There is a great deal of commentary in the media about the future of the media. Never short of self obsession, media pundits and executives routinely announce that there needs to be a 'new paradigm': a different way of doing business that deals with the decline in advertising revenue.
Mostly, it has proven to be little more than hot air. The signs of impending extinction are unmistakeable.
For those who believe, as the great journalist G. K. Chesterton quipped, that the popular press is 'a conspiracy of a very few millionaires', the decline of mainstream media may not seem such a great loss. But for many, the thinning of journalistic ranks is not good for democracy or public representation.
Media executives have been unable to devise viable commercial innovations. Instead, they have focused on the journalism side of the equation, cutting costs and finding ways to deliver lumps of content on as many platforms as possible. There has been almost no attempt to address the central issue, which is to find new ways to offer products that help advertisers sell their stuff, without compromising editorial independence.
The traditional approach, which is to sell empty space, or time, to advertisers so that they can attract attention to their wares, no longer works well enough to pay for the journalism.
Space is no longer scarce in print journalism. Whereas newspapers are thrown in the bin at the end of the day, online news hangs around indefinitely. And many of the social media forums in effect offer free advertising space to users, and are also capturing most of the attention of younger consumers.
Yet there has been almost no attempt by managers of mainstream media outlets to move beyond the traditional techniques for garnering revenue from advertisers. Advertising departments in big media organisations are largely doing what they have always done.
One consequence has been a fragmentation of media sources, which has, at least superficially, increased the number of sources of information and comment. Access to media content has become more global because of the internet, which has made it harder for local media to maintain a point of difference. Citizen journalism, such as footage from mobile phones, is changing the nature of reporting. The internet is dominating not just the distribution of news, it is also becoming itself a source of news.
The thinning of the journalistic ranks is having a deleterious effect on independence and rigour. Younger journalists are