What can be done to ensure that journalism remains as impactful and sustainable as it used to be before the advent of digital disruption? This report highlights various observations and suggestions by experienced journalists and media experts.
Former Deputy Editor of Sunday Nation, Dr Yinka Oyegbile, is not the first person to raise concerns about journalism gradually dying for several reasons that need to be tackled frontally before it’s too late.
His article last week titled Why Journalism is dying in Nigeria, described as thought-provoking and angry by the Editor-In-Chief of African Angle, Seun Akioye has expectedly reignited discussion and suggestions on what needs to be done urgently to stop the haemorrhage.
Oyegbile is particularly worried by the indiscriminate launch of one-man-owned digital media platforms by many journalists and non-professionals, which he rightly noted is not sustainable.
While noting that working in silos does not work for smooth news production, either electronic or print, Oyegbile wondered why reporters, sub-editors, features writers and investigative journalists with cognate experience cannot pool resources together and establish a strong online medium, rather than populate cyberspace with badly sourced news stories on the altar of being called “Online Publishers”
Other journalists and media experts, including Akioye, Executive Director of Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID), Akintunde Babatunde, Founder of Dataphyte, Joshua Olufemi, Chief Technology & Innovation Officer, Tauris Tech, Tosin Orogun, Publisher, ChurchTimes Nigeria, Gbenga Osinaike and former Editor and Media Adviser, Bolaji Tunji have weighed in on the issue with their observations of what should be done to prevent a total collapse.
Given the seriousness of the issue of sustainability in the industry, Olufemi advised moving the discussion from social media posts and turning it into a series of structured and well-documented conversations.
While waiting for the suggested conversations, like some that have been held before now, below are the salient points in responses to Oyegbile’s article, which is worth chewing on for anyone interested in preventing journalism from dying.
Teaming together may not solve the problem – Akioye
He largely agreed with Oyegbile’s concern about too many websites copying and pasting reports from legacy platforms, but noted that journalists teaming up to set up stronger online newspapers like the days of Newswatch, TELL, The News and others may not guarantee the deserved patronage.
Based on his experience of establishing African Angle, a development-focused not-for-profit website along with some colleagues across the continent. which has not attracted the expected readership of its content, he noted that the problem is with wishy-washy news deeply rooted in the taste and culture of new consumers of news.
What is considered news to our generation is no longer news to this generation. The features, investigations, and development stories we did are uninteresting to readers today.
Let every news medium find its niche – Osinaike
It seems the media is in a cul-de-sac; that is why I advocate niche journalism. We cannot all be Punch Newspapers .. Let every news medium find its niche.
What are we doing or not doing yet to optimise for technology – Olufemi
Responding to a comment about the problem being due to the tech revolution, Olufemi said the dual product of the media – audience and advertising – remains what tech companies are milking billions from
And then ask: what are we doing or not doing yet to optimise for technology?
Knowing full well that journalism has always maximised technological advancement – printing press, radio, television and the internet for its agenda and sustainability, is there something about the dual-product innovation, monetisation and management that we are not discussing or responding to? Or is it just a Nigerian market structure challenge which, in my opinion, has only evolved in forms over the years?
Legacy media must adapt without losing essence – Tunji
I commend people who still have high hopes and expectations for our profession. It is rather unfortunate that we have found ourselves here. I doubt whether we will have a group of people coming together to establish an online publication. Yes, individuals may take that route as we have now, but the reward system is so inadequate that no one wants to slug it out in that back-breaking task, especially when you consider what today’s economy is saying.
However, I have told a few of our colleagues in the established or legacy media, as you put it. that they need to adapt and constantly evolve if they must continue to ‘pay salary’. When they teach developmental principles in schools, it was for a purpose; the principle of adaptability says any species that fails to adapt goes into extinction. The legacy media must adapt without losing essence.
How quality journalism is delivered, experienced, and monetised should be redesigned – Orogun
My observation is that I don’t think journalism has lost its value; rather, I think the value chain has changed, and many journalists are not catching up! In the past, great reporting was enough because newspapers largely controlled discovery. Today, discovery is controlled by platforms, algorithms, personalities, and changing consumption habits. I strongly believe that the demand for credible journalism hasn’t disappeared, but my conclusion is that the mechanisms through which people discover, engage with, and pay for it have fundamentally shifted. That’s a different problem, which I think requires different solutions.
I actually think this presents an opportunity for journalists and journalism as a profession rather than a defeat. In my view, the challenge may not be about choosing between quality journalism and “shaky bombom” content, but redesigning how quality journalism is delivered, experienced, and monetised in today’s digital ecosystem. African Angle is already doing the hard part by producing meaningful, quality journalism. So, I think the next challenge is ensuring that the value created by that journalism reaches the audience in ways that reflect how people now consume information. I genuinely believe that’s a solvable problem, and one worth solving. I can help too, just buy me a cup of coffee, or maybe tea!
