Journalism and the press are not synonymous.
The difference between these two activities has gained a new meaning due to the process of digitalization of contemporary life, after almost 200 years in which both were treated as if they were the same thing. Today, differentiation has become fundamental for both journalism and the press to consolidate their specific niches in the new digital information economy and seek different formulas for financial survival.
In the field of theory, the conceptual and functional separation between journalism and the press has long been clear, but since the emergence of mass communication at the beginning of the 19th century, economic factors have created conditions for corporate interests to embody journalistic discourse as part of its strategy to attract news-consuming audiences.
The history of journalism includes three very different phases. There was an earliest that goes from the emergence of the first printed newspaper, in 1609, until around 1830, a period in which journalism was carried out by individuals with some type of personal or public cause. From the mid-19th century onwards, the mass press emerged, based on business corporations committed to making a profit by offering information to larger audiences. The third and most recent period is digital, which emerged at the end of the 20th century and revolutionized both the production of news and the composition of audiences, by including common citizens in the news gathering and dissemination process.
The era of the press based on mechanical tools was marked by the association between the industrial production of news and the emergence of a virtual symbiosis between journalism and large business conglomerates in the area of public communication. The demographic growth of the world population triggered an increase in the demand for news, which enabled the emergence of large financial conglomerates involved in news production. Getting into this branch of industrial production required high investments due to the high cost of equipment, which forced journalism to depend on large capital.
This dependence created the conditions for business conglomerates to take over the journalistic discourse on freedom of information to generate in the public the perception that the information and news published were free from corporate, governmental and financial interests, therefore linked to the needs of common people. It was this situation that gave rise to the conceptual confusion between freedom of information and freedom of the press, as a corollary of the association between journalism and journalistic companies.
The paradoxes of a relationship
Journalism and the news business are driven by a different logic. The raison d’être of journalism is to provide people with the facts, data, events and ideas necessary for individuals and communities to make decisions suitable to their needs and desires. The press, on the other hand, needs revenue to pay operating costs and invest in innovation, as well as profits to remunerate owners and shareholders.
Despite following different logics, journalism and the press are structurally linked. Journalism is essentially a relational activity, that is, it involves the relationship between the professional and people, whether they are witnesses of events, protagonists of facts or researchers of data and ideas. The journalist needs other people to produce news. The press, on the other hand, depends on physical structures capable of organizing and providing functionality to relationships between journalists and the public. The press, in the traditional definition, does not exist without journalists, and they are unable to perform their function without a minimum of support from structures that allow the dissemination of news.
Despite this mutual dependence, journalism and the press will have to follow different paths in the search for financial survival in the digital era. The business model linking news and advertising no longer works, except in very specific cases. In the overwhelming majority of cases, journalism will have to look to its relationship with the public for the means to achieve sustainability, while the press will look to entertainment for the advertising revenue that is essential for its survival.
This is a positive diversification for both sides. Digitization has reduced the commercial value of news to almost zero, due to the avalanche of information. Therefore, the press can no longer rely on a devalued commodity to have revenues and profits that guarantee its survival as companies. And journalism becomes a lifeline for audiences disoriented by the oversupply of news and the uncertainties generated by misinformation.
