Is Ethical Photojournalism a Bad Business?

Hey, Amit!

Since you are talking about ethics in Journalism and Business, would you read and then consider signing my Pro-Copyright Petition?

Thanks! ...if not, well that’s ok too. Thanks for your consideration!

Gayle you rock.

Have you seen this?

http://www.patrickyen.com/skate360REDUX/

http://www.patrickyen.com/skate360/tutorial.mov

As to solving the economics and ethics of PhotoJournalism

by rescuing it from the ravages of bureaucracy

as well as by revolutionizing the way journalists produce
and communicate information in the 21st century..

Here are some economic and ethical models I propose..

0) Personal Code of Ethics

http://gonzopj.blogspot.com/2007/06/personal-code-of-ethics.html

“The following is a seven page paper

I wrote for my Ethics class in May 2007

detailing my personal code of ethics.

Ethics are a personal thing, and of course,

there is no such thing as having “no ethics,”

there is only such a thing as having “poor ethics.”

Therefore, the following is by no way

meant to apply universally to others.

We are all the products of our own personal backgrounds,

and my philosophy, especially towards journalism,

is heavily influenced by my multicultural background,

my educational background, and my Catholic upbringing.

Please do not interpret it as being

a universal model for journalism.

It was originally published here:

http://www.multimediashooter.com/wp/?p=355

A word doc file of the paper can be downloaded here:

http://www.multimediashooter.com/Ethics_Paper.doc

Moreover, it can also be read on the web right here:

http://gonzopj.blogspot.com/2007/06/personal-code-of-ethics.html

Hope at least some of you find it stimulating

if any of you choose to read it.

1) Profit-Sharing of Ad revenue made online from your stories/

With basic web-statistics, companies know exactly how much revenue is made on every story, multimedia or otherwise, precisely on every page of their websites. It only seems fair. And it rewards merit per quality of production, giving employees more economic motivation to retrain, perfect, and learn more job skills. 50/50? Half for publisher; half for producer; non-exclusive licenses -syndicated content?

2) Newsroom Economics

Here is a random rant/reply I wrote

for this post on MultimediaShooter:

http://www.multimediashooter.com/wp/?p=406

It was written in haste, as per usual..

Begin—->

Patrick Yen Says:

August 11th, 2007 at 3:09 pm

Ah, the age-old quality vs. quantity debate..

I propose an equilibrium,
instead of having a little bit of good-shit
or a lotta bit if crap,
why not just have a lot of good shit?

For this to work,
it may mean having

a) Enough people working who are qualified,
are paid what they’re worth
and given enough time to pursue quality

and

b) An economic model is in place which isn’t 100% advertising.

Let’s change economics of news..

Money is made on advertising. Not on storytelling.
The sales from subscriptions usually only count towards
the printing and delivery costs of the paper/magazine.

Thus,
money is seldom made on the content.

Imagine for a moment,
making more money on content than on advertising..

Sell extended cuts of video-stories
through services like iTunes Music Store.

Say you go out and do a story;
you make a 2-3 minute cut of it available for free online
and you also make a 5-6 minute extended cut
that is exclusively available through your paper’s online store
for $0.99-$1.99 per downloadable copy.

Imagine selling 10,000 copies of a high-quality extended story
for $1.99 each, grossing $19,900.
Assuming that iTunes (or whomever) and taxes take 30-50%,
you’ve effectively made a net profit on one video for almost
$10,000-14,000.

Assume your paper gives you
at least 50% of all net profits from the stories you sell,
you’ve made $5,000-7,000 dollars in your pocket on one video.

Us journalists are perhaps accustomed to making a set salary
which is mandated by `the market.’
A corporate outlet might only pay a low set salary-rate
regardless of how good the given hired journalist is.
Because we are not rewarded financially based on merit,
where is our incentive to put in that extra ten percent?
To make that story the best it can be? Not in the paycheck.

Now,
imagine a merit-based payment model
where your income is supplemented by sales of your videos downloaded.
Better produced stories will receive more downloads,
so you are perhaps more directly motivated to produce better videos.

