Are you also a volunteer/contributor/member of a free working force of a social media channel?
Most of us may not admit it, but we are. We toil hard, plan our posts, record them, edit them, and upload and then wait for our return. Clicks on our posts decide our fate or our earning. Fewer the clicks lesser is our earning.
And the promoters of the channels must do nothing to get free willing work force. They have an endless stream of volunteers offering to work and upload their work without ever fixing a price tag to their contribution.
Isn’t it amazing? All your efforts, including labor and personal investment, in producing the content for the social media channels, is then at the mercy of your unknown Godfathers’, your viewers, who in turn will decide your returns.
After getting the free content and the revenue from advertising, these social channels then menacingly decide what and how much to pay for your “volunteered” contribution.
Intriguingly, we all fall into the trap and work enthusiastically for the numbers, the views, our posts or our vlogs, blogs, podcasts, or uploads are getting.
Social media has become a necessary evil. It has devoured the traditional and conventional media. It has its pros and cons. It may have helped young promising stars to come up front and taste success not only at local, provincial, or national level but on the world stage.
In the millennial’s lingo, “hits” or “views” script the success story of the creator who has only to master the art of “uploading” the “content” that has a ready-made market. Both the content and market trends, however, keep changing and to be successful, you must keep pace them.
Other day, I attended a session with a senior Canadian journalist, Haroon Siddiqui, who had immigrated to Canada from Hyderabad in India in early 60s. He is convinced there is no hope or future left in tractional or conventional journalism.
He says society is changing, media is changing.
Instead, he advises new journalists to diversify into other areas, including politics, corporate world, local bodies, provincial and federal governments and use their degrees and professional acumen gained in Schools of Journalism and Mass Communication for their personal growth.
“You cannot survive by doing journalism alone,” is his terse advice that comes from his almost four decades of experience in mainstream Canadian journalism.
Journalism can best be a part time avocation as you cannot sustain yourself professionally.
“If you are an immigrant and are working for a career in mainstream journalism, your bosses may want you to do dig up dirt of your own minority community as a potential story,” he says suggesting that one must have cudgels to argue and retort back. than doing such “color stories of painting one community or the other” as a big bad boy. He has a point that he illustrates with how things changed worldwide after 9/11.
Media must not forget its role of playing watch dog and should be able to clearly distinguish between objectivity and subjectivity.
“Everyone in a minority community becomes a suspect. Post 9/11 it was not journalism but jingoism. And journalists, instead of standing up, turned carriers of the embedded journalism,” adds Haroon Siddiqui.
There is no reason to lose heart and hope. One’s talent as a journalist can eminently be exported to other areas, including politics, public relations and marketing as a good journalist is expert in conveying a message or reaching out masses in an effective and efficient manner. He or she can avoid the pitfalls of falling a prey to social media channels and instead use his or her talent to the greater benefit of public at large.
(Prabhjot Singh is a veteran journalist with over three decades of experience of 14 years with Reuters News and 30 years with The Tribune Group, covering a wide spectrum of subjects and stories. He has covered Punjab and Sikh affairs for more than three decades besides covering seven Olympics and several major sporting events and hosting TV shows.)