What society needs us for today – Akintunde
The deal is, a lot of our conversation about the crisis of journalism starts with the assumption that journalism is inherently valuable to society, so the question is always: how do we save journalism? Maybe we need to ask first, what exactly are we asking society to save, and why should society agree?
We can complain about “shaky bombom”, TikTok, Gen Z and declining attention spans. And I agree that there is something there. But I also wonder whether audiences are telling us something that we don’t particularly want to hear. Maybe what journalists think is important and what people consider useful, relevant or worth their time have increasingly drifted apart.
There was a time when journalism had the advantage of information scarcity. If something happened yesterday, you needed the newspaper or evening news to know about it. That advantage is largely gone. Politicians speak directly to citizens on their own social media with millions of followers more than most news organizations. Institutions publish their own information now. Eyewitnesses livestream events. Sometimes before the journalist arrives, millions of people already know what happened.
So what exactly does society need us for today?
I think investigation, verification, context, interpretation and holding power accountable remain important. But we cannot just keep saying these things are important because we are journalists. We also have to show people why they matter.
And then there is the money question.
Any journalistic endeavour that wants to do good work has to think fundamentally about how that work will be financed. We can’t build the entire thing around grants and hope the next proposal lands. We have to honestly work the numbers.
Good journalism is expensive. Investigations are expensive. Keeping a very good editor is expensive. Retaining a talented reporter for five years is expensive. Travel, technology, legal support, data, security, distribution — all of these things cost money.
Even what we call a non-profit newsroom needs serious capital. Sometimes the word “non-profit” even confuses the conversation. It doesn’t mean we don’t need to make money. Nonprofit newsrooms still need revenue, reserves and good enough money in the bank to know that if nothing comes in for the next year, the newsroom will still be there and people will still receive their salaries.
Grants can support some of this, of course. But increasingly, even grant money is tied to projects, themes and deliverables. You can have several grants and still not have enough flexible money to actually run the institution. There can be money for a particular project or whatever the donor priority is at the time, but who pays for the editor who has to remain there after all these projects end? Who pays for the technology? Who pays for audience development? Who pays for experimentation? Who pays to retain the best people in the newsroom?
Maybe grants are one part of the mix. Maybe membership, subscriptions, events, syndication, research, training, services, philanthropy and other things make up other parts. Different organisations will have to find different combinations. And yes, some public-interest journalism may never completely pay for itself commercially. That is fine. Society subsidises plenty of things because their public value is greater than their commercial value.
But there is a difference between journalism that requires subsidy and an institution that cannot survive without the next grant.
So perhaps there are two conversations we need to have at the same time.
We need to renegotiate journalism’s relationship with society: what do people actually need us for?
And we need to be much more serious about the economics of producing that journalism: who pays, how much does it really cost, and how do we build institutions that can still be around ten years from now?
Four questions we should answer – Olufemi
Four issues: (1) why can’t a group of great journos come together? (2) Audience taste and culture of the larger demographics; (3) The “new” journos and their professional inclinations that seem to be jejune. (4) Revenue and Financial viability crisis facing newsrooms, be it commercial or non-profit model.
I’ve read two posts by Ahmad Salkida – one on young journalists being funded to write reports at the expense of funding the newsroom. I believe Akintunde attempted a critical response which I broadly align with, even though I believe we need to move from a social media post and turn it into a series of structured and well-documented conversations. The other is related to the revenue crisis he’s dealing with at the Humangle. (Interesting, your platform is also African “Angle” 😁).
I need to say that the issue we are dealing with, global and media development practitioners are asking similar questions and continue to proffer some sort of solutions. I recently read the submission of the Co-founder of Daily Maverick, Styli Charalambous, and I think it captures key issues we’ve been discussing here in Nigeria. He concluded that by recommending public funding policy as the main panacea for South Africa https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/news/market-failing-public-interest-journalism-policy-framework-can-help-save-it
I found Styli’s article a good read and referenced it because of many African journalists and media development professionals discussing the issue; he’s one of a few who posed a self-criticism of journalism, and he did it well by placing the bulk of the blame on leaders of the newsrooms, noting that leadership culture and capabilities to respond to the crisis are critical to the viability crisis. He didn’t just say it, he mentioned a …”sustainability study identified four key drivers of news organisation viability: differentiated digital product, effective monetisation, and solid foundations in leadership, operations, and cost management”.
So to return to Akintunde’s point about my research, the question I am asking includes:
– how many of the new wave of publishers in Nigeria critically considered at least these four elements before and since we launched?
– How many of us are even researching these issues rather than justifying the problems as those caused by everyone and everything else?
– How many of us learned and led with the lessons we learnt from the business strategy and economics of the newsrooms where we built our careers when setting up
– how honest are we about the fact that we lack accountability and transparency about the business of journalism and that the issue here could be that new journalism in Nigeria lack critical knowledge and accountability about the business of public interest journalism and we might be flying blind and blaming external gravity for the crashes that may have been caused by the pilot’s inexperience or oblivion of the rules of media management.
I rest my case and hope I can anchor my submission here on the saying that for public interest journalism in Nigeria, we may really need to allow “charity begins at home”
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