Journalism is dead... long live journalists

Had a read of the article that was posted by 'Life's Like That' a couple of day's back. Her desperation towards the present situation of Fourth Estate in the country though understated but is justified and points towards the ominous signs that are coming soon.

Whatever logic medianet guys provide, I can absolutely not agree to the same. We do realise that publications are also in the business and needs to make money. But they are ought to be reminded that NEWS and journalism is not like other businesses. By being in this industry there is a lot of responsibility to cater to the mass accurately and ethically. I know ethics is a word in dictionary only but what is due to come is too big to diegst. The way its going now, all possibilities that TOI readers would not read any company names.And someone recently told me that one of the most ethical publications in recent times are following the TOI route. Market pressures as they would put it. TOI is just an example, but being the pioneer to this 'NOVEL'practice, they have to take the blame.

Can I suggest something to all these publications, I think this would work wonderful...
In future, we would read news like this...

One of the major leading telecom companies in India has signed a deal with another one to bring revolution in the mobile telephony market. The companies in question have a 'PUG' as their brand ambassador and the other one has always taken a cricketer's mom to motivate the national team.

Now, readers need to guess the name of the two companies and can SMS or mail to certain addresses and numbers. First 50 lucky winners would get a free connection from both.

Not only this would be an amazing promotional campaign but the companies would sponsor the contest and give a share of the SMS revenue to the publication. In any case, your name can be printed if you are paying the money.
Sounds funny... to me its scary. There would be no place for journalism, no journalists, rather the scribes can turn into call center agents to take calls from company's for content support and advertising deals.

Criticising is not enough. Is there a solution? Being in the PR industry earlier I feel that the agencies should come into one platform and also get their clients to speak in a forum against this hideous activity. And why not journalists be a part of that forum where they fight for their professional integrity and make their employers understand the consequences of the present scheme of things. If pen was ever mightier than sword, this is the time to prove it.

A resident editor of a leading publication once told me that with the advent of medianet, PR would die soon and clients would interact with publications directly. I never knew that soon would be so soon.

Not only PR dies, but journalism too... long live journalists...