When I devoted myself to revitalizing Al Arab newspaper in 2006, a friend of mine advised me to contact the vice dean of a journalism school in a US university who happened to be his friend, in order to consult him and benefit from his experience.
This person had worked for a long time in newspapers and ended up as editor-in-chief of a prestigious international newspaper. He then decided to turn to an academic career to escape the ravages of journalism.
I called him on his cell phone and introduced myself and our mutual friend, and he greeted me and asked the regular question, “How can I help you?”
I gave him a brief about the newspaper project and my desire to change it from a traditional paper to a modern one that would attract readers.
I also briefed him about the competition between the press and social media.
The man was a good listener; he kept listening to me until I had finished speaking, and then started asking questions about the media market, the level of press freedom and the number of readers and their interests. “Are you sure you want to establish a newspaper at this time?” he asked.
Then I started listening to him. He was surprised that I wanted to establish a newspaper while American newspapers were shutting down, getting rid of their employees and losing markets and readers, and transforming into electronic newspapers.
These newspapers were trying to benefit from the evolution that wipes off those who do not keep pace or take advantage of it. He backed his words with examples supporting his point of view, including that of the newspaper he used to work for, and ended his talk by saying, “Maybe you just have so much money to spend.”
In the year 2000, the income of US newspapers from ads amounted to about $63.5bn. However, by 2012, this income had plummeted to $19bn. During the same period, Google’s income from ads reached $46.5bn.
Over the period 2001 to 2011, the number of journalists in US newspapers fell by 44 percent.
Journalism has witnessed a massacre during the last ten years in most countries. It was not able to compete with Google and other social media, so it surrendered after being the medium that had influenced the world for decades, unaffected by competition from radio and television.
Media outlets used to race to deliver news to smartphone owners. They hunted readers by providing free services to them in order to attract advertisers, but that stopped long ago.
Information companies came up with magnificent applications that converted news into an enticing commodity for users. Using these applications, we were able to pick certain categories out of a whole stream of news content via our devices.
I try sometimes to study my way of dealing with these fast variables in the world of information, as in the past I used to read certain newspapers or news websites, but now there are many applications that pick only what I want to read from these websites and present it to me in brief.
The feature of organising news and content has made the developers of these applications used by the media news brokers who publish their content, like auctioneer in markets who conduct auctions by accepting bids and declaring goods sold.
We are facing a dynamic, non-static, world, a world in which services disappear and others appear. I also think that institutions that cannot keep pace with these changes will soon cease to be.
