The media find themselves with more costs than revenue and very few avenues for growing existing streams or creating new ones.
Many media commentators are convinced that management incompetence takes the bulk of the blame for media predicament across the world.
This season—these 90 days of the long knives—fills me with dread even though I retired from the media three years ago. Companies, whether selling media products or beans, must pay their way to survive; if a company’s costs are more than its income, then it enters a nose-dive headed for a very hard landing. It can pull out of the dive in two ways. One, it can find new ways of making money or, two, it can cut its costs. The media find themselves with more costs than revenue and very few avenues for growing existing streams or creating new ones. So inevitably, every newsroom will get a share of its cuts, and that includes making changes to products (mainly reducing or sometimes closing them) and sending to the streets young, talented and otherwise wholesome journalists.
I stay away from these debates but often hear people ask: why can’t media make the digital changes needed to keep abreast with their consumers’ need and tastes? They conclude that “Githeri” media are useless and too corrupt and incompetent.
