Journalism in the Age of Algorithms and the Unspoken Sensitivities

 Journalism in the Age of Algorithms and the Unspoken Sensitivities

- Diana Lopez Juleta

Does a journalist have the right to criticize their own employer? It is a strange irony that they report on global crises but remain silent about the sensitivities of their own industry: sluggish wage growth, fading professional values, and for-profit ownership. Journalists need to understand that confronting this internal decay is not only a right, but also a necessity to save the profession from extinction.

I was raised on the ideals of dedication to the news, the willingness to do my best, to work quickly, and to sacrifice everything to understand every possible side of an issue. I have struggled with the anxiety of ensuring objectivity and impartiality for fear of the truth slipping away. We expose officials who abuse their power, the corrupt, and the criminals; Yet, none of us journalists dare to expose our own vulnerable and unsafe workplaces or make them a subject of public debate.

Journalism colleges do not prepare future professionals for the deep instability within media organizations. These topics are treated as taboo and kept untouched. Society has readily accepted that reporters earn meager salaries, work many times longer hours than other professions, and endure extreme pressure. There is a clear fear of speaking out. In fact, some journalists explicitly request anonymity for fear of tarnishing their professional reputations or jeopardizing their already precarious jobs. Anyone who dares to speak out and criticize is routinely condemned. “It is seen as bad manners, professional misconduct, and hypocrisy,” says one journalist who requested anonymity. “It’s a profession that relies heavily on reputation,” she adds. “I’m afraid that criticizing the workplace environment in this sector will damage my reputation. They will think I’m attacking the organization I work for, which could get me in big trouble, but everyone has the right to speak up.”

The dictatorship of algorithms

This crisis in journalism and workplace insecurity is deepening day by day, with no solution in sight. Journalists would rather remain silent than risk their livelihoods, in some cases not even putting their names on their own stories. The paradox is that a journalist’s job is to communicate, monitor the news, and pursue issues. But this only applies as long as they are investigating other people’s problems.

Expecting a journalist to live on minimum wage is neither respectful nor conducive to producing quality journalism, especially when the work itself carries many risks. However, job insecurity seems to have become an accepted feature of the industry. The most fortunate are those journalists who have a formal contract, but even this often fails to provide basic amenities such as social security, annual leave or mobile phones or travel expenses. While the work requires frequent and long-distance travel. Some are not even paid; they are paid on a per-piece basis. This means that they live in a race against time to produce content, sacrificing their health and well-being in the process.

Journalism has a social responsibility above all, it is accountable to its readers, not to its owners or sponsors.

Journalist and author Kevin Larios has worked for several media outlets. Despite his passion for the genre, he refuses to return to full-time institutional employment. “The pitiful pay and slavish hours,” he says, “and then there’s the collusion with the authorities, the lying to readers and the begging for help from partners and sponsors.”

Larios was fired from a job in Colombia without any clear or justifiable reason; it was later discovered that his published material criticizing the systemic corruption and degradation prevalent in various cultural sectors was being monitored.

The erosion of quality

The poverty of this profession, manifested in the low pay, encourages ‘desk-bound’ reporting rather than on-the-spot reporting. The job demands that the job be done in the field. A major shift has taken place in major media houses: media outlets that were once driven by readership are now driven by ‘clicks’ and ‘views’ as the sole measure of success. ‘Likes’ on news stories are seen as a symbol of success, even if the content is worthless. It is a task carried out under the dictatorship of algorithms. Larios was dismayed to hear an SEO (search engine optimization) manager instruct editors to write content that ‘Google likes’.

He writes:

The focus on increasing views and likes, along with search engine rankings, has eclipsed everything else. As for readers, who are now meaningfully called ‘viewers’, they are no longer looking for new information or entertainment; rather, they want to be trapped in a trap from which they cannot escape.

When I think of the crisis or the When I talk about the economy, I am not just referring to the economic aspect. The overproduction and overconsumption of news degrades the quality of the content. Writing based on the whims or sayings of politicians is just typist work (stenography), not journalism. Real journalism requires depth and verification, which are minimum standards and many are not meeting them easily.

Reality vs. ‘Romance’

Some journalists today are driven by the desire to get their name in any social media controversy and just want to be in the news at any cost. Their faces are glued to the mobile screen as if the truth itself is speaking to them from there, and they have become slaves to the ‘scoop’. Now there is no room left for deep ideological reflection.

In the past, before the current battle for ‘likes’ began, media outlets competed to send their correspondents to the scene of any disaster. Even today, they seek out exclusive news, but very few organizations pay their reporters a daily wage or expenses, which in this age of freelancers is politely called ‘assistant’, as if they were working for free. Often, these reporters cover their own expenses in exchange for a modest salary that neither compensates for their effort, time nor expenses.

Professor and journalist Oscar Parra has seen frustration creep into his students from the beginning of their training. They encounter organizations that have sacrificed their reputation for fame and views, following social media trends through ‘content scraping’, which involves copying news from other outlets and making headlines ‘clickbait’ or controversial. Some students have spent five years forced into unethical practices that they ultimately regret. They find themselves confined to newsrooms or desks at home, where they copy and paste or rearrange sentences to fill official pages, no matter how meaningless the content.

Parra explains:

These views are garnered in two ways: first, by publishing stories that promote bias and narrow-mindedness through misinformation or exaggeration; and second, by using ‘link-farming’ to attract web traffic. Interns are expected to produce eight to 10 pieces of content a day. They are not writing; they are producing a large volume of content in a single format, often with unverified information without citing a single source.

The number of journalism students at one of the three institutions where Parra has taught for 13 years has dropped from 80 in 2018 to just eight last academic year. She thinks the profession will eventually be divided between those who want to be investigative journalists and those who want to be content creators, which are two completely different paths.

A call to resistance

A journalist who asked to remain anonymous believes that the ‘idealism’ of journalism is being sold to students as a fantasy. “Instead of explaining the practical reality, they were selling us the ‘romance of journalism’ – the brave reporter who never sleeps in search of the truth. They talked about Truman Capote, Gay Tales and Gabriel Garcia Marquez. You hear this idealism and say, ‘I want to be like them.’ Yet, there was not a single class on journalists’ salaries, how to achieve independence or the rights of journalists. They taught me to treat my sources ethically, but they never told me that I should be treated ethically.”

We must resist this kind of journalism that only seeks to increase views, which neglects quality and promotes ‘fake news’.

We must demand decent workplaces and proper service from institutions. The public is still hungry for real news and high standards. While they may abuse or attack us on social media, they need to understand that this work can barely support a living. A journalist may have to work three or four part-time and low-paid jobs to make ends meet. This inevitably compromises quality. A tired journalist writes tired material, and as a result, the press becomes tired.

Journalism is an extraordinarily challenging profession, ranging from the technical aspects of reporting to the struggle for a living. It involves confronting threats from corrupt elements or resorting to self-censorship as a means of protection. If journalists are in crisis, journalism is in crisis too, because this instability affects the truth, which is now a matter of negotiation. Ultimately, journalism itself is a link in the resistance.