Journalists, Writers, Stand Up!

Anxiety in the newsroom has reached the point where every fear has become a reality. To borrow from Dr. Maslow, people lose all sense of gravity when safety and security are threatened. The European Federation of Journalists has organized a day of protests.

“Stand Up for Journalism” is rallying theme for a day (today, November 5) of gatherings, meetings, speeches, proclamations and, of course, the one-minute work stoppage at noon. National journalists’ unions affiliated with the European Federation of Journalists (EFJ) are feeling pain as technologies and economics converge on media companies, their members’ employers. Journalists want jobs and pensions protected.

But the news from the newsrooms has not been good over the recent few years, not good for journalists, editors or anybody else creating content. Newspapers, news agencies and public broadcasters are, as rapidly as possible, shifting from traditional staff structures to new, highly ‘flexible’ models. Reporters shoot their own photos or video. Editors are gone. Pressure to produce is up. Pensions are a thing of the past. And still, many of these media companies suffer from lost subscribers, ad revenues and profitability.

It is highly coincidental that the European journalists are protesting on the same day the Writers Guild of America (WGA) has gone on strike, shutting down US film and television production for the first time in over 20 years. Issues for the WGA are different, but similar. Different is the demand for higher residual payments, recognizing the value of DVD sales and on-line viewings. Similar is the anxiety caused by the end of traditional media models. The WGA’s strike theme is “Pencils Down Means Pencils Down.”

Media content – whether a news bulletin or TV show – doesn’t just miraculously appear. Once the fads of ‘unscripted drama’, also known as reality TV, and ‘citizen journalism’, also known as cheap video, fades in the post-Facebook future media content producers will likely find themselves with a stronger voice in whatever rises from the ashes of old media. First, however, they must let new media models find their color and tone, remembering old media for what it was but not holding on. - Michael Hedges November 5, 2007

Keywords:journalists and writers