week 6 - It's a great time to be a journalist, says Channel 4's Jon Snow

News anchor praises young reporters in Aleppo, points to ‘unbelievable’ Facebook hits and dismisses newspapers for being ‘in the business of lies’.

It is the most exciting as well as the most frightening time to be a journalist, says Channel 4 News presenter Jon Snow. 

Exciting because of the amount of news stories around at present and because of the willingness of enthusiastic young people to report on those events. Frightening because of the threats to journalists who are trying to report from arenas of conflict, notably the Middle East.

He praised young people who, unlike him, are multi-skilled: “They blog, which means writing, they take pictures, still and video film, and then they edit.... I still can’t edit film myself”.

C4 News’s Facebook page is loaded with segments from its TV output, but Snow noted: “There’s no money in it... we’re talking to key elements of online community about how to make it pay... I’m certain we will be attracting investors”.

He was scathing about newspapers, referring to them as having a “snooty attitude about being the bastions of truth” when “quite a lot of them, the mass-market ones, are in the business of lies.

“They needed to wither away. I’m sorry for people who work there, of course, but I don’t mind them [papers] going. People are looking for quality”.

He thought the media, papers and broadcasters, failed in their coverage of the EU referendum debate that led to Brexit because editors did not recognise the motivation of people who felt alienated. They voted to leave, he said, as “a kind of fuck you” to the establishment.

In my opinion, I disagree with Jon Snow's statement of it being a great time to be a journalist. I believe it may be the worst time in fact, to be a journalist as due to new and digital media progressing and technology developing, more and more journalists are losing out on jobs as the newspaper industry is falling apart.

Furthermore, I agree with his statement of those journalists that do have jobs can be in danger due to going to areas with conflict.