Journalism Is Not Content Production

Journalism is dead. Or so said everyone who told me never to pursue a career in news gathering. Given the news industry’s bleak statistics over the past few decades, such fears have certainly been well-founded. Yet, these formerly dire predictions have simmered down, replaced with a hopeful curiosity about the future of the industry and its potential to rebuild itself after years of consolidations and cutbacks.

This change in tenor has not gone unheeded by venture capitalists, who have poured money into news startups ranging from portals like BusinessInsider and Vox Media to products like Beacon and Tinypass. Last month, Marc Andreessen even went so far as to call this period a possible “golden age” for journalism.

Unfortunately, this flood of startups and new ventures has also unleashed a direct attack on the integrity of journalism, namely its function as an objective source of news. While part of the problem can be traced to a lack of understanding of the profession, the fundamental challenge is conflating content production and journalism as two equal forces.