05/09/2013 Meet the Author


05/09/2013

Similar Content

Browse content similar to 05/09/2013. Check below for episodes and series from the same categories and more!

Transcript


LineFromTo

about. The important thing is that she is safe now. We will have much

:00:00.:00:04.

more for you at the top of the hour on the situation in Syria and the

:00:04.:00:07.

discussions at the G20. Now it is time for us to meet the author,

:00:07.:00:16.

Professor George Brock. In the last 20 years, the business of journalism

:00:16.:00:20.

has changed out of all recognition. Traditional newspapers are finding

:00:20.:00:21.

it harder and harder to keep going. New forms of activity which call

:00:22.:00:28.

themselves journalism have started up in the digital world. A new book

:00:28.:00:34.

looks at where journalism has been and where it may be going. The

:00:34.:00:40.

author is George Brock, once a senior editor at the times, now

:00:40.:00:43.

professor of journalism at city University in London. George Brock,

:00:43.:00:49.

you say in this experiment, but it is not in ruinous

:00:49.:00:51.

experiment, but it decline. If I were working for an

:00:51.:00:59.

old—fashioned newspaper, I might have a problem with that because it

:00:59.:01:04.

looks pretty ruinous to me. If you do work for a newspaper, of course

:01:04.:01:08.

things don't look that good. There's nothing wrong with that point of

:01:08.:01:09.

view. But there's more than nothing wrong with that point of

:01:09.:01:12.

view. But there's more than newspapers, and it's more than the

:01:12.:01:13.

newspapers that are threatened. What newspapers, and it's more than the

:01:13.:01:17.

has happened in the disruption it has occurred is that the business

:01:17.:01:20.

model of big, Dailly, General interest newspapers is very

:01:20.:01:25.

magazines, other kinds of magazines, other kinds of

:01:25.:01:30.

newspapers, television and online. One wants to be careful that you

:01:30.:01:35.

don't see the whole scene just as pictured by a small, threatened

:01:35.:01:40.

subspecies, which are the big newspapers. They will have a tough

:01:40.:01:44.

time. More proportionally to the overall journalism world, but high

:01:44.:01:47.

profile and significant. What is it that has put them in such peril?

:01:47.:01:52.

Their business model, which depended on advertising, is broken, is that

:01:52.:01:54.

it? It is the decline of it? It is the decline of

:01:54.:01:57.

advertising. People don't any advertising. People don't any

:01:57.:02:01.

longer, in lucrative volume, want to buy adverts in newspapers on the

:02:01.:02:03.

same scale that they used to do. The same scale that they used to do. The

:02:03.:02:08.

first sign of it was the newspapers that were dependent on small ads,

:02:08.:02:13.

classified ads, jobs, houses and cars. That kind of information

:02:13.:02:17.

web. And it could be done on web. And it could be done on

:02:17.:02:22.

different business models, and that meant the decline of newspapers that

:02:22.:02:26.

were heavily dependent on classified advertising. That is one of the

:02:26.:02:29.

reasons why America newspapers declined so

:02:29.:02:33.

dependent on advertising of that dependent on advertising of that

:02:33.:02:35.

kind. That is why they slumped early on. One of the things that seems to

:02:35.:02:38.

online, as journalists and news be happening

:02:38.:02:47.

organisations look for new ways to organisations look for new ways to

:02:47.:02:50.

survive and make money will store we are going back to a rather scrappy

:02:50.:02:51.

model of journalism which actually are going back to a rather scrappy

:02:51.:02:57.

was how journalism started in the 18th and 19th centuries. All sorts

:02:57.:03:05.

of people paying for it, all sorts journalism that has always been

:03:05.:03:05.

presented in the 20th ideal. For a very long time,

:03:05.:03:12.

journalism unsavoury. What you might call the

:03:12.:03:22.

highly modern period of big, daily papers really didn't last for very

:03:22.:03:25.

long. Roughly speaking, the second half of the 20th century. Big, daily

:03:25.:03:30.

papers as we know them in America and Europe came to their real power

:03:30.:03:34.

and influence in the 1920s and 30s. and influence in the 1920s and

:03:34.:03:38.

Actually, if you look at the Actually, if you look at the

:03:38.:03:43.

numbers, they began to go into decline in the 1950s. British

:03:43.:03:47.

newspapers, national newspapers began to slide downwards in the

:03:48.:03:52.

circulation of the Daily Mirror was circulation of the Daily Mirror was

:03:52.:04:01.

