(Written for Chinabiz)
You might have noticed that the on-going media revolution is one of my major fields of interest. The way how people get their information and deal with that knowledge is changing very fast, and changing in China faster than in the rest of the world. China's media have done a particular bad service to both the Chinese citizens and its foreign visitors, explaining why - when they get the chance - people turn to the internet in stead of the traditional media. That has dramatic consequences for the former guardians of the news, be it journalists or censors, because their positions are eroding as the audiences increasingly ignore them. Communication has become - more than ever - a conversation between peers in stead of a top-down relationship.
I had to laugh a bit when I got this week an invitation of the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club for their annual meeting carrying a motion to censor their mailing list and leave it up to the board to decide what emails are appropriate or not. "The dinosaurs," I thought and reported it to my digitally more advanced friends at Twitter, one of the latest tools of the online vanguard.
In these days you should foster conversations, not kill them. A conversation means you are alive, even if you might not like the way how others express themselves, you cannot tell them to shut up. Well, you can tell them, but you cannot really stop them anyway.
Already when we decided to formally set up the Shanghai Foreign Correspondents Club at the beginning of this century, we knew (at least I knew) times were changing for the media and the position of the foreign correspondents. We looked with envy at the established clubs in Hong Kong and Tokyo, but we realized that we could never match those sophisticated organizations with their history of decades and nice facilities. We have been looking at some buildings in Shanghai too, but you did not need to be a good accountant to tell that even the turnover of a bar each night packed with journalists could never make up for the costs. We had to set a rather low membership fee, since media organizations would no longer reimburse the hefty fees of the old clubs. The clubs in Hong Kong and Tokyo are still packed, although the foreign correspondents have gradually been replaced by bankers, diplomats and others.
There is still a decreasing layer of classic correspondents belonging to a small number of publications that will survive: The New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, Financial Times, perhaps AP. They might survive, all right, maybe Dow Jones too when they play their cards right. Another group of surviving foreign correspondents covers subjects in a vertical way: they go for plastic, insurances, automotive industry of payment systems. They might too survive although in a less romantic environment than the classic foreign correspondent.
I'm not sure what is going to happen to most newswires: they have already been changed in sweatshops to remain competitive and might not survive in the long run.
The few remaining foreign correspondents are mostly too busy to join social clubs and for their work they actually do not need them anymore. They can get their information easy enough outside the clubs. The clubs were in the past places you could not ignore, because they offered you access to information that was otherwise hard to get.
Shanghai and Beijing have been going strong in numbers of foreign correspondents, because they are cheaper than Tokyo and Hong kong and the China story appeals more. But many existing jobs for foreign correspondents have disappeared or saw their compensation and working conditions deteriorate. Newcomers in Shanghai do not find jobs in journalism, but they teach English and write for 0.1 US cent per word for local publications, hoping for a return of a tide that will never return.
So, what is this twittering dinosaur now doing, you might wonder. As a compulsory writer I will show up here every now and then, but very soon you might see here more and different names too. We are very close in signing a partnership that will allow us to set up a China Speaker Bureau on an international footing. A speakers bureau organizes professional speakers in exchange for a percentage of the speakers' fee. We think China is ready for such a service and by organizing an international alliance we do have an advantage other cannot offer that easy.
My main task will be organizing a domestic stable of professional speakers, an activity that allows me to reuse skills and networks I have developed in the past as a foreign correspondent.
Now, some of you might think this is funny, since getting people physically into a hall or meeting room and talk to them might actually be very 19th century. That is true. but some people are still reading books, listing to the radio or watching are TV. Some of those tools might change in character, importance, but I do not see them really disappear. There is enough room in China for professional speakers. I think.
PS: If you are interesting for one reason or another in our upcoming speakers' bureau, do drop me a line or even better, send me a message over twitter.
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