The consumption of print media in south Africa is constantly declining, data shows that in the first part of 2019 the circulation of newspapers declined by 5%. For ten years the circulation of newspapers dropped by 49%.

Research shows that the biggest losses were incurred by daily newspapers that saw a 10% drop and weekly newspapers declining by 7.9% making it the second largest decline.

Studies by Reuters Institute have shown that newsrooms will have to rely on subscriptions and memberships to ensure sustainability in the face of the declining revenues across various mediums.

According to Reuters “Despite relatively high trust levels in the news overall, revenue for news media has been on a downward path for several years, with a 12% drop in ad spend last year for television, 5.6% for radio, and 7.7% for print.”

Journalism is frequently losing the fight for people’s devotion and in some countries, for the public’s trust. For example, the Gupta saga and their hired journalist that really gave South African journalism a bad name.

The love of money and greediness is what will lead to the downfall of the South African journalism. The way the media normalization corruption and public service failure means that media coverage does not result in actual accountability.

It is not something new that the print media has been declining for several years now. It is no surprise that there have been no changes and that things are going to spiral downhill as time goes by.

According to research South African magazine and newspaper publishing industry has become another casualty of Corona.

With media houses like Media 24 announcing that it is considering the closure if five magazine and two newspapers and possibly taking the publications to digital platforms. There is 20% potential job losses and 2,971 staff complement in the division.

Things have not been any better since the pandemic, there has been a plunge in South African print journalism. Journalists think that just reporting on scandals, corrupt government officials or maladministration validates their jobs as watchdogs.

The print journalism world has been declining because of the lack of production during this Covid19 pandemic and more. The growth of online journalism has been booming, there are a lot of online news productions that are taking over print.

The move to digital media generally does not helping print. Instead computerised serendipity and secondary exposure drive people to more and more numerous sources of information.

The country has seen a rise in social journalism and desktop journalists that are getting their information from social media. With almost every journalist getting their news from twitter and other media platforms.

Writing news articles based on those pieces of information on their blogs is making it hard for print to survive. Broadcast journalism here in South Africa may have been booming during Covid19 in the early days of the virus but the views have gone down.

Online journalism is a good way to spread news as it is quick, but this will have devastating consequences for the print world. This means that more and more people will stop buying newspapers as they would rather have something quick to match their busy lifestyles.

People are not watching the news as they were, all they do now is get the latest news of how many new cases of the viruses and to see if there are any changes. Other than that, the world of broadcast has also had its fair share of declines over the years with people choosing to read a headline instead of sitting in front of a television.

The truth is that journalism is slowly dying not only in South Africa but in the world.  People are being replaced with robots to work as journalists. This will eventually lead to the end of journalism as we know it. What is the future of journalism in South Africa, what is the fate of journalism in South Africa?

Nobody really knows what is going to happen, is it going to skyrocket or is it going to be worse than what is now. But the real question is with the fourth industrial revolution making itself known will journalism still be relevant.

There are a lot of factors that come to play when it comes to the future of journalism anywhere in the world. These factors are namely social journalism, online journalism and how people reciprocate it. 

Journalism could survive but it can also die, by the rate that things are going print media is more less likely to survive online while broadcast has a bigger chance of surviving with television and radio being the main steam of broadcasting.

The more the technology improves the more chances that journalism in South Africa is going to either improve or going to die. If journalists were to put their hearts into their work and craft  instead of harvesting news or information from twitter or other social media platforms and actually backing up their story or finding the information that supports their claims, then broadcast and online journalism has a very strong chance of surviving.

For the past few years journalists have been bribed in order to have the media on their side, with things like these journalism does not stand a chance in surviving it is more likely that at this rate journalism is going to die sooner than later. Corruption among journalists and people of “affluence” is also what will bring down journalism in South Africa.

In conclusion “News is more diverse than ever, and the best journalism in many cases better than ever, taking everyone from the most powerful politicians to the biggest private companies”.  According to Reuters Institute “opportunities afforded by the digital world must be leveraged to rebuild ties between producers of news and those who consume it.”

References

Chris Roper, N. N. A. S., 2019. South African Suplementary Report, Oxford: Reuters Institute.

Flueckiger, S., 2019. The Media Online. [Online]
Available at: https://themediaonline.co.za/2019/03/five-things-you-need-to-know-about-the-future-of-journalism/
[Accessed 13 June 2020].

Mahlaka, R., 2020. Business Maverick. [Online]
Available at: https://www.dailymaverick.co.za/article/2020-07-07-end-of-an-era-as-top-media-house-plans-cull-of-iconic-titles/#gsc.tab=0
[Accessed 1 August 2020].

Maliloan, V., 2018. The Media Online. [Online]
Available at: https://themediaonline.co.za/2018/05/south-africas-print-media-is-failing-to-empower-citizens-on-corruption/
[Accessed 12 June 2020].

Omarjee, L., 2019. Fin 24. [Online]
Available at: https://www.news24.com/fin24/Companies/ICT/sa-media-faces-grim-future-as-it-battles-falling-revenues-reuters-study-20190616
[Accessed 01 August 2020].