The Journalistic Revolution

“That is what real revolutions are like. The old stuff gets broken faster than the new stuff is put in its place. The importance of any given experiment is not apparent at the moment it appears; big changes stall, small changes spread. Even the revolutionaries cannot predict what will happen.”

It all makes perfect sense now. At least it does to me. Those petrified faces, intensely full of judgment and evidently full of advice, looking vaguely upon my innocent anatomy as I made my way through the university’s hallway, as if I had decided to march straight into hell. That eerie silence running wild instants after I would tell many a-stranger about my love for journalism and about my bold desire to pursue a career in it. The quick recommendations from already successful professionals who wanted me to become “successful” as well. It all makes sense now. Everyone saw it coming. Everyone. Even myself. I, too, knew this would happen. And no, it wasn’t denial what blinded me from picking a different path, no sir! It was principle. Because I would much rather do what I loved and fight in order to do it profusely than settle for the more convenient, safer path and cut some fat checks. Or at least that was what I told myself at the moment.

I thought integrity and honesty were going to be the main dynamos within my body, so that purpose – provided it was the right one – would let me see through it all with keen modesty and a humble heart. It bothered me immensely that following a most visceral call would be so easily frowned upon simply because of money. I hated money. And I hated the method by which I was being labeled, for I was not going to stand there while being branded with a big, sizzling “NO” simply because of how much money I was going to earn. I didn’t want money to wash away what I really was; I wanted my achievements to remain pure and untainted, I wanted my persona to render the individual who I had drawn in my dreams, night after night, with utmost creativity and unchained, meticulous dedication. I knew exactly what I was getting myself into; little they knew about how it felt to be a writer. But, of course, I should probably just smile now for, crudely so, I knew little to nothing about the world I was foraying into. This story, however, takes a turn (as all stories do); change was going to soak it all with its vibrant waves of disarray (just like you knew it would) and nothing was going to stop its insane manipulative tendrils from fulfilling its duty. Hence, I shall present you with the universal matter of this story, the glue behind it all; a little something we like to call “facts”.

Life is wasted in haste when facts are not properly reviewed, especially if those facts will affect the very life that you command and, almost immediately, how you will command it from such point on. So, in the most casual of manners perhaps, we shall explore the nature of this information I will share with you; I most sincerely believe it will serve as fine aliment for both the mind and the soul.

Good bye, Newspapers...

Not so long ago – two years, one month, and five days ago to be precise – on Friday, February 27^th 2009, the Rocky Mountain News (RMN) printed its final edition after one hundred and fifty years of service. Yes, you are correct, it might seem like an awful lot of numbers for anything other than a math problem (especially when the magnitudes are spelled like that) but, ultimately, these will serve a fine purpose for there are two pivotal items which I ought to bring upon your attention. The first item is this: two years ago, Colorado’s biggest name in print news had to call it quits because the economical model they had been founded on was no longer self-sustainable. The second item is this: a revolution which had been stirred with grandma-like patience for the previous years had finally culminated and become official that Friday 27^th when the RMN printed its last circulation of copies for the state of Colorado, for the first giant had fallen. It was a matter of time until others would follow this terrible fate.

Not so surprisingly, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer did follow a month later and, eventually, many other colossal names in print journalism would react in the form of a desperate counter-measure by laying-off thousands of employees, prompting then a mesmerizing reality where fear was luridly glowing all over the industry. For the first time, the dead were writing and reading their own eulogies at their very own funerals. But what did this mean? And what about that revolution? Well, just hang in there with me.

Clay Shirky, a renowned scholar as well as the author of my introductory quote (among many other titles), originally credited Elizabeth Eisenstein for what he deemed as a “magisterial treatment of Gutenberg’s invention”. In retrospect, what Gutenberg did was much more than just become the first entrepreneur to successfully print in the western world. Movable type was not where his rippling influence ceased to exist. It is because of him that newspapers were able to build an empire out of paper and ink and, additionally, it was because of him along with Aldus Manutius – the inventor of the smaller octavo – that literature was suddenly desired. Copies of anything and everything were being distributed around the pan-European realm and so then, social classes were no longer an impediment for the consumption of knowledge. Ironically enough, and as the old information lost legitimacy, the new was thought of as untrustworthy, the latter phenomenon occurring simply because both elements were being so easily disseminated at a very fast pace. The written word, suddenly, was a necessity. And as such, it had a price.

