The story so far: I actually want the news business to succeed
So here’s how these things go. You write 85+ posts over the course of a handful of months. Some of them are are considered, thoughtful pieces, many with even a modicum of original reporting. Others are appreciative notes and links to discussions elsewhere.
A few are smartassed screeds, one of which takes apart some recent (I’ll still say it) idiocy by Paul Mulshine in the Wall Street Journal.
Guess which post got linked from Romenesko and unleashed what I like to call a robust discussion in the comments?
So, just a quick reminder. This isn’t a blog that takes any joy from the current condition of the U.S. newspaper business. I spent 12 years of my life inside it and would probably still be cheerfully toiling away on change from within had that buyout offer not been so timely and irresistible.
Here are some ideas I’ve floated over the past few months in these very pixels that might benefit from further discussion:
- A proposal for a network ad model
- A proposal for creating a “sales and deals” beat
- A proposal to rethink the local news product mix for a major metro
- A discussion of how my old organization made decent money creating local, long-form video
- Five simple, cheap ideas to increase engagement with local audiences for news organizations
- Four ideas to help fix the classified problem
- My soapbox: journalists need to become better curators of their beats
Thinking of the journalist as a DJ instead of a curator.
Photo by Thomas Hawk
Jeff Jarvis points to what may be a better analogy for the role of a modern journalist: A nightclub DJ.
Previously, I’d suggested journalists need to become a curator, but I agree that the messier, noisier role of a nightclub spinner is closer to what journalists do as they run toward constant deadlines, and serves as a less fussy example than curator. Elevator speech: changed.
The original article, in French, translates to something like this (thanks to my daughter Anna for helping Google with some of the idioms):
The job of the press is redefined by new technologies and new relationships with readers, listeners and viewers. The new journalist acts as a filter, a “packageur” of information produced by multiple sources and heterogeneous sources (other media, agencies, experts, witnesses, fans).
Information is no longer a product, it became a process, it is no longer an object it is a service and the media become facilitators. (This does not mean that the report or the investigation died, it simply means that this activity, extremely expensive, can no longer be their only activity. Exclusive content is a loss leader, a product for “the reputation…”)
The whole article is here.
Finding the next business model for news
The theme of CUNY’s “New Business Models for News” summit didn’t emerge contextually throughout the day. It was staring everyone in the face from the multiple monitors spread throughout the newsroom taken over by about 125 industry thinkers and leaders yesterday. It was this:
“Do what you do best. Link to the rest”
Linking in this case could be the literal A HREF hyperlink, but was often also about thinking about new ways to focus on the core and find ways to either jettison non-core (leaving it to others to pick it up) or find links through outsourcing, freelancing and mobilizing armies of bloggers and citizen journalists.
Jeff Jarvis, the chief provocateur for the day and organizer of the summit, set the tone early. “There won’t be any silver bullets today,” he cautioned. “If there were, we’d have already used them.”
The goal of the day was to provide an opportunity to start an intentional and ongoing conversation about how to rethink the business model for news gathering and reporting, largely at daily newspapers, but also in television and in national niche media. How do you take a business that is built on the scarcity model – there’s only one or two newspapers per town, allowing for the growth of eight- and nine-digit annual revenue streams - and rethink it for an age of information-ubiquity?
I won’t even attempt a blow-by-blow of the day when so much of it is available for watching and reading on the News Innovation web site. Also check out the contemporaneous Twitter stream. But here are some random highlights that jump out from my notes:
Edward Roussel of The Telegraph: If you’re a newspaper company, your technology sucks. Outsource it!
Dave Morgan, formerly of Tacoda: It’s time for newspapers to face reality. It’s a market problem, a business model problem and a cost problem. “Prepare for disassembly.” Newspapers, he said, need to disaggregate and start thinking about reporting, distribution, ad sales and direct marketing, printing and digital as different businesses and treath them accordingly.
Morgan on leveraging the existing structure: Newspapers have the best marketing and sales organizations in their markets. They could become strong local ad agencies if they’re untethered. Printing is either an area of opportunity – if newspaper do a whole lot more of it – or an albatross, that they should outsource.
Morgan on Digital: Making digital a sidecar to the newspapers is killing digital. Only divided (as businesses) can newspapers and digital endure.
Michael Rosenblum, Rosenblum TV: Both in the larger session and in the break-out, Rosenbloom hammered at the notion that it was absolute folly for newspapers to hire any journalists who were not absolutely adept at the full suite of digital reporting skills, including photography and videography.
Adam Davidson, NPR and creator of the excellent Planet Money: Respect people’s intelligence.
Samir Arora, Glam: News organizations need to be curators of content. The network has more value to the consumer than the brand.
Upendra Shardanand, Daylife. Before long, everyone will be a news publisher. How can you offer the best navigation of the world beyond your own content? News organizations need to do a better job of curating the world around their content.
Jay Rosen, NYU: There is a wealth of information available that your connected and interested users would be happy to share with you to make your product better. Publications that get to this point start their days with inboxes full of great ideas. How to make this happen? 1. Be two-way in your approach to reporting. Invite contributions. 2. Be clear that you need people to help you and that you will use their contributions.
More to come on the topic and goals of the day, but it was an excellent first step. Thanks to CUNY Graduate School of Journalism and, of course, Jeff Jarvis.
Budget cuts hurting? Here are some free ideas to improve your news organization
The current topic at the Carnival of Journalism is:
What are small, incremental steps one can make to fuel change in their media organization?
(Yes, we’d all like to swing in our newsroom, lay some boot heels on chests, hoist the black flag and change everything by the end of business on Monday — but the reality is, that ain’t happening unless you have a couple buckets of cash to buy a paper of your choice and a rusty saber.) So what are some realistic, real-world examples of free (or cheap) ways you can help fuel change at your newsroom.
Spend 15 minutes with the links on this page. You’ll get at least one idea you can use today.
And if I can talk my way into this party, here are some additional ideas I’d throw on the table:
- Get to know local bloggers. Email them. Introduce yourself. Grab a coffee with. Link to them. You’ll find they have a good pulse on the community. It may be a different pulse than yours, but that’s a good thing. Be generous with your links to them, and you may find your organization with deeper tiest to the community.
- Get in front of community groups. You and your reporters should be hanging with the Rotarians and the Community Organizers if you want to make a stronger connection with your local market. They’re just as plugged-in as the bloggers, but may not be blathering on about it on their blog. This is also a great jumping-off point for efforts to create a more-focused Citizen Journalism effort. What if you gave a Flip Mino (customized with your logo and message) to a neighborhood organization or school in exchange for a promise of weekly upates?
- Encourage corrections. At the end of your postings/articles, ask a question: Did we get it right? Include a link to a form to add corrections, clarifications, and suggestions for further reporting. Great ideas and deeper connections follow.
- Encourage your reporters to think like curators. I’ve beat this particular drum previously, so I’ll keep it short here. But you’ve got a roomful of subject-matter experts; having them just report is wasting more than half their brains.
- Link. If you don’t link, you’re a dead-end.
Turning reporters into curators to improve journalism
A conversation started this week by Scott Karp and carried forward by Terry Heaton has me thinking about why news organizations are so skittish about linking out from their web sites.
It’s as if they think that creating a cul de sac will make readers forget they’ve got a Back button on the browser.
And when you layer that conversation onto Chris Anderson’s pith about amateurs noted below, you come to one of my favorite topics: journalists as curators.
It’s simple: Journalists need to stop thinking exclusively like content creators and start acting also as content curators.
Even today, years after the arrival of the social web, the internet might as well not exist to most news organizations, except as a broadcast medium for a one-way conversation.
But what if we took a step back and acknowledged that, in 2008, not only is pretty much everyone capable of being a journalist , many of them are already doing it. They maintain blogs. They post photos and videos online. They build and host popular and active discussion boards. They ask questions and they get answers.
Honestly, this isn’t a revelation, but you’d think it was based on most metro news web sites.
It’s no longer sufficient for a reporter to remain plugged into the happenings in his beat but report only the most significant. The reporter as curator takes on the role of the the most plugged-in guy in the room about a particular area of interest and uses that knowledge in multiple ways:
- Report, of course
- Blog on their beat. All beat reporters should maintain a blog that becomes the most reliable source for information and discussion around their topic area.
- Be an active participant in communities of interest, online and off. This means real-name participation in blogs, user groups and discussion threads online and participation in real-world organizations and events.
- Build, maintain and grow a real-name social network on at least one of the major platforms, involving peers, readers, experts, etc., around the beat topic(s). Learning from and model the successes of Jay Rosen’s BeatBlogging project.
- Point readers to the best of the rest. As good as our reporters are, they’re not able to cover everything. Linking frequently to other coverage of their beat is essential, as is asking readers to share their recommended links.
- Ask questions of readers. Chances are, many readers know a whole lot about the topic area, too.
- Embrace crowdsourcing as a reporting tool.
- Participate in the conversation. Every story that’s published has a comments thread. This is an opportunity to connect better with the audience and to cement our roles as the go-to source on the topic.
- Maintain an “about me” page that lists all recent articles and blog posts and relevant background and links out to related areas of interest.
This requires an investment in time, but the payoff in reader engagement will be worth it.
(Thanks to Scott Anderson who contributed much to this list back when we both worked for Tribune.)