Imagine paying people based on the merit and quality of their work
and giving them more incentive to learn and perfect their job skills.

The stories that sell, in theory,
won’t be the mediocre dailies or the quickly produced pieces.
They will have to be stories of high production-value
that have historical or literary significance.

Long-term, as opposed to short-term, value.

Instead of making the newspaper product
a glorified bulletin board for advertisers
(that masquerades around as a news outlet)
why not make your product the actual news?

Stories that matter,
stories that change or impact the way people think.
Stories that help people.
Stories that educate people, help them to understand,
or enrich their perspective.

Imagine having a week to do a story
with your employer knowing full-well
that it is economically and commercially feasible to do so.
Because, afterall, if you strike gold with your story,
you may have produced in one week,
what will continue to make you and your paper money
(from perpetual sales of internet downloads)
for upwards of, say, 30+ years.

There is often too much filler in newspapers.
Much of the content is often unnecessary.
But if you have, a 50/50 news content-to-advertising ratio,
and you have 100 pages of ads,
then you are required to produce 100 pages of news content
probably without enough journalists on staff
who even have enough time to do so.
The more assignments you have to do a day,
with the less time per assignment,
the more mediocre your work is going to be.

How can anybody be expected to produce something of significance
when they are living in a constant state of work-related stress
and financial insecurity?

No wonder morale is low,
no wonder the soul of journalism has been sucked dry and lifeless
by the economics of the news industry.

Here’s another crazy idea.
Why limit ourselves to just journalism?
Why can’t our news sites deliver different kinds of media than just news?

Imagine,
having a one-stop shop for news,
documentary, art, music, and entertainment?
Imagine being able to experiment, produce, and sell
all kinds of narratives through your paper’s site?

There’s more to life and communication than just journalism..
what about editorial or creative non-fiction?
Isn’t there value in that too?

Journalism doesn’t always do the trick,
sometimes you need a little bit of poetry or artistic expression in
the mix
to really communicate what it is that needs to be communicated.

As long as you present your journalism as journalism,
your fiction as fiction, and your biased-propaganda as `editorial’
then you are probably being ethical.

The problem arises when you present your editorial as journalism,
or your fiction as non-fiction, et cetera.

There is a financial incentive for news publications to allow for this.
Your creative non-fiction or editorial video-compositions
might end up selling more downloads online than your journalism.

You can’t fit a talented journalist into a box of mediocrity
and many of the good ones are forced to go into Public Relations
just to get paid more close to what they’re worth.

If the current market trends continue in journalism at their current pace,
there will no longer be such a thing as journalism as we know it in
ten more years.
It will all become public relations, and quite frankly,
it almost already is.

To rescue journalism we must change the economics of journalism.

Albert Einstein said that the way of the world
is the product of how we think,
and to change the world,
we must change the way we think.

The economics of journalism are a product
of how business and marketing-people think;
to change the economics of journalism,
we must change the way
business and marketing-people think about journalism.

-p.money

<—-End.

POSTSCRIPT:

One last note,

I have compiled a great deal more research and material

for my thesis “Reforming Journalism for a Global Era.”

While it is still incomplete,

I am very actively looking for

an academic or scholarly publication to publish it.

Ideally in exchange for money.

I estimate it will be at least 50 pages in length

once completed.

I love you, Patrick! Will you marry me? ....or may I at least adopt you? lol (o:

“While it is still incomplete,
I am very actively looking for
an academic or scholarly publication to publish it.
Ideally in exchange for money.
I estimate it will be at least 50 pages in length
once completed.

by Patrick Yen”

Seriously though, Patrick, I will take a serious look for you.

Thanks Gayle!

The love is mutual..

I would have to meet you first of course, lol =)

As per the previous post..

Here is some evidence for #1:

http://www.metacafe.com/producer_rewards/

It’s apparently already a workable, precedented model..

