The Future Of Photography, The Future Of Journalism

23 June 2010 10 Comments

How come painters of past centuries used to paint saints all the time? (Because they were sponsored by the church).

People working in communication know well that the content transmitted by traditional media MUST support the advertisers. The reason is simple: without advertising traditional media could not survive.

Here are a couple of experiences that I had:

Plastic bottles are good for the environment.

What would shampoo advertisers say?

Uncovering the truth

I am glad to witness that more and more people are getting tired of the manipulation and distortion of information and that big names in journalism are now revealing the truth.

British reporter and former Journalist of the Year Nick Davies is the author of Flat Earth News. The award winning book extensively analyzes falsehoods and distortion in the media, describing what he calls “the mass production of ignorance”.

Another great read is the in-depth article “Revolutions in the Media Economy” by David Campbell, professor of Cultural and Political Geography at Durham University. He explains how “recent history suggests that much reporting promotes the interests of those in power (…) or recycles PR material” and gives a wide-angle overview of the dynamics of the current system and the deep transformations now underway in the news industry. What kind of future are we heading for? Journalists, photographers and creative minds will find his exploration very inspirational.

Money is a need

Writing an article often requires a lot of research, contacts, traveling, fact-checking, interviews and data review. The shooting of a picture, where the work of several professionals may be needed, can be even more complex and expensive.

In order to avoid the limitations imposed by advertisers, the production and publication of content would need to be entirely independent of their funding. But without the money of advertisers, how would it be possible to pay for the work of photographers, journalists and creative minds?

New frontiers

San Francisco based Spot.us is pioneering what they call “community powered reporting”. On their site they collect donations to fund reporting on important topics. A few dozen people willing to donate $10-$20 each is enough to hire a freelance journalist to investigate a local issue.

WikiLeaks is doing the same, on a much bigger scale. They fundraise for international investigative journalism and do exposés on the untold stories of corruption and other dirty issues. On November 19, 2009 the National wrote: “WikiLeaks has probably produced more scoops in its short life than the Washington Post has in the past 30 years”.

An even more extreme example comes from 48HRmag, a glossy magazine that was put together over one weekend by a group of San Francisco media friends. The contents were developed selecting among 1,500 submissions collected through social media. In a couple of days the magazine sold over 1,000 copies for $10 each. The San Francisco Weekly blog has published the story of its creation.

Is this going to be the new way photographers, journalists and creative professionals are going to get paid for their work? In certain cases I can imagine that this trend will grow, in others I am afraid not.

Enterprising Individuals

The concept of crowdfunding (fundraising via social networks to support a project) was born before someone thought of using it to fuel reporting. It sounds really great but it’s not as easy as one might like. (By the way, Spot.Us is already opening to sponsors, giving up the advertising-free business model).

These websites support individuals in search of financial help:

Multimedia journalist Annabel Symington decided to use KikStarter to fund the first part of the Guarany Project, a documentary about the challenges facing the Guarani Aquifer in South America. “While KickStarter give you the platform”, she says, ”they make it very clear it’s up to you to market it”. In other words, she found herself doing a lot more than she imagined. “Through this project I’ve become a brand designer, a social media guru, a public speaker and an event organiser. You name it, I think I’ve done it”. Her experience is reported in Next Generation Journalist written by digital storyteller Adam Westbrook who explories ten different potential new scenarios for our profession, or ten new ways to make money in journalism.

The book is rich of basic information, innovative ideas, practical tips, interviews and useful links. Professional storytellers who are wrestling – like me – with the new challenges of our profession, will enjoy reading his reassuring and inspiring optimis.

The magic number

Rob Haggart, in his popular blog “A Photo Editor”, was already pointing out in 2008 that the way most photographers are pursuing their careers needs to be considered obsolete. Forget about selling your work to important publishing companies, magazines are dying anyway. The solution, he explains, lies in publishing your pictures for free on the net as much as possible and creating a group of fans that will buy your prints, books, lectures, workshops and personal commissions. Of course you need a certain amount of supporters. According to Kevin Kelly, co-founder of Wired, your goal should be to have 1,000 True Fans, and he explains that theory in excruciating detail on his blog. Most of the comments that follow, even the most recent, are very enthusiastic about the possibility of making a living from the support of your admirers. Other posts from people who already actually depend on their fans in order to stay in business show a more realistic view. Musician Robert Rich shares his experience and, among other things, writes that he has “less time in the day to actually create new art (half the day doing email is not unusual)”.

Multimedia is the answer. Or is it?

