Being a journalist is not for the faint of heart! For the longest time, journalism has been a profession that is valued for the way that it informs and communicates with the public at large — allowing for more inclusivity and creating a sense of belonging in a society.

Today, the picture of what journalism is and where the practice is headed looks quite different. Journalists can no longer be watchdogs for the public and report on current matters without interference from economic, political or digital influences.

This makes it difficult for them to keep sight of their primary goal — writing credible pieces that inform their audience on what they need to know. 

Journalism is facing one of the biggest revolutions of all time: There are too many cooks in the kitchen. Journalists are facing the need to take back their turf and they should know what giants they need to face in order to do so.

media update's Jana van der Westhuizen investigates the difficulties that journalists will be experiencing and helps to prepare them for this battle.

Let's identify the four challenges journalists must face in this revolution:

1. Ideological polarisation is a thing

'Picking a side' has become a big part of journalism. You are either for something or against it. Therefore, the objective streamlining of communication has taken a back seat while polarisation has created a division in society.

Your audience indirectly determines what you write about — so what happens when your audience is no longer open-minded and is choosing sides? 

Ideology is truly a human principle that can be explained by one simple truth: Every person has their own belief system. But what makes this hard is that each individual is influenced on their own terms. 

Ideological polarisation can be seen particularly when journalists need to report on political subjects like global warming.  

Topics like this can sometimes conflict with your reader's own ideology. Therefore, you cannot report on such a contentious matter without losing some of your audience's loyalty. Your reader's ideology is influenced by their pre-disposed polarised feelings on a certain subject matter — and those subjective feelings are not easily influenced!

The polarisation of your audience is a challenge that every journalist will face at one time or another … you just need to work around it. How? By:
  • knowing your audience
  • trying new ways of writing
  • always pushing the boundaries when it comes to what you report on 
  • being aware of your opposition like fake news or social media, and 
  • attempting to incorporate as many viewpoints as possible, but still having a clear and concise outlook.
Basically, as a journalist, you sometimes lose your right to freely communicate the facts and you need to choose a side in order to keep your publication and readers happy.

2. Freelancers versus traditional journalists

Although you may feel that reporting is your turf, freelancers are also entering the scene. With the rise of Covid-19, the number of freelance writers has increased by 22%. 

Freelancers have seen the gap in the industry and they are making their debut. The nature of freelancing differs a great deal from journalism, but because they rely more on digital platforms for their line of work, they sometimes have first-hand access to breaking news. Additionally, freelancers don't have editors that they must report to before they post a story. 

No, a freelancer can immediately write and upload the news to a blog or website and, voila, the news is out! This sometimes makes it hard for non-freelancing journalists to stay in the game.  

Still, with the rise of freelancing, traditional journalism has seen a big decline in the employment rate. More institutions are outsourcing their stories to freelancers as it makes their employee base smaller and more manageable. Freelancers also work against a fixed rate per article, while journalists require companies to pay them a salary. 

So, yes … more media hubs may be looking for cheaper alternatives for labour. But traditional journalism is still a niche career, where individuals have developed skills in researching, intuition and great writing for many years. 

So, traditional journalist, how do you tackle this change in your field of expertise? Refine your skills and get more credible sources that can provide information in less time; this way, you can get ahead of those spoilers on social media!

The role of traditional journalists and freelancers should be divided clearly and also be appreciated as their own entities. So, let's not blur the lines between them.

 3. Media has become mobile-first

Ah, the age-old question of how social media will influence the traditional press ... 

Social media is here to stay, so journalists need to learn how to adapt to the digital sphere. The million-dollar question that we need to ask though is, 'How do readers consume their news?' The simple answer is mostly on their mobile devices. 

Therefore, journalists need to be aware of the trending mobile-first topic. Yes, you may not directly work with the interface of the application, but the way you write will ultimately determine the user experience of your consumer. Why?

Well, your readers no longer have a huge newspaper in their hand that allows them to just skim over every topic. No, when they see your article on their mobile, they first need to read it to see what it is all about. 

So, don't waste their time. Rather adjust your writing style and format so that it reads better on a mobile screen and so that they know what the article is about without having to read everything.

Let's take a blog as an example. People love reading news on blogs as they are interactive and have links to other sources that they can view. The content is also shorter with more entries on different subjects. Furthermore, when you see a blog, the headline and synopsis inform you what the blog will be about, so you can either skip or click and save the user time.

So, how can journalists adjust their writing and reporting techniques to be more mobile-attentive? You can:
  • have good headlines that tell your audience what they need to know about this article.
  • keep your writing a bit more conversational and less dictating. When people read news on a mobile, it immediately creates a less formal feeling — so use that to your advantage to fit in.
  • have interactive links to your sources.
  • create more visual news articles that will attract your user's attention. 
  • say more with less.

4. Fake news is not cool ... but it's still on the loose

We've all been confronted with it — a juicy story that in the end turns up not being true! 

Let's be honest, the rise of social media has contributed greatly to the distribution of fake news. On social media, anyone can often post something without taking any accountability for it.

Without accountability, people try to test the boundaries even more. But as a journalist, you know that you need credible sources to substantiate what you communicate to the public as you are held accountable in that what you report is the truth. 

Fake news on social media has the ability to spread faster and more efficiently because everyone has social media. In a study done by Indiana University, fake news can be divided into two categories. 

It can either be misinformation or disinformation. So, when fake news is posted with the intention to deceive an audience, it is classified as disinformation. But when fake news is published with the goal of shaping a person's ideology, it is seen as misinformation.

When fake news is spread, this can also influence the broader public's ideology about a certain subject. 

Later on, they will be so intertwined in a web of lies that their ideology has shaped their feelings. For example, when the Covid-19 vaccines were distributed, people had a lot of speculations about what this vaccine may do to you, and the speculations shaped people's beliefs about the vaccine — scary, I know!

As a journalist, it is sometimes hard when social media is always one step ahead, spreading news 24 / 7. But never let your standards fall. It is very easy to try and stay in this rat race by using unvetted sources, but you owe it to yourself and your readers to not do this. 

Journalists, you have resources that can help you ensure that your reporting will always be correct and, therefore, always the more relied upon! What are these tools? They are:
  • your editor — they will help to follow up on sources and make sure your words cannot be twisted later on.
  • credible sources — they can vouch for your point of view, and
  • objectivity — this will add validity to your content and ensure that it is factual. Subjectivity kills facts.
Never stop telling your story — own your turf!

Journalists — what are the challenges that you are encountering? Share your thoughts about it in the comments section.

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In a digital era, how can journalists ensure that they stay ethical in their work? Find out in our article, The importance of ethics in journalism.
*Image courtesy of Unsplash