And sorry to anyone/everyone
that I don’t have enough time lately
to to read or post more on LS..

lol! it’s OK, Patrick, I tease you and I understand there is a big age difference…. (oh, darn it! .... and my niece is already married. hmmmm, how can I get Patrick into my family…. lol :D =)

````````````````````

Yes, I wish you would post more, too, Patrick. When you find the time, of course.

I promise I will look up some grants for you though, ok?

BTW, great (but also very cute! (:) profile shot of you, although the illustration caricature was great, as well as all your other ones. I always look for network portrait changes as they are so interesting to look at and usually hint at something new on the owner’s profile and gallery. (:

The Philosophy of Liberty

(o;

Dear Gayle

The presentation is very touching.

cheers

Amit

Thank Patrick for that, Amit.

Cheers

Gayle

Thanks Gayle,

your assistance is always appreciated..

You’ve got better research skills than I do,

like a P.I. or a mystical ninja or something..

I probably won’t have any time to write proposals

until after graduation though..

December, hopefully? It’s about time I graduate..

only time will tell.

And I have to start planning now for my post-graduation employment,

like applying for jobs and crap..

Too many choices?

bump

You are very welcome, Patrick and since there are ethics in Journalism as well as Photojournalism and you are an obvious grant candidate, I think i can come up with some grant information and/or publication connections for you at this link below… And I would be happy to help you write your proposal or at least give you feedback as I have in the past and will with Dana in the future.

Society of Professional Journalists/ETHICS

Patrick,

OK, here it is….

You could do this, Sigma Delta Chi Foundation Grant Proposal Guidelines and Procedures this Fall AND get credit for doing it as well. Where are you going to school, I will tell you how to do that. The grant proposal is not due until February 2008, so you better get started now!

....grant and graduation…..what could be a better bundle then that?.....hmmmm?

`````````````

Sorry, Amit for the hijack, but Patrick is one of the best people we have in Journalism and Ethics today. He has great potential also to make a positive dent in favor of Ethical Business Practices in Journalism/Photojournalism.

.....plus, he’s an internet cowboy, too….. lol

Michal don’t tell me what to do ever again and don’t ever PM me again either.

Patrick, are you by any chance going to Western Kentucky University?

Talk to Professor Gordon “Mac” McKerral about applying and getting credit for your after college grant proposal.

Ask Professor McKerral as soon as possible about the Sigma Delta Chi Foundation Grant Proposal Guidelines and Procedures so that you can still get it on your fall schedule.

Email me at ghegland@centurytel.net or PM me if you have any other questions.

Good Michal, now don’t ever talk to me again either, anywhere, or you will get a response from me.

Ethics is not a bad business, Amit, as you have just seen with Patrick’s example.

I will try to research and post some other examples and articles that directly pertain to this important debate idea and question that you ask.

DEBATE: Is excellent journalism bad business?

Glad you reviewed the LS terms again Michal, so I guess I don’t have to worry about you calling me a f#@king moronic pest again, or what was that other word you used? Oh yeah, I remember….

Thanks in advance! I appreciate it!

THE HINDU

Online edition of India’s National Newspaper
Tuesday, Jul 17, 2007

Front Page

Media should become partner in nation-building: Kalam

by Anita Joshua

http://www.hindu.com/2007/07/17/stories/2007071760021100.htm

There are ethical forces and there are unethical forces. Unethical forces will always try to intimidate ethical forces.

The evil does eventually falls on its face.

NYT fired one of its photographers for staging a photograph. Now if you saw that staging happening and kept quiet, you can decide for yourself where you fit in.

LA times fired another photographer for cloning.

These are good ethical practices. There are Newspapers and Magazines we trust. There are others we do not. The above examples prove why NYT is a TRUSTED news source.

A case in point:

I raised an issue with Bloomberg on ethics which is not about me. It is about our community at large. Above that Bloomberg prides itself by sending letters out every year end on its ethics policy, something you generally do not see coming from others. However when it comes to enforcing it, I am still to see that happen with the issues that I raised with them.

If I saw an X photographer becoming author of Y’s work, I could not have been a mute spectator. So if a photo shot by Y goes on to win an award, X will be the proud grabber of something he never produced apart from making money out of images he never shot. Bloomberg has an ethics policy that it did not enforce. Yes there is indeed a big problem here.

