Why journalists don’t deserve low pay

One of the must disruptive characteristics of the new media environment is the presence of the "former audience" in the media space. Traditional journalism seems to have lost professional ground and authority as digital technology continues to give common people the ability to edit and publish their own content. Picard (2010) has insisted that these activities, which previously required money and professional skills, are now supported by open software, networks and new platforms, which revitalize the dissemination of digital content.

However, abundance does not necessarily mean that the economic value of information has decreased. Abundance sometimes makes it more difficult for costumers to obtain a refine product and take decisions. Users are willing to pay for convenience and quality. With partial success, traditional media companies are trying to innovate, adapt and survive in the new environment, adding value to their digital content and exploring new possibilities to reach unexplored markets and new distribution channels. Some media companies are even generating decent revenue from digital outlets. Those gains make us think twice about the future value of digital information(1).

It is true though that most news has been subsidized through history. Advertising offered that support for a while, but the pact between advertisers and publishers to convey information and ads at the same to large audiences has been broken (Anderson, 2010). Yet citizens continue to need accurate information in order to take right decisions in their daily life. Scholars have strongly warned about the quality of online information produced by amateurs. Despite its abundance, the amount of online in-depth reporting for example seems to be limited (Starr, 2009). It appears that the public itself is not going to provide with the high-quality-information societies need. So the big question here is not about journalists’ payment, but how to obtain more revenue for quality information.


P.D. I agree with Picard when he says that the democratization of content production is one of the main reasons why knowledge is not enough for increasing journalists’ market value. Yet the ability to gather, evaluate, organize, synthesize and convey valuable information remains to be skills that very few people -- without proper training-- could have.

(1) Some media companies of course make good use of the current difficult media environment as an excuse to maintain low pay.

Picard, Patterson and the Value of Journalism

Picard and Patterson both address the crisis facing journalism, but from somewhat different angles. Picard focuses primarily on the declining economic value of journalism, while Patterson addresses the declining quality of reporting.

Regarding Picard’s argument, it’s not clear that the ability of users to “observe and report news, gather expert knowledge, determine significance, add audio, photography, and video components, and publish this content far and wide (or at least to their social network) with ease” (Picard, 2009) for free is a strict substitute for professional reporting. I think Gelson’s article in The Washington Post nicely complicates this notion. Yes, we have access to more information, often freely provided, but without a filter, context or analysis, this access has yielded more polarization, less fact-checking, and sometimes general confusion. Meanwhile, focus on economic outcomes, as Picard puts it, can easily be interpreted as guiding the punditry of Fox and MSNBC, which contributes to the problems Gelson enumerates.

Patterson argues, along similar lines to Gelson, that due to the increasing flow of data we need journalists to convert that data into useful, contextually-situated information. Even if we accept Picard’s claim that the value of their labor is decreasing, journalism has many positive externalities which are not so easily quantifiable. While Patterson’s reference to reporting on the lead-up to the Iraq War is definitely not an example of them, The Guardian’s reporting on the Snowden leaks is, contributing to a much needed and publicized debate on free speech, privacy and government surveillance. And, after all, Snowden went to an established newspaper rather than a local blogger (although I think that’s what Glenn Greenwald has kind of become, rather successfully).

That being said, demand for print news, whether of quality or not, has diminished. It’s wasteful and not nearly as immediate as getting news digitally. It also changes the playing field. Many of those who only got a local paper delivered can now access any newspaper they want online. Because digital reach is larger, competition between papers has also increased and smaller local newspapers are usually the first losers. Picard’s solution is greater newspaper specialization. While specialization, as in local news for instance, diminishes potential substitutes, it can also reduce potential market reach. If you’re interested in national or global news, you’d likely forego paid online access to the Austin American-Statesman online access when you can read The New York Times for free (for now).