Neil Arun didn’t want to miss a rare but risky opportunity to embed with an Iraqi police unit, hunting members of al Qaeda. But his employers -- responsible for Neil’s security -- weren’t happy. This film by Richard Pendry nvestigates how a frontline journalist balances risk and reward.
(Continued from Part 2).
Rupert Murdoch makes a false distinction between his “expensive and distinguished” reporters, whom he claims create original journalistic content and the evil online “aggregators” who merely “rewrite – at times without attribution” information from other sources.
It’s simply not true. Journalists report news or comment on it, they don’t create news. Today journalists, including Murdoch’s, spend more and more time online “aggregating” their stories.
So it seems hard to imagine that Murdoch’s plan to charge for access to his online news will work. The original sources and stories are out there for free, so too is a huge amount of comment and analysis, blogs and forum posts.
So will newspapers disappear?
Personally I hope not and I don’t believe they will.
Canals didn’t disappear when the railways emerged in the early nineteenth century. But they did have to face up to reality and find a new if diminished role. They became less significant than they had been and created far less wealth for their owners.
Many canals survived by occupying niches in the transport market that the railways had missed, or by supplying local markets.
I buy The Times and the Sunday Times regularly. I enjoy reading them (or at least parts of them).
Perhaps we’re simply witnessing the passing of the era of the media barons and the global media empires.
Perhaps the future of media and mass communication simply lies in our own hands.
Graham Majin is a former BBC News Producer. He is currently Head of Video Marketing and Video Production at Kent based Kersh Media and KWIKVID www.kershmedia.co.uk and www.kwikvid.com