Bloomberg Photo Service is not open access. It is not like AP, AFP, Reuters that you can see on Yahoo or AAP, or Getty, Corbis, WpN etc that you can see on their own site. There is almost no public access to Bloomberg Photo Service. You will possibly never even come to know that your image got used under the name of a different author. One photographer I know does not even have the courage to fight for the fear of backlash from more powerful unethical forces.

Tell me why would you risk your life in the battle fields of Iraq or Afghanistan when you can very much make the same photos in a Hollywood or a Bollywood studio. And if that happens one day, it is indeed criminal.

It is also about the readers who eventually believe in what you are reporting. There are guidelines on usage of Stock photos and Importance of Captioning as well.

Now think of other situations such as these:

If you go and do a story paid up by the company/organization whom you are reporting on, chances are that you will be obliged to report in its favor. And if you do that, you are no longer reporting. You are doing PR. Bad Journalism = Good Business.

You pick up pictures sitting at home of an event happening miles away and claim that you are reporting from the scene. Bad Photojournalism = Good Business

You go to a protest rally, and have people pose for you the way you want. You do not wait for the moment to happen. You want to do a quick job. You have staged a show that may have not happened. Bad photojournalism = Good Business. However Criminal.

You go to cover a disaster. There are weeping relatives of those dead. Somehow that is not fitting in the scheme of things. You stage a situation. Maybe that makes a more powerful image and gets you higher revenues. You are playing with the emotions of already those in suffering. Bad photojournalism – Good Business.

There is a very thin line that divides Photojournalism from Commercial photography. You don’t take away evidence from your pictures. You do not stage pictures.

It becomes bad business because you end up spending a lot of time, effort, risk and extra money to accomplish what others do by breaking all rules. Worse when people stop working with you.

I have done my bit to get an answer from organizations such as Bloomberg for the issue given above. I have spoken to them and got no answer. I have reported to the Indian Press Council that possibly cannot act as they are a foreign news agency.

I am not their enemy. I just want them to enforce something they are so proud of. So if anyone of you can engage them, enforce their policies and stop financing bad practices, I will be more than happy. Having said that, by large I feel that they do have some good practices and good people on the financial news side of the company. Somehow that does not gel well with their photo side.

Gayle and Patrick, keep up the good work, when all others seems snoring on such an important issue. At least the future looks bright with those like you.

Where are the others LS’s? Don’t care?

Michal

This is not for you. It more serious that what you can digest. So you may please want to say out if you keep sending the kind of messages you sent to Gayle. Nor do I want to pick up a fight with you as you did with Gayle.

If you worked with NYT since you quoted NYT code of ethics, then what I have said would have been unacceptable. No personal Beef, just an example.

Listen Michal, just re-phrased for you to understand better. Just the way you re-phrased your post. I don’t wash dirty laundry in Public. I am building an opinion. I fought a lonely battle for 9 months not for my images, but of someone else. No but that is not the topic of this thread. Just an example… show me the good side of you and take the responsibility of fighting for the cause. Facts will be provided.

Lets move on… This not about me and you. This is for us all…

“Why? Because accusing anyone of illegal activity – by name, in a public forum, without also providing rock solid proof – is simply unwise”. – Michal Daniel

Point well taken. Rock solid proofs available, but not for the public forum. Here this is just an example provided on your sweet request.

cheers!

I have been hearing those threats for 9 months. Enough…

Back to the debate of ethics:

Rashmi Singh, an aspiring journalist who posed as a schoolgirl and the victim of a prostitution racket in the sting operation, was on Friday remanded in judicial custody till September 15. Prakash Singh, the reporter who carried out the sting operation, is under arrest.

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070025291&ch=9/7/2007%201:25:00%20PM

http://ibnlive.com/news/sting-operation-falls-apart-but-channel-isnt-sorry/48241-3.html

Part of a debate, makes a lot of difference. No one is above the law. Look at this example here.

http://ibnlive.com/news/sting-operation-falls-apart-but-channel-isnt-sorry/48241-3.html

Ethical photojournalists don’t run away. Thanks for your advice anyways dude.

Time for me to sleep. albest!

Sound Sleep – No Fear!

