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As many local sales points have been closed due to lack of funding, blockchain presents itself as a tool that could help fill gaps in financial sustainability and readers' trust.
The current era of false news makes it easy to imagine media distrust as a recent phenomenon. In reality, the media landscape has undergone decades of changes in which it has been.
Since the 1980s, there has been a decline in the number of newspapers in the United States. Efforts to reduce costs by cutting coverage have had a significant impact on how local news is handled and how such information is magnified on a large scale.
Worldwide, journalists and journalists continue to remain targets in the pursuit of authoritarian governments and other criminal organizations.
In the current news context, the biggest barriers to the industry have been identified as increasing confidence gaps in terms of sources that readers believe – and problems related to financial sustainability.
Blockchain technology could help address both of these problems.
Blockchain and News Media
One of the most discussed projects on the link between blockchain and journalism is Civil. The project is trying to exploit Ethereum to help create a sustainable business model for the media world.
Matthew Iles, founder and CEO of Civil, wants the platform to become the "new economy" for journalism by replacing the revenue generated by advertising flows with a system that allows journalists to own the work they produce.
So far, Civil has signed a series of partnerships – including an agreement with the Associated Press – to deepen their knowledge on the licensing industry. Civil also announced an agreement in the summer with Splice to invest in 100 different Asian media projects over the next three years.
Civil's model and vision have attracted much attention to the idea of blockchain as a solution to some of the most important journalism issues. On the other hand, there is a variety of other companies that are using the same technology to innovate other consolidated media models.
A new tool for innovation
Many journalists rely on photos to improve their narration. Much of the online photography industry is a digital extension of print media – without many innovations.
Simple Token's Jason Goldberg announced in February that he had invested in a photo platform called Unsplash to "tokenise these billions of photo events," and bring the blockchain into the mainstream.
Some think that the blockchain could serve as a great innovative tool for online photo platforms by promoting a micro-payments ecosystem. In this way, photographers and creators would be fairly represented.
Other projects, such as Po .et, are trying to build improved media ecosystem models by harnessing existing solid communities.
Po.et worked with blockchain and the InterPlanet file system to create a platform with better transparency when it comes to attribution and value. The general idea behind the project is to "create a better model for the media ecosystem".
What do you think about blockchain-based journalism projects like Civil? Let us know in the comments below!
Images courtesy of Pexels, Shutterstock.
