There’s nothing to gloat about in media closures

Okay, just for the record, this is one blogger who doesn’t gain joy from the problems facing traditional television, radio and newspapers around the globe.

I’ve just returned from a ‘New Media Summit’ in Sydney, where I squirmed to hear other bloggers almost gleeful picking at the bones of traditional media.  Perhaps they are right and the growth of the web, combined with the global economic crisis is proving the final straw for much of our media.  However, I can’t see the point in gloating.

As a professional communicator, I believe that our industry needs to work with a mix of new and old media.  It serves no one if one entire chunk of the mix disappears. And, I want to see professional journalists, working to a code of ethics, still very much involved in the media.  There is too little media diversity already and, in a world of dour, boring managers, creativity is priceless. So what if some journalists have criticised Bloggers in recent years.  Get over it.

There is another reason why I refuse to gloat at the problems facing traditional media.  I remember only too well the many compositors and printers who worked alongside me when I first started in journalism in the days of hot metal production.  Their looks of anguish as technology swept them aside will linger in my mind always:  noble men and women who faced industrial oblivion bravely. 

Coverage of the closure of America’s Rocky Mountains Times last week brought back those memories.  There is nothing pleasant about watching men and women lose long held careers in that way.  I certainly won’t be dancing on anyone’s grave.  

More on the New Media Summit later

Ian