”....Gayle and Patrick, keep up the good work, when all others seems snoring on such an important issue. At least the future looks bright with those like you…..

by Amit Bhargava”

Thank you for those kind words, Amit, and we will.

I have known Patrick for almost a year when he introduced himself to me in a very charitable and concerned email. He is an amazing person and coincidentally when I was a professor at MCAD (Minneapolis College of Art and Design) a student of mine had similar concerns as Patrick, and that student is very, very successful today. He has achieved wealth in every area imaginable and to the joy of his family, is actually a philanthropist now.

Anyway, it was a real eye opener to see the good guy win and how he went about winning. And I am beginning to see it more and more, as if the human race is finally evolving to the next level.

Very good thread topic, and I look forward to doing and sharing more research with you on your topic here.

Thanks again, Amit.

Gayle

There was a recent post by Erica McDonald plead for a more friendly lightstalkers… I didn’t really understand what she was talking about until I clicked this post next.

—Patrick, we share the same alma mater, and while I don’t completely agree with point-of-view, I believe that you’re are one of the few trying to find a new direction and exploring. Many of us leave exploring to big companies with market research firms, then jump on when they come up with an idea. Many of us are afraid of change, and we are more comfortable working within current contructs. So keep seeking.

—Amit, good luck with your troubles. Although, I don’t know all the details, I doubt you have anything to worry about. Sound sleep for sure.

—Gayle, It’s good to see other involved in this topic. I hope we can make some progress on this topic as well.

Here’s a question (and not a new one)... what role will newspapers play in this new environment? Will they survive online sacrificing their print editions? Or will they perish altogether? Will be get their news from sites which offer multimedia pieces that are journalism right next to some anime video of chicken singing? What type of ethical problems will that raise? And here’s an interesting fact… a little glimmer of hope… photo galleries (not video, not print stories) consistantly get the most hits on community newspapers. Now, arguments can be made about computers still being slow for video, and so on. But what if were missing something. What if we’re overthinking what people what to do on a newspaper website. Just somethings to chew on. I’m about as blank as a slate can get right now, and I hope guys have some good insight.

Thought you would find this 2002 paper on the free market and common law interesting, Amit.

The High Price of Low Ethics;
How Corruption Imperils American Entrepreneurship and Democracy

by Carl J. Schramm, Ph.D., J.D.
President & CEO
The Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation

University of Rochester
Meliora Weekend
October 12, 2002

“This paper considers the phenomenon of corporate corruption from several
different perspectives. Using seven postulates it concludes that this is a crisis
that reaches beyond the big business venue in which at first glance it appears to
play. Because it effects our nation’s entrepreneurial activity, it connects to the
rootstock of post-industrial capitalism, which is the basis of modern democracy.

........... It has been the premise of this paper
that ethics in business are above all practical, they spring from a sense that one’s
obligation is reciprocal, a duty to others involved in economic life, that one takes
up as his or her obligation when one assumes a life in commerce. If business is
to work efficiently, it must be fair and transactions transparent. These tenets are
part of the implicit, transnational compact that undergirds civilization. Thus, the
fundamental rules are self-imposed. They are personal to each individual. And,
they are, in their essence, absolute, not relative to the circumstances.

Washington was right in his view that such rules that compose our social contract
are critical to happiness within a nation. But Aquinas points us to the real and
human task of self-governance. Edmund Burke, the greatest of social contract
theorists, tells us to consider our obligation to live our roles as ethical citizens
including that part of our life that is spent in commerce – “The only thing
necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing.” In business the evil
that will triumph will leave us all poorer. Its highest cost is personal freedom
itself. Contemplating the past century with its sorry history of wars born of
contests over economic theory, and pointing to the real and sometimes terrifying
link between economic theory and political order, compels us to see that
sustaining an efficient modern market economy bottomed on ethical behavior is
critical to preserving liberty.”

