OPINIONISTA: No news is very bad news By Chris Roper
Because without investigative and beat journalists shining a light on corruption, crime and the vagaries of civil society, bad people will destroy our democracy.Without trusted media brands to mediate meaning for society, the dominant story of South Africa will be told by politicians, businesses and elites who can pay for platforms.If local media sources die, the massive American tech platforms, like Google and Facebook, will own all access to South Africans.
Alas, as much as we would all like this to be true, it’s only possible in a large market, and even then theThe vast majority of South Africans aren’t paying any price for quality news content, never mind a fair one. And it looks like they never will. The situation with news organisations who have implemented subscription paywalls appears to be parlous., who implemented a paywall in 2015, said that “unfortunately” they couldn’t share numbers.
In this system, all parties would win. The civil society organisations would have a much stronger platform from which to carry out their good work, businesses would reach audiences through ethical advertising that actually makes a difference, and news media would be able to devote resources to journalism that makes a difference.
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