The infrastructure required in order to efficiently operate and maintain a printing press, such as the one Gutenberg owned, topped as highly expensive. Which, consequently, led to the monopolistic treatment of a newly born industry that, in order to stay alive, received, edited, filtered, manufactured, published, and distributed information as it saw fit, therefore collecting massive amounts of revenue from various sectors of society. Additionally, the manufacturers of these newspapers would receive compensations for advertizing space due to their large circulation. The news reporting effort was honest during most of its existence, but the business model that had spawned from this was surely doomed since the only thing keeping such aforementioned model alive was the costs of maintaining and operating such immense infrastructure – the Achilles’ heel of the industry, alas revealed.

But let us not lose focus here though. Do you want to know why my career choice turned me into an immediate victim upon the eyes of the beholder? Well, it is quite simple. Because there is no economical model at the moment that can provide me with a consistent and self-sustainable form of profit, for information is no longer both manufactured and filtered by the sole owner of a particularly massive printing infrastructure but rather owned and operated by everyone. Do you want to know why journalism is such gargantuan scarecrow today? Well, because for almost six hundred years it had the newspaper as its main and most important platform. It was the preferred vehicle of the investigative and journalistic mind; it was our chariot of truth, or biggest testament to pristine and unadulterated facts, and the perfect chassis for the transportation of all that truly mattered to society, by society, for society. This is no lamentation though, for the wheel is still turning and it shall never stop; it is in our most honest efforts to adapt and thrive, believe me when I tell you this much is true.

We are in the middle of a communicational revolution, and the Internet, as you all very well know, is the main tool behind it. We no longer need filters in order to share information nor we need of some publisher’s approval in order to produce and distribute what we think is valuable information. The Internet took that humongous infrastructure which had reigned supreme throughout the last 6 centuries and just tossed it to the trash, passing the torch then to the hands of the people. What does this mean? Well, it’s simple. It means that since we have no middleman, we basically have no filter or wall obstructing our craft and that, eventually, anyone can share with the rest of the world whatever they see as fit. So now, owning and operating a massive printing press is as useless as owning a unicycle. Yes, eventually, somebody will take a ride in your unicycle but if they ever do, it will be because it’s cute and entertaining. The newspaper as we all know it just became that unicycle, for it is no longer a necessity, it is a hereditary trend from the past which is waiting to dissipate forever, slowly dying an agonizing death while pretending that it isn’t.

The almost indelible fact behind this apparently unattractive revolution is that since journalism has always been so closely intertwined with newspapers we now lack the journalistic effort to cope with the dying spirit of newspapers. Even though it was an accident at first, it later transformed into a solid misconception that, apparently, wounded both very close to each other to the point of almost merging them together. The accident is now gone, and with it, the promise of a consistent platform to write on. But journalism is not dead; journalism is not gone nor it is dying, it is just stranded in a completely different world and it is yet to find its new home. We are now living through what I like to call a not-so-smooth transition (read introductory quote please). We are officially stuck in a limbo. If journalists can profit from their hard work because they lack a profitable platform to work on then who would ever want to work as a journalist? And if journalism is gone, who is going to perform the duties that journalists all over the globe so proudly performed? Who is going to inform the world through a most professional method? Who will come out there, to the raging streets, when the torrential rain covers it all and there is a story to cover? The truth is, nobody knows.

The intricate rule behind communication today is this: creating is as easy as consuming; therefore, there is a lot of everything, everywhere. Why would I pay for a subscription at the New York Times if I can get my news from Phillip Defranco every day via YouTube? Why should I watch TV if can catch any of my favorite shows online for free and not have to sit through the annoying commercials? The truth is, nobody knows what the way out of this is. It is scary to think that there is no feasible model ready to relocate sales margins where they used to be. Want to know why? There is no business model that can fight the Internet because when a 15 year old can come up with a news casting show on YouTube and gather one million weekly views then you are just looking at the hardest competition ever, for that kid has little costs of production and a unimpeachable reputation, while your corporation manages millions of dollars every second in order to promote a reputation that will hopefully bring sponsors who want their name out there through your signal, therefore damaging your relationship with salient news consumers.

Does it all make sense now? We are living amidst a quiet revolution where not even the revolutionaries know how things will turn out. This is a tumultuous time for journalism because there is no answer for this chaotic resurgent of massive information. The important thing to remember is this: journalists should never stop writing; journalists should never stop reporting; journalists should never stop asking the questions that will let us see the truth; journalists should never give up for they are part of all that is good in society. They teach and inform, communicate and connect. We don’t need newspapers anymore, we need journalism; we don’t need printing presses anymore, we need journalism. We don’t need the old business model, we need the truth and nothing but the truth. No longer should a company dictate what I am to read simply because of their particular interests. We need journalism to redefine itself and come through more aggressive then ever, more real than ever before. We need real journalism to take over and lead the way towards a new model, one where the truth is considered revenue too.