1966. So the internet is not solely responsible for the demise? It is

:04:01.:04:06.

not solely responsible. It has made things a lot tougher and harder, but

:04:06.:04:11.

of television, radio, satellite and of television, radio, satellite and

:04:12.:04:18.

cable, they were all hammer blows, driving down newspapers. A lot of

:04:18.:04:22.

journalism these days is digital, websites launched by organisations

:04:22.:04:25.

and newspapers. There's also and newspapers. There's also

:04:25.:04:29.

start—up websites, things that didn't exist in the past. If you

:04:29.:04:34.

wanted to characterise modern, digital journalism, how would you do

:04:34.:04:39.

it, what makes it different from the old—fashioned traditional

:04:39.:04:43.

journalistic approach? What it allows is greater choice. If you

:04:43.:04:49.

don't have a choice in the pre—digital age, it is likely that

:04:49.:04:53.

digital is going to supply. Take the example of America. American

:04:53.:04:54.

journalism on the whole, journalism on the whole, very

:04:54.:04:57.

serious, sober, respectable at the daily paper level. Not many papers

:04:57.:05:00.

that we would call tabloid Public papers in America would survive.

:05:00.:05:05.

What digital has done is to give back to American journalism that

:05:05.:05:11.

fairly tasteless aspect of fairly tasteless aspect

:05:11.:05:15.

societies. It is what offended journalists would

:05:15.:05:17.

Market journalism, but some of it is Market journalism, but some of it is

:05:17.:05:19.

very bouncy, very clever, very quick, very funny. That is what

:05:19.:05:21.

people like. worries so many observers inside and

:05:21.:05:29.

outside journalism, is that it has become more and more difficult to

:05:29.:05:31.

sustain journalistic enterprises journalism properly. Surely that is

:05:31.:05:38.

the big threat posed by digital the big threat posed by digital

:05:38.:05:45.

media. It is. But one of the reasons that I wrote this book was to

:05:46.:05:49.

convince people of my own view, which is that I think the corner has

:05:49.:05:54.

been turned. The tilting point we've reached. You can look at some of

:05:54.:05:58.

these online news businesses and you can see the big possible journalism

:05:58.:06:03.

institutions of the future. These are not all tiny start—ups anymore.

:06:03.:06:07.

Some of these people are beginning to challenge the existing

:06:07.:06:17.

journalistic powers as disruptors. I visited one which reports near New

:06:17.:06:18.

York. Their target is the local York. Their target is the local city

:06:18.:06:23.

section of the New York Times. They've only got about ten people so

:06:23.:06:28.

far, but if they get to 20 people they say, we can take on that

:06:28.:06:33.

section of the New York Times, which employs 60 journalists, so we are

:06:33.:06:36.

three times better than them. It may turn out to be true. Coming back to

:06:36.:06:39.

newspapers, there's a newspapers, there's a lot of

:06:39.:06:42.

speculation that before long, some big titles in the UK will opt for an

:06:42.:06:47.

online, digital publication only, they'll get rid of the expensive

:06:47.:06:51.

business of dead trees, printing and distribution. Do you think that will

:06:51.:06:54.

happen, and which ones will go first? A lot of people when looking

:06:54.:07:01.

at British papers choose the at British papers choose the

:07:01.:07:07.

Guardian, because it's been very advanced and innovative online.

:07:07.:07:08.

was looking at it, I'd pick the was looking at it, I'd

:07:08.:07:14.

Financial Times to wind down its print version first. I

:07:14.:07:16.

it will happen quite that radically. I think people will go

:07:16.:07:23.

week, and they will see how that down to once a week or twice a

:07:23.:07:25.

week, and they will see how that works and whether they can keep the

:07:25.:07:26.

20 year scale on the outside will be people

:07:26.:07:41.

20 year scale on the outside will be there, some of them think

:07:41.:07:45.

between five to ten years. Two big things will happen. Happen. People.

:07:45.:07:50.

Switching off print, or not doing print every day. Very big journalism

:07:50.:07:54.

institutions. The other thing is that high—tech companies will start

:07:54.:07:57.

buying the newspapers. You saw it the other day with the Washington

:07:57.:07:59.

post.

:07:59.:08:00.

Download Subtitles

SRT

ASS