Never in human history has information been so widely and freely available. Whatever the subject matter, there is a good chance that somebody, somewhere has shared information about it on the internet.
Yet, this dizzying array of choice has damaged the social contract between the public and the media. Misinformation flourishes, and the pandemic has only fed it, while few people consider news to be a product worth paying money for.
In this arena of infinite competition, traditional media outlets have had to reinvent themselves to compete. They have yet to find a winning alternative.
Old ways of working have also fallen by the wayside. Journalists no longer scribble their notes onto dog-eared notebooks; instead of print deadlines, reporters must keep up with live blogs; typesetters have all but been replaced by software developers.
Opening the internet floodgates has also had another, more pernicious, effect on public information: that of cutting out the middleman. Major announcements are now posted to social media first and sent to newsrooms second, if at all. So commonplace is the phenomenon that the health ministry, for example, does not even bother to send local newsrooms a copy of each day’s COVID-19 statistics.
Despite these challenges, the evidence that free independent media still matter is all around us. Times of Malta has more readers now than at any point in its 85-year history. Were it not for this newspaper, citizens would never have known Konrad Mizzi was given an €80,000-a-year job just two weeks after resigning as minister, that deputy police chief Silvio Valletta went on football holidays with Yorgen Fenech or that Fenech’s 17 Black made millions off an Enemalta deal in Montenegro, to name a few of the exclusives published in 2020.
As we head into 2021, Maltese society is undoubtedly better off for having learned of these scandals. It would be even better off if media organisations had further resources to dedicate to investigative journalism – a costly and time-consuming endeavour which is only one part of Times of Malta’s broader remit.
Those resources are increasingly hard to come by, though. Online revenue streams do not make up for shortfalls in print advertising.
Paywalls, which have been embraced by some of the world’s biggest publishers, are difficult to square with the concept of journalism being a democratising force.
There are options. French economist Julia Cagé has argued that news outlets should be set up as nonprofits and given tax breaks, creating hybrid structures that are half foundations, half joint-stock companies.
Further north, in Scandinavia, Denmark, Norway and Sweden combine financial aid to the media with indirect help such as VAT exemptions. Aid is based on objective, measurable criteria and subject to oversight.
At a continental level, the EU has started to apply pressure to online giants such as Facebook and Twitter to react more swiftly to misinformation and pay news publishers for content they reproduce.
Each of these solutions has merit and each has its own risks. None is a silver bullet. That does not mean they should not be discussed.
All sources of funding come with conflict-of-interest dangers that must be guarded against.
What is clear is that ignoring the diagnosis will not make the disease go away. Good journalism costs money that local news organisations just do not have. Somebody must foot the bill, in one way or another.
If society believes journalism to be a public good, then it must find a way to pay for it.