written by Ronny Taferner
Brendan Mc Dade from The Netherlands wants to enter the news industry, even if it is hard nowadays. He explains how media companies could survive in this crisis.
Journalism has fascinated the 19-years old Brendan Mc Dade from the Netherlands since he was a child. He is very curious and always wants to gain background information. This is why he studies „International Journalism“ at the Hogeschool van Amsterdam.
In this minor Brendan expects to learn about the technical aspects of the different types of media. “My goal is to become an expert in radio, tv and print journalism. I don’t want to be fixed on just one medium, rather I want to become an allrounder.”
He is especially interested in sports and politics. As he listens to the soccer-podcast “Ajax Podcast” regularly, his dream job is to produce a sports podcast. According to him the advantage of a podcast is that there is more time for interviewing people than in the radio and there are not so many commercial breaks.
Brendan is certain that: In times of fake news journalism is more important than ever. “People need to know what is happening in the world they are living on, they need to be informed”, Brendan is convinced. “Although quality journalism is becoming harder and fake news are more difficult to see. The audience and journalists have to check what other journalists write.”
As he sees it, in general the quality of the news products has decreased in the last few years because the revenues for the classic media companies have been falling. Very many media companies use click baiting and focus on the monetary aspects to survive. “Classic media don’t address younger people. They don’t read newspaper anymore or watch TV, they use Netflix, Social Media and Spotify.” So according to him it will be hard to survive for journalism in the future. Classic media should become more modern and focus on the younger people, otherwise the audience would become smaller and smaller. “That would mean that media companies must reduce the editorial department and the quality, of course, will sink”, Brandon says.