This is the final regular edition of Media Scrum. We've been doing it for a couple of years now, and it's been enormously satisfying to get some of this shit out of our systems, instead of bottling it all inside, but now we're done.
There are still things about the way the news media works, and the way it's perceived, that annoy the living shit out of us, but we have been starting to repeat ourselves quite a lot recently, and have been moaning about the same old things over and over again, so it really is time to put a pin in it and call it a day.
We've never had a huge audience for this blog and never really sought one, because it was always more about getting this out of our heads than spreading it everywhere. So we doubt these regular complaints will be missed that much, but we have appreciated all those who ever told us we had a point, or that we didn't go far enough.
(It's also ending because we're getting increasingly lazy, with one member of the Scrum abandoning us for the bright lights of London, (like they all do), and another dealing with a brand new child, and it's too much to put on the remaining two members of the team...)
We probably could have carried on with this malarkey forever, because there is always some fuckin' stupid thing being said or assumed about the news media, or something fuckin' stupid happening in the newsroom itself. There is definitely room for more moaning about the ways we produce, consume and criticise our news diet, and even though it's going to be notably quiet here next Tuesday morning, nobody here is ruling out slamming out the odd rant, when the fire takes us again.
Especially when there are still a lot of issues to deal with. A lot of great journalists are still being turfed out of the industry, and nowhere is totally safe. Some newsrooms are now operating on the smell of an oily rag, and could be one lawsuit away from total annihilation. When media companies are owned by vulture capitalists, there is no guarantee they won't be shut down tomorrow. There's renewed talk of mergers and frank discussions over how hard it is to turn a profit out of the news, and none of that is going anywhere.
There are also issues with the OIA and government obfuscation that desperately need to be dealt with, and the news media is still dealing with a massive perception problem among the general public, who sneer at the work that is produced, without ever acknowledging that they'd be fucked without someone in this crazy society of ours asking the hard questions of people in power, and exposing injustice and unfairness.
And yet....
Things might be grim, but there is still a lot of fucking amazing journalism going on, produced by multiple newsrooms. After years of redundancies and wage freezes, the ones that are left are the sharpest tools on the bench, and are producing genuinely terrific work every week.
There are a lot of great longform journalistic projects being offered up all the time, there is more breaking news than ever before, and a lot of news options. Many might moan about the good old days, but there are proper arguments that we are still living in a golden age of great content, even if the money isn't there anymore, siphoned away by tech giants and public apathy. There is a lot of good stuff out there.
And, most of all, there are good people working in journalism, putting up with bullshit from everybody from the highest-ranking politicians to the lowest munters on social media, for fuck-all pay. Sticking with the profession, even when PR and comms dangles huge pay cheques in front of them, because they love what they do, and think it's an important part of society, (or at least, more important than pushing out corporate bullshit).
Media Scrum has paid tribute to a few of these great journalists every now and then, but we all work with dozens of other wonderful journos every day. There are, unsurprisingly, still a few shitheads hanging around the newsroom, but they usually don't last that long, and the editorial staff are generally the best people we've ever worked with, in any job. Going into the newsroom is still an absolute thrill, and the people we work with are a huge part of that.
This industry of ours is going through an unprecedented period of upheaval and change, but the terrific journos in this country really do give us hope for the future. As bad as things get - and they do get pretty fucking awful sometimes - there are a lot of great people out there, doing the hard yards, getting the job done.
You don't really need us to tell you that anymore.
Love,
Media Scrum
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