Wanted: Dead or Alive

I've just spent the last four - five hours reading and researching the death of journalism.

This included reading the 40 pages of Life In The Clickstream: The Future Of Journalism and I must say I'm feeling slightly deflated.

Is it any wonder the death knell is sounding, because I struggled to find any positive comment within those 40 pages. If morale is so low within these newsrooms I'm not surprised that news coverage is all dome and gloom. Finally I've worked out why tragedy sells, why we devour scandal and why we prefer celebrity gossip to hard news.

I think journo's are using psychological transference here. Staff are simply projecting their fears and anxieties onto us the poor innocent audience, aren't they?

Within these pages, peppered with comments such as -"I honestly don't think I will have a job in the next year or two" and "I'm not improving at the rate I'd like because I'm being expected to deliver content on many platforms rather than put effort into the quality of the story" - I began to generate my own fears about work loads, quality v quantity, and deadlines within this new world of journalism.

For example my feature article for the major assessment requires time, sources, interviews, research etc. Does this process equate quality? and would this piece be the same within the new sphere of journalistic practices?

In this fast paced environment deadlines are shorter and demands tighter and I can't help but consider the bright lights of PR because do I really want to work within an industry that sounds dead, looks dead and feels dead?