The Lords sound the alarm: UK media is going to die
date
Nov 30, 2024
slug
2024-the-lords-sound-the-alarm-uk-media-is-going-to-die
status
Published
tags
media
capitalism
audience fragmentation
type
Post
summary
The House of Lords warns that the UK media faces extinction by 2034 due to technological and economic upheaval, with local newspapers closing and trust in news plummeting.
The report made last week by the House of Lords, the upper chamber of the British legislative power, carries a surreal tone in a world that seems to make no sense anymore. Conservative bodies of the established power never advocate to help an industry that has always pressured them, so the simple existence of the report is already a splinter of a broken reality. The media market that was once the most mature in the world may no longer exist by 2034 - or at least not as a "market". This alone should be enough to understand the gravity of the moment. Comfortably numb, society glances as this was just another day, but it's not. Understand it or not will define how bad the collapse will be.
The report is long and could be more concise, but it serves its purpose. It outlines the fundamental role of news media in society and its urgent need for support to survive, as it cannot sustain itself. The study highlights how local newspapers face extinction—at least 293 have already closed. Today, professional journalists number only a third of what they were in 2007, facing lower wages and deteriorating working conditions (exacerbated by 16 years of catastrophic Tory governance). Trust in news has not only plummeted, but a new phenomenon is emerging—news avoidance. People are turning away from news entirely, driven by fragmentation and increasingly bleak prospects. Journalism, as we knew it, is becoming an endangered profession.
How could we end up here? And where do we go?
The situation is the result of a perfect storm combining technological, economic, social, and historical changes that are interlinked. Capital, as Marx predicted, is set on destroying itself in its endless pursuit of growth. In media, this manifested as endless cannibalization that wiped out smaller players from the market. The technological shift toward digital didn't cause the process but enabled it—making market offerings virtually infinite and driving the market price for journalism to zero. This economic upheaval extended beyond journalism, sparking widespread unrest and inevitable polarisation. All of this (in simplified terms) occurs in an era where capitalism retains only those characteristics that benefit its masters. While Marx's proposed solution to capitalism was fundamentally flawed, his diagnosis of its trajectory proved remarkably prescient. In a word, we are in a clusterfuck.
The part related to the future follows the bleak trend. Society is absolutely to blame for the immature and egotistical choice to prioritize the short-term gratification of stupid TikTok videos instead of the long-term, zero-pleasure-but-responsible choice of keeping a system to monitor what's important. Audiences, it turns out, were and are certainly cheated by the attention hijackers out there, from the data giants to obnoxious populists, but cannot complain a thing and will deserve to be remembered by history as another generation that shot its own foot.
The House of Lords is one of the last institutions you'd expect to defend a historically hostile media environment, yet here we are. Traditional politicians and elite members are watching their power diminish against new players: startup CEOs, opportunistic populists, Middle Eastern sheikhs with unlimited wealth and no accountability, a deregulated financial industry, and "influencers" who can barely navigate basic tasks. This new, tech-fueled attention economy is dangerous, sociopathic, and seemingly unstoppable—it will destroy everything in its path, particularly the old elites who ignored the plight of the average worker watching their wages steadily decline. Like in Ken Loach's I, Daniel Blake, the rage underlying our current reality stems from an inequality that has reached historic highs, reminiscent of the levels seen before World War II (which parallels many of our present conditions).
While providing a lifeline for traditional media is crucial, it alone cannot halt the ongoing decline. Pandora's box has been opened, and its released forces will continue to wreak havoc. The only viable solution requires two elements: strict regulation of American tech giants (which won't happen in the US until a major crisis occurs) and a fundamental reimagining of media. This new approach must maintain presence on digital platforms—where the audience now resides—while preventing algorithms from simply serving content to the highest bidder. To put a leash in the business interests of Meta, Google, Twitter and others is no longer an option, and they should be put out of the market in Europe if that’s what’s needed.