MMJ 191 WEEK 4

In Convergence Journalism, how will community media cope up?

I still couldn’t think what exact business media model will pay for provincial journalist if convergence is implemented in the newsroom when economics in journalism is a crucial topic even in the traditional system.

Given the fact that the new platforms requires a lot of resources, time, and technical skills, poor revenue of local media operations like we have here in Mindanao is a major factor.

Where will they go now?

Economics of journalism reminds me of the “ Maguindanao Massacre” in November 2009, which happened my area of operation, where 32 of the 58 slain victims were members of the media. (I was just lucky to escape the real death; I was one of the invited).

They were supposed to cover a political story of filing a candidacy of an aspiring governor who luckily won the election later. He got the sympathy of the people, ended the fall of his adversaries who were known political warlords, and now charged behind the gruesome killing and ended up in jail.

Behind that story of the most numbered journalist killed is “ economics of journalism”, in some reports those press people killed were offered cash to join the dangerous coverage.
(It’s a long story if I will elaborate further.)

But there’s a brighter side I see on this difficult situation.

This will give opportunity young generation of journalist to level the playing field; in convergence journalism they could congregate all their effort and operate by just putting a web based local news sites or a local netizen social media site. This is more less in operation expenses like the printed newspapers or broadcast entities.

In fact, I knew some who operates alone, like my classmate Anthony Bayarong of Subic Times.

The only way they can achieve to survive will be more creative, dynamic, and have a quality-produced materials to achieve a strong viral marketing or campaign and penetrate the emerging huge Internet, even at the local level.

The new media offers a variety of opportunity to everyone now; organizations could link each other to gain a stronger package but the question is, how to capture the market is a big challenge still.