It might seem to you that blockchain technology and the field of journalism are as distant from each other as two galaxies, however, their association is able to breathe new life into the media and present great opportunities.
Today, information resources have many obstacles on the way to their readers and in this article, we decided to consider how the blockchain can turn a thorny road into a smooth and high-speed highway.
Finances
In addition to endless inspiration and a great desire to keep millions of readers up to date with all the happenings, novice publishers or online news resources need money, as trite and prosaic as it feels to say it. At the development stages, they may have to face a funding shortage, as it will be necessary to pay for the journalists and authors services, to cover the renting office costs and, of course, to promote the project.
Until recently, media could rely on paid subscriptions (for example, The New York Times), or for sponsors' support (unfortunately, many publishers are funded by political forces to promote them, but more on that later). The first option works fine only if you are a real mastodon of journalistic affairs, who operates with insider information and manages to attract a huge audience. The second option, of course, will help the new media get on their feet quicker, however, it is worth considering that you have to forget about honest and independent content in this case.
If you pursue good goals, to give the world real investigations and talk about what you really consider useful for society, alas, you will face enormous financial difficulties. Being only at the beginning of their journey, for novice publishers, most of their income will go on advertising in social networks and search engines.
Mistrust
The ideal solution seems to be to attract outside journalists and pay them for the material provided, setting your success on the freelancing foundation. Theoretically, not complicated, but in practice, there is risk on both sides. The journalist doesn't trust the publisher because the media can use his material without payment, and the media owner doesn't trust the journalist and therefore doesn't pay him in advance, waiting to see if the material is original and of good quality before paying.
Misinformation
In an era of simple access to any data and information about events, you need to be sure of their authenticity, but what do we see? Fake news shakes both online and print media. In order to list all the scandals that have gained momentum over the past three years, a few hours would not be enough. The most striking example is the presidential election in the United States; misinformation governed public opinion, negatively influenced international relations, and caused thousands of conflicts between people around the world.
Fake news can destroy the world with proper promotion in a matter of minutes. Whether we want it or not, you and I are in the midst of twisted facts and invented news. The result is an absolute distrust of the media.
Interesting fact
Did you know that in 2017 from the New York Times office came the sounds of celebration, and the guys from The Wall Street Journal opened up champagne and clapped each other approvingly on the back? And all because the first newspaper had increased circulation 10 times, and the second information legend achieved a threefold increase in the figure. The reason for such explosive results was by no means the return of the newspaper to fashion, people just don't believe everything that is written on the Internet. Frank lies, which are spreading on the world wide web with the speed of light, have everyone fed up. Readers returned to the rustling pages that they associate with information reliability. And while I hate to disappoint you, even printed texts shouldn't be unquestioningly trusted.
We have already mentioned financial support from governments and individual officials above. Some politicians are in possession of news media and online resources. Do you think you can trust them?
All these problems can be solved by the distributed ledger technology (DLT) because its implementation guarantees both the texts authenticity and the fulfillment of the cooperation terms. Moreover, the blockchain is able to open the door to honest and transparent information resources by solving the financing problem.
The pressure on journalists is canceled
Against a background volatile political games and dangerous paradigms, a journalist who revealed a corruption scheme, for example, might pause to think before publishing his material, to decide whether to risk his career. It sounds quite dramatic, but we can all agree that an influential person will be able to do much to ensure that such material disappears from the network forever.
This scenario can also be applied to historical data since the disappearance of important archives can have serious consequences.
However, having introduced the blockchain, this problem can be forgotten, since the decentralized network is characterized by the immutability of the data entered into it. Even if you strongly want it and stamp your foot, nothing will come out, the information is not subject to deletion and changes.
Misinformation multiplied by zero
The aforementioned virtue also becomes a weapon in the fight against the most important the news business enemy - misinformation. Thanks to the blockchain, readers will be able to see who made changes to the text, when, and even where. Updating information in real time contributes to the return of confidence in news resources.
The misinformation problem concerns not only of the text of articles but also photo/video content. Often public figures are either the masters or victims of Photoshop manipulation, and it adversely affects their career and reputation. In this case, the blockchain technology use may be applicable to multimedia authentication.
However, the implementation of such a solution requires additional efforts, since it will be possible to achieve positive results only with the IoT products implementation. For example, the main requirement for photographers should be the presence of a sensor on his camera, which will bring in the chain data about where and when the material was filmed. As a result, we get authentic content, since the use of Photoshop can be identified easily.
Let's go back to the dream to open your own media enterprise without needing the fabulous sums. First of all, solve the trust problem and build transparent relationships that will be the springboard to your success.
A blockchain solution can be presented as a platform that fully automates financial and organizational issues. For example, a journalist using such a platform can send his material, and after checking and publishing it, gets his payment. At the same time, his article is entered into a blockchain, which guarantees its reliability, and payment for services is made through smart contracts.
Advertising on the blockchain
The interface and functionality of this platform type can be easily adjusted to the needs of interaction with advertising customers on your resource. Such a decision will save you from many months of negotiations and set up a streamlined process of making a profit. Moreover, it will save the budget line item designated for lawyers, as smart contracts will be responsible for the fulfillment of all conditions.
It is interesting that it is not necessary to develop new supernatural technologies because all of the above options are already available and ready to be simply combined in one place. Blockchain technology is able to provide a chance for life to new and low-budget projects, as well as save us all from the lies that we have all grown tired of.
