News media in dire straits: Koos misses the point

Naspers chair Koos Bekker has waded into the “rather lively debate”, as he called it, around Media24’s decision to axe numerous print newspaper titles, blaming technological change and shifts in consumption.

In his history-heavy opinion piece in City Press, Bekker got much right but missed the main point.

There’s more at stake than a shift from print to digital formats. Media24’s plan to shutter print editions of Rapport, Beeld, City Press, Daily Sun and Soccer Laduma must have devastated journalists there.

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As a former media executive and editor, I’ve presided over two title closures in this cruel entropy consuming the industry.

What haunts me is that few, including Bekker, seem to appreciate the consequences of this contraction and journalism’s decline.

Here are some hard facts: total paid daily newspaper circulation in South Africa is around 150 000 or 200 000, including free copies – according to first quarter 2024 ABC figures.

In 2011, it was around 1.4 million, a 90% collapse over 13 years. Today’s combined circulation of all dailies is less than what Daily Sun alone sold (374 000) back then.

But as print declines, digital readership has exploded. An estimated 12 million South Africans consume news via digital platforms, a conservative figure only counting those accessing news via social media first.

So, there’s no audience problem for journalism in SA. But print media anchored traditional media companies’ business models, housing most journalism jobs.

Digital revenue is a pittance compared with print’s heyday. Daily Maverick estimates up to 70% of media industry jobs have been lost over 15 years.

This is alarming as South Africa faces a reshaping political landscape and rising ill-considered populism, often fuelled by fake news and deliberate disinformation.

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Professional journalism is needed now more than ever. Bekker fails to acknowledge that print’s collapse is more than a medium change – it’s effectively the collapse of the means of production of news coverage and media, unlike other disrupted industries, is the thin line between sanity and chaos.

The decline in journalists and narrowing diversity of coverage creates an anarchic landscape threatening to fracture our society, which hangs on a fragile agreement between competing political parties.

As social media trolls fill the void left by professional journalism and generative AI emerges, new perils loom.

I was astonished to witness when working with a client a “media” inquiry drafted by artificial intelligence for a platform powered by bots and whose only purpose is to suck up automated advertising spend by harvesting clicks around stories trending on social media.

The Reuters Digital News Report 2024 noted that fear over misinformation in South Africa has grown to 81%, up six percentage points and well above the global average of 59%. Trust in news remains stable at 57%.

The decline in media diversity and professional journalism coincides with increasing fear over fake news among South Africans. The irony is rich and sad.

Meanwhile, social media platforms – the petri dishes for weaponised fake information – continue to grow, leaving corporates, politicians and society exposed.

ALSO READ: Media24 shakeup: Hundreds of job losses loom as major newspapers face closure

As newsrooms monitor social media as a shortcut to traditional reporting, these platforms become easy attack vectors for malicious actors wanting to impact the news agenda.

It is trivial to concoct a controversy on social media and see it legitimised by coverage in mainstream news platforms.

A French study demonstrates X’s influence on mainstream media coverage. Examining 1.8 billion tweets over a year, they found a 55% increase in tweets about a story before its first media coverage led to a 17% increase in subsequent news articles on that topic.

This has serious implications for society. For corporates, a contracting professional media environment risks overemphasis of negative coverage and outsized reputational impact.

A 2020 Dutch study shows empirical links between visibility, tone of coverage and corporate reputation.

Other research correlates media coverage with company market value. The effect of negative news, for example, is estimated to be three times greater than that of positive news.

An underserved media environment makes managing or building reputations significantly more difficult.

• Trench is a former editor who runs Trenchant Media Solutions and is an associate at Bairds CMC, an international strategic solutions consulting business.

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