The Definition of Common Law can be found in this quote below taken from the
Carl J. Schramm, Ph.D., J.D. paper linked above::

“It is important to reflect on exactly what the content of our ethical standards in
business should be. They are of necessity simple, easy to understand, and
subject to measurement in the observance and breach. They descend from one
of the first areas in which persons had to trust strangers. Persons engaged in
commerce with other merchants unknown to them, often from foreign lands, had
to have a trust relationship built on commonly held principles of fairness that
were predictable in their enforcement. A system of unspoken business ethics
emerged. In time, well-understood rules emerged from common law disputes.
Private contracts could be enforced by the state referring to the common law
rules. In addition to running the courts that decided private disputes,
governments regulated their currencies to ensure predictable value, to oversee
the stability of banking capacity, and to protect their citizens engaged in
international commerce by enforcing private contracts through appeal to other
nations or sanctions on the offending party or his or her nation.

Such principles are fundamentally personal in nature. They spring from internal
values of the person engaged in business. They are deemed self-evident and
should be respected as such, without qualification. They are reinforced in the
day-to-day course of business when each transaction honors and reestablishes
the operation of the principles and their importance. This is the “moral compass”
that characterizes the business person when he or she reduces the rules of their
commercial life to their essence. The duty to know and honor common
standards of conduct is internal and self-imposed. The continuous honorable
conduct of a person in business becomes the business of living morally in that
part of the individual’s life that is given over to commerce.

The ethical principles in business remain simple and clear. Their essence can be
stated clearly in a few rules. Honor contracts. Be truthful about the condition of
a good or commodity. Do not engage in sharp practices in the negotiation and
performance of a contract. Treat customers fairly and in every way as you would
want to be treated. Be fair – and transparent – with investors:, consolidate
accounting, report all revenue and expenses in the appropriate period using
truth-based accounting that accurately represents the state of your enterprise.

The concept that justifies these rules – what might be thought of as ethical
standards – rests on very pragmatic reasoning. If business transactions proceed
honorably, there is confidence in commerce and critical efficiencies emerge in a
marketplace. Predictability of collections results. The efficient use of capital and
lending flourishes. Investors, who can enforce a property right in a business they
do not manage, come forward. The need to insure transactions against moral
risk disappears. Moral hazard becomes easy to define and restrict. Commerce
grows and wealth is produced. Human welfare expands. When rules break
down, when a business person voids his bond with his customers or investors,
the opportunity cost of money rises. The costs of the transgressions of a few are
imposed as a burden on the whole of society.

An ethical standard shared by people engaged in commerce derives from a
system where self-interest compels behaviors that confirm these simple rules. In
every sense a social compact emerges which, unlike many ethical rules that are
tied to ethnic or national identities and custom, is very much multi-national. In
commercial transactions, business people expect these rules to obtain. Indeed,
we view some societies as corrupt because these rules are not honored in
business. Inevitably, these cultures suffer from lack of trade and growth. Social
welfare is highly dependent on the operation of the implicit bond among persons
engaged in commerce without regard to place or time. In every way, the efficient
operation of the world economy rests on an individual obligation undertaken by
persons in commerce to honor common principles as absolute standards based
in history and tied ultimately to the individual’s and his or her society’s welfare.“

”......Over the years corporate ethical standards, as with the cases of Enron and World.com, in
commerce have deteriorated significantly. This erosion is related in part to the nearly non-stop
process of codification of wrongs over the past thirty years. This transformation of business
morality into a set of formal public rules has been done at the expense of the
personal self imposed absolute standards that formerly prevailed and were
reflected in the *common law, which was the way in which the public’s interest
had been guarded before legislated standards were developed. Worse, the
statutory standards of conduct reflect the ability of business to reshape business
standards, lowering them through time.”*

“Gayle, It’s good to see other involved in this topic. I hope we can make some progress on this topic as well.

Here’s a question (and not a new one)... what role will newspapers play in this new environment? Will they survive online sacrificing their print editions? Or will they perish altogether? Will we get their news from sites which offer multimedia pieces that are journalism right next to some anime video of chicken singing? What type of ethical problems will that raise?

by Cameron Knight”

Thank you, Cameron for your kind words. (:

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I found an article in “The Journal of Scholarly Publishing” for reference to your questions raised above, though, the article specifically makes reference to journals and not newspapers.

