If we don’t, who will?
An all too common refrain of late is that the news media in all its forms is in decay and disarray. The sources we used to count on for deep, investigative journalism have shrunk away from that duty of the fourth estate.
They’ve dramatically cut budgets, scope, and staff.
They’ve tailored their output to favor shallow, short-form, engagement-bait over true long-form journalism.
Why?
Money.
With the rise of the internet, people have become used to news and just about any other online content being free. As a result, subscriptions to publications and services began to fall. I mean, why pay if you can get the information you’re interested in for free?
Publications saw dramatic drops in revenue. Resources were cut to save money. They began to favor sensational rage and clickbait over educational pieces. More than ever before, the pursuit of advertising revenue decides what gets published, not what’s newsworthy or important.
With AI now entering the picture, it’s only gotten worse. People are using various forms of AI to “get the answer” rather than visit the sites from which the answer came, thus depriving those sites of desperately needed revenue to stay in business.
There is, at least, a partial solution.
I do understand the frustration of clicking on a link and finding a paywall. We cannot all afford to subscribe to everything. I know I can’t. But we do have to subscribe to some things; we have to pay for journalism. If we don’t, it will disappear. And it is disappearing now, in part because people don’t value it and they don’t want to pay for it.
– Liz Lenz, in Gloria Steinem taught me to be angry, paywalled on Patreon
Emphasis mine. We must understand the critical role journalism plays in a healthy society; we must value it, and, yes, we must be willing to pay for it.
Part of this was inspired as I updated my list of sources over on 7 Takeaways. I’m very privileged to be able to pay for subscriptions to something like 33 different publications ranging from traditional news media to independent content creators. I totally get that not everyone can do that much, but I am of the opinion that more of us can do something. Local or national, cause or general, factual reporting or thought-inspiring: good writing and good content are worth paying for.
In fact, it’s required if we’re to have a healthy society.
Without a free and open press capable of telling the stories that need to be told with the backbone to tell them in the objective and fact-based way they need to be told, society crumbles. Dictators and oligarchs rise to power. We’re seeing it all around us.
Democracy, among other things, dies in darkness. We need the press to hold up a light.
We have to pay for journalism. If we don’t, it will disappear.
I hope you’ll consider supporting something, somewhere, somehow, with a paid subscription. You’ll be helping to keep that light lit.