Today, information resources have many obstacles on the way to their readers and in this article, we decided to consider how the blockchain can turn a thorny road into a smooth and high-speed highway.
Stones on the path to honesty
Finances
In addition to endless inspiration and a great desire to keep millions of readers up to date with all the happenings, novice publishers or online news resources need money, as trite and prosaic as it feels to say it. At the development stages, they may have to face a funding shortage, as it will be necessary to pay for the journalists and authors services, to cover the renting office costs and, of course, to promote the project.
Until recently, media could rely on paid subscriptions (for example, The New York Times), or for sponsors' support (unfortunately, many publishers are funded by political forces to promote them, but more on that later). The first option works fine only if you are a real mastodon of journalistic affairs, who operates with insider information and manages to attract a huge audience. The second option, of course, will help the new media get on their feet quicker, however, it is worth considering that you have to forget about honest and independent content in this case.
If you pursue good goals, to give the world real investigations and talk about what you really consider useful for society, alas, you will face enormous financial difficulties. Being only at the beginning of their journey, for novice publishers, most of their income will go on advertising in social networks and search engines.
Mistrust
The ideal solution seems to be to attract outside journalists and pay them for the material provided, setting your success on the freelancing foundation. Theoretically, not complicated, but in practice, there is risk on both sides. The journalist doesn't trust the publisher because the media can use his material without payment, and the media owner doesn't trust the journalist and therefore doesn't pay him in advance, waiting to see if the material is original and of good quality before paying.
Misinformation
In an era of simple access to any data and information about events, you need to be sure of their authenticity, but what do we see? Fake news shakes both online and print media. In order to list all the scandals that have gained momentum over the past three years, a few hours would not be enough. The most striking example is the presidential election in the United States; misinformation governed public opinion, negatively influenced international relations, and caused thousands of conflicts between people around the world.
Fake news can destroy the world with proper promotion in a matter of minutes. Whether we want it or not, you and I are in the midst of twisted facts and invented news. The result is an absolute distrust of the media.
Interesting fact
Did you know that in 2017 from the New York Times office came the sounds of celebration, and the guys from The Wall Street Journal opened up champagne and clapped each other approvingly on the back? And all because the first newspaper had increased circulation 10 times, and the second information legend achieved a threefold increase in the figure. The reason for such explosive results was by no means the return of the newspaper to fashion, people just don't believe everything that is written on the Internet. Frank lies, which are spreading on the world wide web with the speed of light, have everyone fed up. Readers returned to the rustling pages that they associate with information reliability. And while I hate to disappoint you, even printed texts shouldn't be unquestioningly trusted.
We have already mentioned financial support from governments and individual officials above. Some politicians are in possession of news media and online resources. Do you think you can trust them?
Big blockchain news
All these problems can be solved by the distributed ledger technology (DLT) because its implementation guarantees both the texts authenticity and the fulfillment of the cooperation terms. Moreover, the blockchain is able to open the door to honest and transparent information resources by solving the financing problem.
The pressure on journalists is canceled
Against a background volatile political games and dangerous paradigms, a journalist who revealed a corruption scheme, for example, might pause to think before publishing his material, to decide whether to risk his career. It sounds quite dramatic, but we can all agree that an influential person will be able to do much to ensure that such material disappears from the network forever.
This scenario can also be applied to historical data since the disappearance of important archives can have serious consequences.
However, having introduced the blockchain, this problem can be forgotten, since the decentralized network is characterized by the immutability of the data entered into it. Even if you strongly want it and stamp your foot, nothing will come out, the information is not subject to deletion and changes.
Misinformation multiplied by zero
The aforementioned virtue also becomes a weapon in the fight against the most important the news business enemy - misinformation. Thanks to the blockchain, readers will be able to see who made changes to the text, when, and even where. Updating information in real time contributes to the return of confidence in news resources.
The misinformation problem concerns not only of the text of articles but also photo/video content. Often public figures are either the masters or victims of Photoshop manipulation, and it adversely affects their career and reputation. In this case, the blockchain technology use may be applicable to multimedia authentication.
However, the implementation of such a solution requires additional efforts, since it will be possible to achieve positive results only with the IoT products implementation. For example, the main requirement for photographers should be the presence of a sensor on his camera, which will bring in the chain data about where and when the material was filmed. As a result, we get authentic content, since the use of Photoshop can be identified easily.
A journalist is a publisher's friend
Let's go back to the dream to open your own media enterprise without needing the fabulous sums. First of all, solve the trust problem and build transparent relationships that will be the springboard to your success.
A blockchain solution can be presented as a platform that fully automates financial and organizational issues. For example, a journalist using such a platform can send his material, and after checking and publishing it, gets his payment. At the same time, his article is entered into a blockchain, which guarantees its reliability, and payment for services is made through smart contracts.
Advertising on the blockchain
The interface and functionality of this platform type can be easily adjusted to the needs of interaction with advertising customers on your resource. Such a decision will save you from many months of negotiations and set up a streamlined process of making a profit. Moreover, it will save the budget line item designated for lawyers, as smart contracts will be responsible for the fulfillment of all conditions.
Conclusion
It is interesting that it is not necessary to develop new supernatural technologies because all of the above options are already available and ready to be simply combined in one place. Blockchain technology is able to provide a chance for life to new and low-budget projects, as well as save us all from the lies that we have all grown tired of.