1) Why does Clay Shirky argue that 'accountability journalism' is so important and what example does he give of this?
He argues this because it means that the people responsible for whatever injustice is caused, are held responsible for their actions since their deception would have been revealed by professional journalists.
2) What does Shirky say about the relationship between newspapers and advertisers? Which websites does he mention as having replaced major revenue-generators for newspapers (e.g. jobs, personal ads etc.)?
He says that the newspapers basically used to take advantage of the fact that they were, at one point, the most easily accessible method of advertisement available and therefore were able to charge a large sum of money from people who wanted to advertise their content or product. This made their advertisement revenue very high to the point that they became dependent on this revenue. However, now advertisers are finding newer ways, such as those promoted my new and digital media, to promote their own brands at a cheaper price, which also reaches, in some cases, a much wider audience.
3) Shirky talks about the 'unbundling of content'. This means people are reading newspapers in a different way. How does he suggest audiences are consuming news stories in the digital age?
He suggests that rather than putting a variety of different information in a paper, as is typically done in print, it is more common that people just want to view one specific news story or activity as opposed to being distributed as a whole. As a result of this, more people click to view one particular page, online as opposed to viewing the whole paper therefore the overall readership will decrease since other material from the paper is not being read.
4) Shirky also talks about the power of shareable media. How does he suggest the child abuse scandal with the Catholic Church may have been different if the internet had been widespread in 1992?
This scandal would have been a lot more difficult to idea as the internet allows for the ability to anonymously share information. Therefore, if the internet was as widespread then, as it is now, this information would have been exposed fast and it could have helped to prevent what was going on at the time.
5) Why does Shirky argue against paywalls?
The reason he argues against them is because newspapers are supposed to be a public good that is readily available to everyone as an audience.
6) What is a 'social good'? In what way is journalism a 'social good'?
A social good is a good or service which is available and benefits a large proportion of people. Journalism is an example of this as it is designed to be produced and mass-distributed amongst a variety of people. It is supposed to appeal to various different people and provide them with current affairs, entertainment and in some cases, gossip.
7) Shirky says newspapers are in terminal decline. How does he suggest we can replace the important role in society newspapers play? What is the short-term danger to this solution that he describes?
He states that "We need a class of institutions or models, whether they’re endowments or crowdsourced or what have you — we need a model that produces five percent of accountability journalism. and that you can only replace newspaper with newspapers themselves. He thinks that a bad thing is going to happen and people aren't taking it seriously. there is going to be a decline in accountability journalism which means corruption will be rife.2
8) Look at the first question and answer regarding institutional power. Give us your own opinion: how important is it that major media brands such as the New York Times or the Guardian continue to stay in business and provide news?
I think it is still very important because this is the same news that gets spread on social media. It is very common for smaller institutions or radio corporations to emulate the news that has been provided by larger corporations. They are also still quite popular, even if smaller companies are going bust in the newspaper industry.
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