World News Day: Journalism isn’t dying, unevolved journalists are

On World News Day, the obituaries write themselves. Journalism has been declared dead before. Radio was supposed to kill print. Television was supposed to kill radio. The internet was supposed to kill the newsroom. AI is only the latest funeral notice. Journalism survived every one of them. Mediums evolve. Unevolved journalists perish.

Every form of journalism will now find its audience. That is the gift of this age. It is also the trap. We live in an era of instant rewards for confirmation bias. Pick a side, feed the tribe, watch the numbers climb. It is lucrative. Which is why it is tempting for journalists to pick sides as a career plan.

The preachers of both-sidism will find less traction. Journalism was always biased. It always will be. A journalist reports to a certain perspective. Information has to lead to observation. That is what separates us from being postmen. But observation and opinion cannot become absolute. The facts they rest on have to be.

Audiences now want more — more perspective, more information, more context. The journalist’s biggest challenge is to be intelligent enough to offer that without sliding into smugness. A generation over-intellectualised the news and sank into oblivion. There is a fine line between “what I am saying is the right thing” and “let me stay open to a counter-opinion.” Cross it, and you stop reporting. You start preaching.

Digital is not a side-hustle. Every other form of journalism now has to coexist with the digital universe. News angles, news stories and news sense have to coalesce with algorithms and SEO. Most journalists have reconciled. Those who haven’t are writing their own epitaph. Journalism will not die. Mediums will also evolve. Unevolved journalists will perish.

A solutions-driven mindset is no longer optional. Journalism serves a purpose: holding power accountable. Highlighting a problem should come with the intention of solving it. Sadly, we often choose the other extreme — problem highlighting with a problem-creating mindset. Solutions-driven journalism will gain more traction. Here is a problem. Here are possible solutions. Debate the solutions. Not the wound.

And the last point, the biggest risk: the line between content creation and journalism. Every person with a phone camera is creating content. They are not journalists. They are people with a phone camera. Too many modern journalists have inverted the order — popularity first, information later. Being right is the prerequisite for a journalist’s popularity. That is a condition no one else in the content economy is required to fulfil.

That is the job. Not first. Factual. Not louder. Useful.