News as a Product; but at what Cost?

Hannah Ardent, an American political-theorist once famously said, “market-driven media would lead to the displacement of culture by the dictates of entertainment.” This statement is an excerpt from her 1961 essay “The Crisis in Culture”. Currently, in 2019, we are facing exactly what Ms Ardent predicted decades ago. Scholars Edson Tandoc and Ryan Thomas too have written about the same in their famous 2014 article “The Ethics of Web Analytics”.

Journalism plays a pivotal role in upholding the values of a democratic society. It is a journalist’s duty to facilitate public-discourse by bringing together people from different walks-of-life to comment on the common-good, only then, the ‘Communitarian Role’ of journalism will be fulfilled (Dewey 1927). But, the current norms in the field indicate otherwise. Audiences are being classified into segments according to their needs, rather than being treated as a whole. Editorial Independence has taken a backseat whilst paving way for audience’s ‘choice’ on the type of content a media outlet produces/creates. Meaning, it’s the audience that holds command on the type of content published by the media and all thanks to ‘Web Analytics’ and ‘Online Audience Metrics’ that help journalists in understanding their audience’s preference and what to serve. In this prevailing norm, where journalism has become customer-oriented, journalists have digressed themselves from their professional and social obligations, thus not fulfilling the communitarian role of the profession.

2019 is this age of ‘Algorithmic Journalism’ and ‘Big Data’, audience-metrics are being increasingly embraced by journalists to understand audience’s news consumption behavior (Hammond 2015). ‘Clickable’ content that interests the public is produced; keeping aside stories that need to be discussed but may not fetch the amount of traction gained by the former kind of stories. Today, Journalists are prioritizing audience’s ‘wants’ over their ‘needs’ to make profits, subsequently challenging the ideals of journalism and democracy (Tandoc and Thomas 2014).

In this age of commercialization, Journalism has taken a mercenary route; news has become a product to earn profits. Journalism as a profession has social obligations, it serves a purpose above and beyond its immediate commercial audience and journalists seem to have lost track of that. Journalists have made it a norm to produce content that customers ‘want to consume’ rather than what they ‘need to consume’, further compromising the gatekeeper role of the profession.

In desperation of gaining readership and traction, media-houses resort to web-analytics’ help to understand public choices and serve accordingly (Neheli 2018). In so doing, media houses surely earn a penny more but are putting the ideals of both journalism and democracy in danger.

Journalists, with the ease of web analytics and technological advancements, should try to make use of audience-metrics in a more society-oriented manner rather than just using them to make profits. How can important issues of public-interest that people do not usually prefer reading be made ‘clickable’, should be explored. In so doing, journalists will be able to balance between the wants and needs of customers. While the wants of the customers will help the media-house sustain, the needs of the customers will also be prioritized to maintain the equilibrium and uphold the sanity of journalism, further bolstering the democracy.