Blog Post 6

Hyper competition in the news industry is something that I wanted to touch on first for this week. I think anyone that keeps up with the news at all can testify that the competition has both a huge positive side as well as a negative. I began to think about the way that the New York Times works. Seeing as almost all media sources are channeled online, I began to check their website for my news. The first time I was there though after seeing just a couple of articles, they required a login. Looking further into what it took to create an account, the biggest thing that stuck out to me was the fact that you had to pay to read more. I was perplexed. On one hand, it made sense, you have to pay for a hard copy of the paper so why shouldn't you also have to pay for the online version? But at the same time there are so many other free sources of news online that it almost seemed too easy to just blow off the NYTimes and look elsewhere. I understand that they have a very loyal readership but I'd be very interested to see how much money they were making.

For readers this hyper competition can mean one of two things. Either one readers are getting extremely comprehensive and good coverage of events based on one newspaper wanting to have more information that is more accurate or two it could be the opposite. Newspapers so focused on making a profit may go out of their way to stretch and bend the truth to sound like the best read.

As the book explains focusing so much on the brand of a newspaper causes some journalists lose sight of the “balanced, objective and ethical” demands of their job. I definitely think that a journalist’s primary loyalty should be to their readers but I’m kind of conflicted. I feel like those going into journalism understand that they need to keep the public informed, that’s their job, but they also have to look out for themselves. Following the stockholder theory then that would mean to do exactly what stockholders are asking you to do – increase share prices. But does that get in the way of what has been seen as the primary responsibility of journalists in the past? Where should the line be drawn? We want to expect honest and fair news but how much are we willing to pay for it? I certainly am more wiling to pay for my news instead of looking towards an unreliable source but I don’t know if the majority of people feel that way. I’ve thought about this a lot and I’m just as conflicted as when I began. I’m not sure if there really is a right way. Being honest and transparent feels right but it also seems a bit implausible to expect that all the time from every newspaper when there is so much competition.