William Chambers' Blog

The prize jewel of French newspapers, darling of intellectual and artistic classes, Le Monde, announced this week that it will no longer be owned by its employees and would seek a single investor to secure the paper’s future.

According to editor-in-chief of Le Monde, M. Fottorino, change in ownership would allow the paper to “envisage new horizons, while respecting its founding values, armed with undiminished ambition to invent its own future.”

However, this is not just handing over ownership to a single individual (which of the four bidders it is to be will be decided over the next week or so) but is also another indication that the financial pressures of the 21^st century mean that papers need serious investors and business minded journalism.

Concentration of ownership is common in the UK. The Independent was set up to be the pinnacle of independent journalism. It was bought for £1 and the promise of investment this year by Russian oligarch, Alexander Lebedev, who also recently acquired The Evening Standard.

Similarly, Rupert Murdoch has reached boogeyman status through his ownership of the News of the World, The Sun, The Times, the Sunday Times, Sky, Harper Collins… the list is long.

Powerful proprietors are no new thing, but is concentration of ownership a bad thing? There are obvious ethical negatives such as a lack of diverse voices in the media, bias, increased power of advertisers and the ability of an owner to use a publication for personal gain.

The journalism industry is on dubious moral ground when accepting the bailout bucks of big owners, but what are the alternatives to concentrated ownership.

The grassroots journalism of Joe Blogger writing about the council from his bedroom, although less driven by the bottom line, is equally rife with opinion, bias and shoddy journalism. It does not answer to an editor’s code or regulatory body such as the PCC.

Then there are the more democratic ownership models, but do these really give us an improvement on the traditional single proprietor model?

Look at the shareholder owned, Guardian. Is it a good newspaper that practices “quality” journalism? Yes, and is it biased towards a certain ideology and keep a particular demographic satisfied with its coverage? Absolutely.

In comparison, take the Telegraph. It is controlled by a central “Murdoch style” owner, the Barclay brothers but can it still practice quality journalism? Absolutely, The Telegraph broke the biggest investigation of the last few years which is still rumbling on now over a year later – the MP expenses.

Finally, the independent publications: The local papers such as the Camden New Journal, or online news sites such as, SE1.

Digital publishing platform, such as WordPress, require little or no investment, and therefore little or no risk on behalf of the journalist. As this continues to become easier, independent and entrepreneurial start-ups should continue to thrive.

But these publications and sites do not have the resources, manpower or time to conduct large investigations like The Telegraph’s expenses story.

Journalism has a complex food chain and the more interplay between freelancers, grassroots, start-up, local, regional and national media there is, the better for the industry. All the players are needed and no one can claim to have the “right way”.

A story can be picked up by a freelancer which has regional or even national significance and national stories should be distilled down to what they mean for the residents of a particular borough at the hyperlocal level.

The journalism industry does not need saving. Like one large business, it needs diversification of business models and the professional mentality to create a “quality news” community.

21^st century journalism faces a financial crisis, with declining year on year sales that are continuing to plummet as the younger generations become less and less interested in reading print. As the industry battles with moving into the digital world, it is the investment of the rich owners which will push it forward. Lebedev’s newly designed Independent had a great election month.

Losing publications like Le Monde, or The Independent to financial pressure is not preferable to having them in the hands of a single owner. All forms of news, national, grassroots or otherwise, are needed for the  industry to thrive.

So rather than bemoaning the loss of the socialist-democratic spirit of Le Monde, we should rejoice that its wordy  journalism may now have a better chance to survive and enlighten future generations.

Parasitic web browsers, rampant social networking, tweeting tweeple, media oligopolies, protectionist education, no money and definitely no jobs – welcome to an average conversation about the future of journalism in the 21^st century, all of which sounds a bit insane and rather apocalyptic.

Last week in London, freelance entrepreneur, Adam Westbrook, slated a Sunday Times article by Ed Caesar for not mentioning entrepreneurial journalism, saying that this mentality was forcing prospective journalists such as myself to chooses either badly paid jobs and oversubscribed internships.

This prompted a similarly punchy reply from media commentator, Roy Greenslade, who said that Westbrook had his head in the clouds rather than in the reality of the business. Westbrook replied that is exactly where journalists’ heads should be – looking at the media as it could be rather than just the “cold hard reality”.

As a member of the community of young, aspiring and jobless journalists that was the subject of this article, I would argue that debate only gets us so far.

There are really two sides to the discussion of the future of journalism. Firstly the question of print verses online, and secondly the question of free verses paid-for content.

These two questions will shape the future of the industry as we know it, but how much freedom do those starting out in the industry have to be as idealistic as the distinguished commentators like Roy Greenslade or Jeff Jarvis, as grittily realistic as the established Ed Caesar, or as experimental as the multimedia freelancer, Adam Westbrook?

I recently spoke to a self-made journalist and editor of one of the few financially successful online hyperlocal news sites, James Hatts.

 He brought up the point that there is no business model for 21^st century journalism:

“There isn’t a clear model there are dozens of different models. I don’t see why their needs to be. People just need to do what works for them.”

This is a view that amidst all the hand wringing does not get aired very often. Despite being good listeners, journalists often error on the side of talking too much, which can be a terrible bore at dinner parties but quite handy when wanting to relate a story.

Whether Google and Facebook are good or bad for online newspapers is not an issue if there is no one out actually trying to run one. Some people trying to do it, but the number of serious operations can be counted on your fingers.

Equally there are still plenty of good opportunities writing news for young journalists. While it might not be on a national newspaper, there are hundreds of business to business or niche publications and online sites that need writers.

Today there are 69 jobs on journalism.co.uk, 25+ on Editorial Content, that many again on sites like Gumtree and that is just what everyone else is applying to.

 Use your contacts, network and talk to friends. Join up to groups such as The Future of News, pretty soon you will be hearing about offers, and getting ideas you might never have otherwise.

The issue is what Mr Hatts called the “hand wringers” who are too busy debating the future of journalism to actually take the leap and do something about it.

 “Whatever works for you” should be the conclusion of the debate between Westbrook and Greenslade.

Every established journalist I have spoken to, every work experience I have done, every job interview I have been to over the last three years has had a similar conclusion: if an aspiring journalist can doing the basics, e.g. finding good stories and telling them well, they will find work. The industry needs creative and intelligent journalism.

How a journalist chooses to tell the story will always be up for debate, but that should never stop them from focusing on telling the story.

This is not to argue that journalists such as Westbrook are not doing their job, but if people really want to be entrepreneurial, or even just get a job, they need to do first and talk later.

On that note of “hand wringing” I will take my own medicine as I am off to a job interview.