The Future of Journalism Talk at Hull Digital

This Tuesday evening, while driving beneath the Humber Bridge, en route to the latest Hull Digital event, I struggled to convince my travel companions that, when constructed, The Humber Bridge was the longest bridge in the world, making it longer than the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.*

Under the Humber Bridge © Ian Russell and licensed for reuse under this Creative Commons Licence

After wandering around (read: getting lost) in Hull's sun-soaked and beautiful Old Town, we eventually found our way to the World Trade Centre, a smart new development in Hull's Marina, where we met up with Hull Digital's host and master of ceremonies Jon Moss (@jonmoss). I just had time to scoff a choccie biscuit before settling in for the talks...

Adam Westbrook (@adamwestbrook), a Multimedia Journalist working at Viking FM delivered a great talk on the future of Journalism. Adam's enthusiasm and passion for his profession was evident as he delivered a pragmatic view of how things are going for his industry. The challenges facing traditional media organisations, especially newspapers, have been well documented and times are not good, but I was really impressed by the way Adam acknowledged the threats but also offered a vision of the opportunities that exist.

Adam described how Journalist's are no longer respected as experts. The parallels with Web Designers struck me. While it is great that anyone can have a go it doesn't mean it is easy to be really good at it. Open access (in my humble opinion) is no bad thing. I like the fact that loads of people would like to do what I do for a living (is that bad – I think it sounds pretty bad). In an open economy it's only right that anyone can have a go at anything they like. It's also right that the market place can judge the quality/value-for-money and determine the long term viability of the service on offer.

Also lamented was the loss of unparalleled access to sources and the monopoly over news distribution channels. A memorable statistic that Adam quoted was that 54% of newspaper content is provided by PR agencies, i.e. over half the content is created by parties driven by a 3rd party agenda rather than journalists paid to research and write unbiased(ish) news content. Faced with diminishing income and greater competition, delivering a product that remains competitive forces newspapers into strategies aimed at generating content without the staff overheads. It must be painful to have to do this knowing that quality will suffer.

But what about the social impact? Call me a hopeless optimist, but surely there remains an opportunity to provide a balanced and detailed analysis of current affairs from which readers can inform themselves and reach an educated appreciation of the issues? This made me wonder if there is a tipping point at which consumers will no longer tolerate it. Would those same consumers concede that quality is worth paying for? Can the newspapers tough it out until my utopian vision comes to fruition?

Adam explained how low cost video equipment and editing software combined with the adoption of digital media is changing news reporting. He also gave some examples of the emerging trends of “Hyper Local” journalism - news services that focus on really detailed analysis in small geographic areas. Admittedly I haven't actually checked any out, but I have a vision of local news hell, in which presenters struggle to fill minutes of air time with total drivel, talking about how Mrs Smith's cat is receiving phyco-thearapy from Jim next door after falling off the back of the sofa.

He also touched upon ways in which revenue models for news organisations have to change which made me wonder how many other industries would benefit from shaking up their business models, service delivery methods and revenue models to maximise their potential in the digital market place?

Next up John Polling (@pollingj) gave us an introduction to the alt.net community in which he made some interesting points about Microsoft making concessions to the opensource community. I think John's comments on Test Driven Development could form the basis of a whole new post (watch this space)...

Big thanks to the Mossman and everyone who attended Hull Digital for making it another great event.

* At the time of writing this post the Humber Bridge is 5th longest bridge in the world, the Golden Gate is 9th (130m shorter) - source Wikipedia via @imran

Back to top.