A five year plan: beyond the crumbling fortresses and the never-ending story

Five year plans are ubiquitous in the financial and business sectors. Some work, some don’t. When it comes to the “doing” of journalism, any five-year plan must include not only multimedia storytelling tools but also entrepreneurial skills, and flexibility. Without them journalists will fail to navigate the impact of technological innovation on professional practice. In an always switched-on twittering world, the citizens—formerly known as the audience (Rosen, 2006) —have more access than ever before to a plethora of information, and more opportunity to disseminate it themselves, without need of an intermediary. The time of journalists as “special figures of authority” (Rusbridger, 2010) is gone. Clearly, some editorial roles will not survive the age of information abundance; but new ones will be created. The newspaper as we have known it in the first world is dying, the fortresses that supported mainstream journalism crumbling and the jury is still out on the pay wall options for online content. (Horrocks, 2008). The business end of journalism is already adapting. Journalists though are at a “migration point” (Rosen, 2008) and will have to embrace a cultural change in journalism. According to Beckett (2008), “[we] must show the public we understand our roles have changed from that of gatekeepers to networkers”. Journalism will survive, but in what form?