Journalism Taken Over By Elitism

Is it possible that the noble cause of journalism is being driven into a ditch by an aristocracy completely out of touch with commoners like us?

The blogosphere is filled with rants about publications like the New York Times and Washington Post filling their pages with hard-hitting exposes on what it's like for the upper class to keep up with vacation homes and private school tuition increases as their investments tank. A certain level of bitterness is evident as millions remain unemployed, often unable to maintain even a basic standard of living.

Dana Goldstein, writing in TAPPED, takes a look at the problem of journalistic noblesse, referencing a study by the British Cabinet Office and materials from the Working-Class Studies blog.

The BCO reported:

Between the 1958 and the 1970 birth cohorts, the biggest decline in social mobility occurred in the professions of journalism and accountancy. For example, journalists and broadcasters born in 1958 typically grew up in families with an income of around 5.5% above that of the average family; but this rose to 42.4% for the generation of journalists and broadcasters born in 1970.

I'm no Nate Silver, but I'd call that statistically significant.

It's not hard to envision a further expansion of the country club - fourth estate dynamic. As media companies continue to struggle in the face of declining ad income coupled with an uncertain online revenue stream, readership will become an increasingly important metric. Sets of eyes, in the form of page views and referral links, will determine who gets electronic and print column inches. It's no longer "publish or perish." It's traffic, traffic, traffic.

Writers with something interesting to say, week after week, will be in demand, while those who don't hold or build an audience will find it difficult to make the big bucks.  Whether this results in only the well-heeled attending pricey journo-schools remains to be seen, because the barriers to writers being read crumble somewhat when it comes to electronic media, compared to print.

Perhaps one of the few good things resulting from the collapse of newspapers and magazines is the emergence of Tiny Tim journalism as the wave of the future.

It could happen.

Image via Wikimedia Commons