Photojournalist Ed Kashi has a different view. He believes that the future lies in multimedia (here is a great example of what he means), therefore storytellers need to reshape the way they produce and edit their reports. And who is going to buy their work? In a March 2010 post on The Nieman Journalism Lab blog (a platform dedicated to figuring out how quality journalism can survive and thrive in the Internet age) Kashi states, “No longer will a magazine’s pages be assumed to be the final destination for our images. We must think instead about having our story or set of our images resold in different markets around the world—and this includes a foundation’s Web site, an NGO’s annual report, or a charity’s external marketing”.

The option is certainly intriguing, but it might sound a bit too optimistic to all the photographers who are now struggling to pay their bills. Most of the time, humanitarian organizations ask for volunteer contributions. Maybe that’s why a September 2008 editorial in The Digital Journalist suggested: “In our view, there is only one way: Philanthropists must come to the rescue”.

Your point of view

Are you a photographer or journalist wondering, like me, about the future of our profession, the transformation of the information industry and the increasing confusion between editorial content and advertising? Please join the discussion. I know that the question on the table sounds a bit too much like: “What economic model is going to replace capitalism?” Still… this is what we are facing now.

Maybe we don’t fully see it yet, but this might be the greatest opportunity to separate information from advertising and get rid of the need to glamorize every piece of news in order to meet the standards of today’s magazines. Maybe this could be an opportunity to find a totally different business model and escape the limits imposed by publishing companies connected with those in power. I like to think that the mess we are in has the potential to lead us to a totally different balance. There are some encouraging signals, let’s see what follows.

Meantime if you have a great project in the news and information field, Journalismfund.eu is distributing grants to journalists who have a good idea for an investigative story but lack time or money to carry out the research. Another option is the Knight Foundation that holds a yearly contest called the Newschallenge with the promising slogan: “You invent it. We fund it”.

And don’t forget to sign the petition to ask UNESCO to declare world journalism in crisis.

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http://www.thelongestwayhome.com The Longest Way Home

Very much enjoyed this article.

It is indeed a crossroads for media as a whole I feel. Large news corps shutting off RSS feeds, and charging for others. Print media finally moving online, and authors are looking to ebooks.

Journalists may well get left behind as a matter of economics at the start of all this. Much like authors of fiction. Media will choose the top 100, and they in turn will churn out the works of the 1000′s under and so the funnel will continue.

Dave
Laura

Loved this article. We are on a turning point of info circulation, the choice is on us like never before, check this out http://www.good.is/post/why-the-market-can-t-give-us-quality-news?utm_source
http://www.alhayatwadounia.wordpress.com Alexandra Mihai

Thank you so much for this article. It really helps a lot, because we just started an on line newspaper http://www.alhayatwadounia.wordpress.com and we would like to make it a real newspaper, but we have big problems with money. We have to do something to save journalism.
http://ereview.org sonya baughman

Funding journalism or critical writing of any kind in a periodical format is obviously facing serious challenges and will continue to do so as long as the factors that led to the “media crash” (or whatever you want to call it) are extant.

I don’t know what the answer to this problem is but what Spot.us and WikiLeaks are doing can’t possibly work without eventually suffering from the same funding concerns that a periodical with advertising would suffer from. Funders have their own ideas about content that, if not met, will incline them to pull that funding. Even if the funding agency or individual says, “Do what you want. We just want to support your mission.” the organization on the receiving end of that gift will generally feel inclined not to publish something that would deeply offend the funder. On the other end of the spectrum, there’s the community-based input of 48HRmag. How could a magazine that is put together in a weekend, having selected from 1,500 pieces, POSSIBLY be properly fact-checked (assuming this is journalism of some kind) and edited?! Even if all of the submissions were perfect and accurate, who funded the printing? Who pays the staff? Who does marketing and distribution? Even using kickstart to fund something like that is not likely sustainable as a long-term business plan. People who donate 10 – 20 bucks tend to be fickle and may only do so once. Getting them all to consistently donate year after year – that’s the hard part. And how much do you spend on trying to reach those people every year (I think the Humane Society spent more sending me note cards and return address labels this year than I gave them in my small donation. This does not incline me to continue to donate.)?

Maybe all news organizations will go 501(c)3 status some day. Not that it will solve any bias problems, but it will at least give them access to grant money. But if they got state or federal funding (say, through NEA) for a project, would that bias them towards erring on the side of agreeing with the government on one issue or another? Who knows. All I know is that it’s a right mess and I’d really like to see someone develop some ACTUAL monetizing strategies for running a publication without advertising, corporate donors, large private donors, etc. Having sat through this mess with my organization, even as a NFP (or maybe especially as), it has been extremely heartbreaking. We are trying to come up with a concrete business strategy that can provide relatively predictable income, but the climate is just so volatile. In some ways it doesn’t help that we are a niche publication. In others, it at least provides us focus.

