On Community Funded Reporting site Spot.US, David Cohn reports from Freelance Camp – “an unconference for freelance professionals of all sorts – artists, coders, writers, designers etc.”
The most pertinent session for me was aptly titled “How the Changing Nature of Information Affects Information Providers.” It was proposed by a local magazine writer who recently lost a column to content produced via “the wires.”
Simply put, the Reporter Diaspora has been exacerbated by three main trends:
- The growing supply of citizen journalism and user-generated content is effectively replacing traditional journalistic content.
- Newpaper business models based on print advertising slowly lose relevancy as fewer people read print.
- Newspapers must cost cut and writers are fired.
Journalists (now known as “information providers”) are positioning themselves to leverage specific expertise that bloggers don’t own – in-depth, quality research and reporting. This is in large part the mission of Spot.US – to fund raise and compensate journalists on projects for the common good.
More recent evidence of the Diaspora:
SFChronicle lets Real Estate Columnist go
Adding up the Newspaper Cutbacks
LA Times drops Print Real Estate Section
More recent evidence of the Diaspora:
SFChronicle lets Real Estate Columnist go
Adding up the Newspaper Cutbacks
LA Times drops Print Real Estate Section
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