Daily Maverick’s ‘shut down’ successfully highlighted the dire state of journalism, but also left student journalists with fears about the future.
On April 15, 2024, tens of thousands of South Africans loaded up the Daily Maverick website to read the daily news, only to find a black screen with the words ‘Daily Maverick has shut down’ in bold white lettering.
For 24 hours, the news site was shut down to highlight what Daily Maverick calls the “global state of emergency in journalism”. This state of emergency is driven primarily by economic pressures and the rapid expansion of digital technologies. Daily Maverick plainly states there is “a market failure in journalism”, which is culling off smaller news organisations and local metro press.
Daily Maverick reiterated that the shutdown is not simply for or about them – “it’s about every legitimate newsroom in the country that needs public and corporate support” to continue functioning. Without journalism, they warned, “our democracy and economy will break down”.
While no journalism student in the country is unaware of the issues in the field, the shutdown was still alarming and rather fear-inducing for some of us. A media communique from Daily Maverick pointed out that 70% of local journalists have left the field in the last 15 years due to this crisis.
A study by Glenda Daniels notes that the number of community newspapers countrywide has fallen from 575 to just over 250 in the last ten years, as small papers fold and their journalists leave the field. Most young people are already anxious about
the job market and their prospects, but as a student journalist I feel an almost indomitable fear for my future.
Associate business editor for Daily Maverick, Neesa Moodley, speaks to the deterioration of journalism and its effect on young journalists. We no longer have the privilege to specialise in just one aspect of media like before. “In my youth, you could decide if you wanted to be a news photographer, a broadcast journalist, or a print journalist. In today’s newsrooms, you need to be able to do all three” if you want to make the cut, she says.
Even if you can conquer all these skills and enter the workforce, retrenchments and slim budgets mean mentors for young journalists are few and far between. Many experienced journalists are opting to freelance, write press releases or work as ghost
writers in the corporate field. As such, “eager graduates are thrown in the deep end with little to no guidance,” says Moodley.
Spelling and grammar issues abound, and Moodley highlights the “increasing incidence of press releases used verbatim” as news articles by inexperienced and overworked juniors.
This is all part of what she calls the “juniorisation” of the newsroom – a frightening concept for us student journalists who are without established sources or intimate knowledge of the playing field. It feels rather like being made captain of a sinking ship.
But with resounding positivity, Moodley is unwilling to accept this as the new status quo. “Daily Maverick dearly hopes that the bold move we made in the last week will have kickstarted the public awareness and conversation around the funding of journalism”
she says. No journalists, especially young ones without expertise, deserve to provide such an important public service with so little help.
Going forward, hopefully individuals and companies come to see the massive value difference between shoddy citizen journalism and real journalism produced by journalists with what Moodley calls a “bullshit” filter, and fierce commitment to the dogged pursuit of the truth. Journalism students can lead the charge here – we can scream from the rooftops about the crisis in journalism, and make friends, family, and peers aware of how our democracy rides on the back of quality, well-funded journalism.
Educators and mentors can be a part of this fight too. As Trish Audette-Longo and Christianna Alexiou note, it is essential to talk students through crises in the field and to encourage young journalists to “[imagine] different journalism futures” instead of simply accepting the job as it is. If we fight now for our future, then maybe by the time it becomes our present reality, the crisis will be a thing of the past.
FEATURED IMAGE: Ruby Delahunt , 2024 Wits Vuvuzela Journalist. Photo: File/Leon Sadiki
RELATED ARTICLES:
- Wits Vuvuzela, Journalism is changing, that’s not fake news, August 2019
- Wits Vuvuzela, Lack of funding hampers investigative journalism, October 2018
