doing this we aim to assess the key skills of new media journalism and offer our members the training to acquire and apply those skills in this interesting new world.