August is the cruellest month of the year for journalists and reporters. Having presided over the usual apocalyptic smorgasbord of forest fires, Trump melodrama and geopolitical tension, hacks find themselves in a state of disquiet as the next bout of spiralling doom lurks ahead. This year, running through the boardrooms and corridors of big news outlets is an ever growing concern amongst the anointed few who write our first draft of history: the industry is facing its own quiet apocalypse.
One of the stranger paradoxes of our time is that the worse the world seems to get, the less people want to know about it. The number of people taking a “strong interest” in the news has dropped by around a quarter in the last six years to 48 per cent, according to the Reuters institute. A third of people worldwide report that they actively avoid the news. Broadcast television news, that old bipartisan staple, is turning into a dodo headed for extinction — kept alive only by philanthropic donors and an ageing audience.
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