Rescuing the Reporters – Clay Shirky

I think it would be great if journalism moved to the non-profit sector. I never thought about that type of transition, and I actually think it would be good for Americans to receive news from people who aren’t being paid by corporations.

Through a non-profit model, journalists would be responsible to the public again, instead of trying to balance advertising and public interests. This is not to say that the shift to non-profits will not present future challenges, for instance with legal issues of copyright and potential government censorship. However, media organizations such as PBS and NPR have been able to survive and present diverse information, using public money and occasional advertising.

One thing I found shocking was that the Columbia Tribune only employed six news reporters, out 59 people on the staff list, according to Shirky. It is interesting that that publication dedicated 11 people to cover sports, which suggests that news reporting positions are more competitive than sports writing, which inspired me to learn more about writing about sports.

The non-profit model would be good for local news, as Shirky points out, because most of the content in most newspapers is not hard news, and the non-profit entities would be paying at the most a dozen reporters to provide local content. Those reporters would be necessary to fulfill the production of what Alex Jones calls the “iron core of news.” The work of these reporters is “critical to the orderly functioning of that town,” Shirky said.

“What matters in the Tribune, and what’s at risk, is Terry Ganey’s work on a state coverup of elevated levels of E.Coli in Ozark lakes…” Shirky said. I agree. Investigative reporting, on the local level especially, must exist to protect the public. We must find a way to fund this service.