I believe, however, for our example and benefit here today that journals and newspapers can be used in this context in an relatively interchangeable way, ....particularly since the most well respected, “tried and true”, national newspapers like the NYTimes traditionally are considered to be the “paper of record” just as journals are in their profession. ...... the difference obviously being that Newspapers, until they are archived, exist in an, at least initially, faster, more immediate, plus much shorter space of temporal presentation. Also the physical medium of newsprint has a much more perishable condition usually than a Journal does in book form. But those two major differences should not impact our example contextually with regards to the publications’ ongoing track record with the public, accuracy and, journalistic integrity.

Scholarship at the Crossroads:
The Journal of Markets &
Morality Case Study
by JORDAN J. BALLOR

”....Two of the major influences that seem to make the move toward electronic journals [or newspapers for the sake of debate] likely are consumer demand
(functionality) and cost concerns. It is for these reasons that Varian states,

_{“It is widely expected that a great deal of scholarly communication will move to an electronic format. The Internet offers much lower cost of reproduction and distribution than print, the scholarly community has excellent connectivity, and the current system of journal pricing seems to be too expensive. Each of these factors is helping push journals [and newspapers] from paper to electronic media.’}

The former demand for functionality rises from the expectations of
end users, while the latter demand for lower prices comes from subscribers,
including institutions and libraries…..”

.......Predictions of Future Trends

The situation, then, is this: Economic and functionality concerns are pushing scholarly journals [or respected newspapers] toward electronic media, while traditional views of the prestige and importance of publication for the advancement process act as a counterforce. The sole emphasis on the economics of the library crisis leads many to conclude that print journals [or newspapers] will inevitably become obsolete. It is for this reason that Bolter writes,

_{“Although print remains indispensable, it no longer seems indispensable: that is its curious condition in the late age of print. Electronic technology provides a range of new possibilities, whereas the possibilities of print seem to have been played out”}

Many have recognized the complex nature of the current state of
journal [newspaper] publishing, which represents the necessity of a mix of electronic
and print formats. What C.J. Armstrong and R.E. Lonsdale write
with respect to the United Kingdom is more broadly applicable to the
entire academic world: ‘There is an inherent belief in the UK that the
printed monograph is destined to survive as a partner to its electronic
companion.

The realistic prediction, then, in view of the forces at work in the
realm of journal [newspaper] publication, is that for the foreseeable future electronic
journals will not replace print journals, but both will exist
together in a complementary fashion, each addressing different
demands. Print journals have a firm superior position over electronic
journals with respect to the question of authoritativeness and respect.
This state of affairs leads Quandt to conclude, ‘It is extremely unlikely
that competition from upstart electronic journals will dislodge existing
prestige journals from their dominant position in the near term. Tenopir and King concur, stating that

_{Scholarly journals [and newspapers] are likely to be available for quite some time in a
variety of formats: exclusively print, exclusively electronic, and a combination
of electronic and print. From both a cost and use stand point, that mixture
makes sense.}

With this in mind, it seems clear that the ideal solution for a scholarly journal [or newspaper]
that wishes to meet the varied demands of its stakeholders
(with concerns comparable to those of the Journal of Markets & Morality) is to appear in both print and electronic formats. We can also
say that, just as any scholar who ignores the technological advances in
his or her field becomes, in the words of Bradley and Muller, ‘precritical,’
the same is true of a scholarly journal [or newspaper] that overlooks new technological
possibilities.

_{JORDAN J. BALLOR currently serves as associate editor for the Journal
of Markets & Morality. His duties include coordinating the journal’s
electronic edition, researching, writing, and providing editorial assistance.
He holds a Master of Theology (ThM) degree from Calvin Theological
Seminary and will be pursuing doctoral studies in historical
theology beginning in the fall of 2005.”}

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In conclusion, I agree at this time anyway, that until online editions become as widely respected, perceived as acceptably stable, factually trusted, and viewed with the same amount of integrity as the traditional printed page, that both will still play a major, important and equal role until either the transition has completed it’s cycle or the market dynamics and standards change according to each new generational size and demand.