My apologies for this long comment, and I understand that you are trying to provide plausible silver lining to this epoch in journalism history, but any kind of funding comes from someone somewhere with an agenda and even if they did not, philanthropists alone cannot support the entire world of journalism.

Like I said. I have no answers, but nothing here looks plausible over the long term. I’d be curious to know about what media outlets are experiencing growth or simply sustainable funding (the latter of which is what I see as a more likely trend) these days. Who is producing quality journalism out there without advertising or without large amounts of corporate or private funding that could be construed as coming from biasing organizations? I don’t mean this sarcastically. I would really like to know so that we can all watch, learn, and implement!
http://www.enzodalverme.com Enzo

@ Dave, I am not very optimistic but, in the same time, I really want to be optimistic! Things might change in an unpredictable way…

@ Laura, thanx for posting the link, you are right: the choice is on (all of) us

@ Alexandra, best luck with your project, keep me update if you find THE new business model

@ Sonia, (unfortunately) I don’t have the answer either.
This article is an exploration and I am glad that all of you are helping in the inquiry! Thank you for the long comment ☺
http://www.journalismincrisiscoalition.blogspot.com jason brown

@Enzo

Nice follow up to comments! If only more site owners would do the same.

Here’s some answers.

1. The reason journalism coverage goes nowhere fast is because it dates from an age where there was, gasp, no net. Along with issues and problems, journalism now needs to provide links to actual people and organisations (sorry UK spelling) who contribute to said issues and problems.

2. Ethically, journalists are supposed to observe, not participate. This ethical consideration had more to do with space (and with radio, TV, time) limitations, than fairness. Those days are over, and journalists need to update their ethics accordingly to take into account a vastly more interactive age.

3. Journalists are isolated. Journalism needs to be elevated above “business models” because, first and foremost, journalism is a public good, not a profit machine. Countries like the US apparently see the expenditure of countless billions on bombs as a patriotic duty, but throw their hands up in horror at the idea of spending millions on journalism. Funny, much?

4. Replacement of capitalism is indeed at the heart of problems facing journalism and indeed, every other kind of ‘ism’ you can imagine. Might I be so bold as to propone that globalisation (UK spelling again, I think!) strongly suggests a process in transition whereas something like “globalism” might point towards a system that addresses impacts rather than profits, on a global basis.

All together now: “It’s a small world, after allll …”
http://www.enzodalverme.com Enzo

@ Jason you write “Countries like the US apparently see the expenditure of countless billions on bombs as a patriotic duty, but throw their hands up in horror at the idea of spending millions on journalism. Funny, much?” I couldn’t agree more. Thank you for your comment and congratulation for your interesting blog :)
http://ijpenado.wordpress.com/ Ignacio Jorge Penado

This is a really nice website! As a journalist who has worked in the mainstream media I can´t agree more with you! And this is happening all over the world. It doesn´t matter if you look to Spain or to England, to US or to Germany.

Furthermore, this is happening to every other industry based on capitalism (music industry or film industry are a good examples) So what we have in front of our eyes is the complete downfall of the economic system that supported western industries. The great failure of the system is happening right here right now.

However, solution are not easy to find… and even worst, it looks like we have to wait until the ship sinks and then we will see who is able to save himself…

I have the pleasure to listen to a Nick Davies speech this year in Bristol. He´s really clever, simply amazing…

And yes, If someone will do something, it must be all of us…
Bill

What a great insight into the various positions developing in the field. Thanks!

Personally I think that the future of funding for journalism should rest in two directions. One is the “community powered journalism” you mention. Communities need news and are willing to pay for it if it is connected to their concerns and interests. Journalism sort of did itself in by buying into the one-size-fits-all global scale image of reporting. Communities interests are not entirely global, and so powerful global or national sources of news just aren’t providing the service local grass roots reporting can. The other direction for funding I strongly believe should be the government. Journalism is not a business, nor should it ever have been seen as such, it is a vital social need that needs to be supported and protected from corporate interference by government funding and power.

There are some great interviews with top journalists and the heads of some communications and journalism departments concerning the future of the discipline at http://www.ourblook.com/topic/future_of_journalism.html which people may find useful on these subjects as well.
http://blog.michaelwillems.ca Michael Willems

Agreed… Agreed. It is sad, but traditional media are dead. But yes, you can make money in other ways. I’m doing it too.