It’s not the medium, it’s the message

We used to tell them that it was ok, we weren’t throwing the baby out with the bathwater when we were going online. We’d keep holding the principles and ethics near and dear. But, if we look at ourselves honestly, was it the Internet that killed our business, or was it the people using the Internet to send the news industry a message about they way things have been done for the past half century? When trust is our business and trust in our products is stuck in the low twentieth percentile, are we ready to look at ourselves in the mirror and say honestly and loud enough for everyone else to hear, “We’ve got a problem, our products are crappy and we are hurting the people we’re supposed to help. And it doesn’t matter if it is on paper, tv, a computer, phone or tablet — our content isn’t king, it’s a pack of jokers.” If we want to reverse the trend, we have to change our ways, not just change our medium.

David Johnson is a professor of multimedia journalism and film and media arts at American University’s School of Communication.