What hope for the Fourth Estate?

When Irish statesman and philosopher Edmund Burke coined the term Fourth Estate as a title for the news media, he was acknowledging the importance it had achieved in his 18^th century Britain.

He was placing it alongside the three historic estates of the realm — the nobility, the clergy and the commoners — without which the nation could not properly function.

Today, the Fourth Estate’s role as one of the pillars of a democratic society is under attack — from technological challenges and its failure to properly adjust to society in the throes of widespread change. 

The last few decades have exposed its inherent weakness — despite being an essential element in creating and shaping public opinion, in keeping governments, organisations and powerful individuals accountable to the masses, it is largely run by private interests and held hostage to the profit motives of its owners and shareholders.

Traditional media no longer has a monopoly on the generation of news and is experiencing widespread trauma as advertising content falls and companies make cutbacks in a desperate search for lost revenues.

In the United Kingdom newspapers are closing at the rate of one a week; a switch to online operations has been mismanaged and in many cases is simply too late.

The situation was highlighted in recent days by a call from the UK National Union of Journalists (NUJ) for a reporting scheme run by the State financed British Broadcasting Corporation to be expanded to include coverage of the thousands of criminal and civil courts.

In a statement supporting its call the NUJ said local newspapers no longer had the resources to cover all that goes on in the country’s courts.

“Traditionally, local newspapers always covered their local Magistrate, Sheriff and Crown Court trials,” the statement said.

“Now hardly any local papers cover trials or courts in detail. If people do not know what goes on in the courts, are not aware of what offences are prosecuted or what punishments are meted out, then they remain uninformed and justice is not seen to be done.”

The same can be said for councils, tribunals, police, planning authorities and a host of other organisations that were once regularly investigated and reported on by experienced local journalists.

Those that remain say they are so overworked they are anchored to their computers filling space with whatever comes to hand, usually media releases and advertorials.

The situation is exacerbated by the way the internet has become a platform for anyone with a smartphone to sound off on social media, leading to a public distrust of news gathering in general and support for politicians who label anything they dislike as ‘fake news’.

Attempts to fill the gap are being made by a proliferation of ‘hyperlocals’ , often run by one or two retrenched journalists, operating out of homes or garages, providing saturation coverage of small areas and gaining revenue from the advertisements and sponsorship of local businesses, societies and clubs.

With its members often managing to survive on shoestring budgets, the movement has made a robust beginning, but whether it is the future of news gathering remains debateable, the quality and content being dependent on highly limited resources and personnel prepared to face uncertain futures.

This adds up to a problematic future for Edmund Burke’s Fourth Estate. Free societies demand it survives, but in what form is as yet, impossible to tell.