Technology

Jobs within the media are on the decline, according to a lecturer form City University there are just 70,000 print journalists in England and 10,000 broadcasters. To put that into perspective, just think that the population of London is around 8 million, and the population of Hackney, East London is around 250,000. All the journalists in England would take up less than a third of Hackney's population and just 1% of England itself. Why is this?

Is technology to blame for unemployment?

The reliance on technology could be one answer, surely. On a visit to the BBC World News centre recently, I realised the importance of computers in the day-to-day work of employees. The teamwork was there for all to see whilst compiling a news programme, but with just the click of a button an animation would be created, a banner would be seen or an auto-cue altered. An example of technology taking jobs in the BBC is that there are no longer any cameramen in the studios as the directors of each show can now control them from the gallery, remotely controlling the cameras. As I was shown around the studios by Mike Embley, newsreader for the World News, much talk was of the 15,000 cuts that the BBC will make, and a lot of the people I spoke to joked about why anyone would want to be a journalist at this moment. This made me think that surely without their computer resources, the BBC would be unable to cut 15,000 jobs. 

It may sound laughable, but it will not be long before people will rely on technology for a lot more than just news programmes and playing music. This video, quite scarily, puts our use of technology into perspective: