Conversion and Consolidation in Journalism Today

Conversion and Consolidation in journalism today has impacted us in many ways. The way we view the news, the impact the news has on us, and the amount of information available to us are a few ways that Conversion and Consolidation in journalism has slowly adapted throughout time. The change from strictly print media to today’s electronic media is one of the major conversions while the consolidation of many businesses into one large business is another change we have encountered.

Today’s media, what we may call modern media, has converted from the print media to a combination of print and electronic. Modern media is composed of resources such as television, radio, magazines, newspapers, and most significantly the internet. The internet has been a major breakthrough in journalistic technology. It has given journalists opportunity to improve their stories and provide information in ways that are available beyond the “print media.” For example, if you were to look in a newspaper today and read a story on the earthquake that occurred in Haiti, you would get the basics of the story with some background information and a few quotations. This can be sufficient for many people but for a person who wants a more in-depth analysis of everything that is going on, they can sit down at their computer, type in “Earthquake in Haiti” and find hundreds (probably thousands) of results. Not only do these results contain excessive amounts of valuable writing, but they may also include footage of the earthquake, people talking about the situation, thoughts from families who are in the midst of the terrible situation among many other things. This “footage” or “electronic media” can cause a substantial difference in how a person may view a situation.

Consolidation of companies seems to becoming a bigger issue over time especially when the economy is doing poor. Consolidation is of course the process of unification or combining things. I discovered a recent example of this from an article composed on January 4, 2010 done by the New York Times. Here is what happened:

Dow Jones & Company said Monday that it was dismantling the divisions separating its flagship newspaper, The Wall Street Journal, from the unit that oversees its investment tools and other services.
Dow Jones’s consumer media group, a segment that included The Journal and Barron’s, is being combined with the company’s enterprise media group, which includes the Dow Jones Newswires, the Dow Jones stock indexes and the business research service Factiva.
Dow Jones, owned by the News Corporation, says the overhaul will enable it to respond to customer needs more quickly.
The combination does not involve any layoffs among Dow Jones’s roughly 6,000 employees, a spokesman, Howard Hoffman, said.
The shake-up resulted in the departure of Clare Hart, who had been president of the enterprise media group. As part of the changes, Todd Larsen, who previously led Dow Jones’s consumer media group, will become the company’s president. Stephen Daintith, the chief financial officer, will take on the additional job of chief operating officer. (New York Times, http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/business/media/05dowjones.html)
This is simply just one example of a few smaller businesses combining into a larger one. This situation however is not as serious as many; this one does not include any layoffs or firings. Most of the time, many people lose their jobs when consolidation occurs. This means that there will be less journalists and specifically less journalists writing about “small” and local issues.

In conclusion, Conversion and Consolidation is a continuing process in journalism today. There is no telling what will be the new adaptations and inventions that occur in the future. It will cause both positive and negative effects as the current ones already do. Hopefully not too many people’s jobs will be lost and our media system will grow stronger each step of the way.


Jordan Swerid
January 26, 2010

Link To Site:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/05/business/media/05dowjones.html