by Pam Baker, veteran journalist, and famed blogger Robert Scoble (Scobleizer)The cut-throat, bloody bash between journalists and bloggers at war over
creds and print space is chronicled by many. There’s just one small problem with that: there is no war. There is only noise that distracts everyone from the real threats that face journo and blogger alike: online, offline and bylined news is dying. So, I extended my hand across the aisle (as pundits are so fond of saying in politics) and Robert Scoble, famed Scobleizer and Fast Company blogger, reached back. Together we are writing this post with our thoughts on the true ills of the news industry and the treatments we think may be cures, or at the very least, will help relieve the symptoms.
We encourage the “boots on the ground” troops – journos, bloggers, editors, publishers, book authors, anchors, readers, etc – to join in the conversation and add helpful ideas to revive an industry that protects democracy, educates the public, enables commerce, enlightens some, and entertains us all.
On the State of the Union (Bloggers and Journos):
Both of us believe the brouhaha over defining journalist vs blogger – and thus determining which is “better” -- is an utter waste of time and energy. The bottom-line is that writers are either good at their job or not, and readers either trust them or they don’t. The medium is irrelevant. The line between the two writing forms is blurred more and more each day. Much of the smudging is caused by journos who also blog (like me) and bloggers that also report for a publication (like Robert) – people I think of as “cross-over artists.”
Nonetheless, here are our thoughts on the new roles for news hounds:
Pam Baker: Bloggers are more immediate and tend to write from a personal perspective. Journalists take longer, but often dig deeper, and tend to rely heavily on expert sources. As a matter of fact, most news articles written by a journalist require a minimum of three independent sources. Bloggers may or may not quote sources. There is no hard fast rule on sources in the blogging world, as far as I know. The blogger’s fact-checkers are the readers who are quick to publicly decry an error and some do so without fully comprehending the blogger’s message first which seems to me, a bit unfair. The journalist’s fact-checkers are publication staffers and an editor but the readers also freely comment and subjects sometimes try to sue.
Citizen journalists are basically eye-witnesses. They typically are on the scene, in the midst of the action, and they send in that report right away on a tornado, a terrorist attack, or a plane landing in the Hudson, for example. The position arose largely from the proliferation of camera-equipped cell phones and then, of course, social media. A citizen reporter can be anyone who is in the right place at the right time. Citizen journalists are all about immediate news, for the most part, but they do not provide as much information and scope as the professional blogger or the professional journalist.
The combined roles add up to exceptional news gathering on a scale never seen before. But they are not competing positions; they are links in the news chain.
Robert Scoble: I think the major difference between journalists and bloggers is that bloggers are incredibly committed to their craft. Bloggers will work hard and for free, if they have to, to get information out on anything they are passionate about. The next two years are going to be bloody for everyone, but I’ll blog from my tent if I have too. I don’t see journalists willing to do that. They seem more likely to change careers.
Both bloggers and journalists are held accountable. Even if you are on your own, you are still accountable to your audience. Peer pressure is intense and legal liabilities still exist. Although, in some ways it’s harder for companies to bully bloggers as they can Twitter and blog faster than lawyers can draw up the paperwork, much less get to court. Journalists, however, have the might of the publication and its legal team to back off corporate bullies -- in and out of the courtroom. They also have the clout to get information that corporations and governments try to hide. Bloggers have a tough time pushing through the veil to do investigative journalism on their own.
On the Bastardization of News Content:
Pam Baker: In theory, an editor keeps a reporter’s emotions and biases in check and the story is then stronger and more useful to the reader. I say ‘in theory’ because there have been recent cases where this system totally broke down thus embarrassing and harming the public and the news organization. However, I write for many publications as a freelancer and I can personally attest that having an editor overseeing things is an extremely good idea as it goes a long way in establishing and maintaining authority and integrity for news organizations and journalists alike.
But journalism has been bastardized lately as print and broadcast journalists jockey for shrinking slots and try desperately to be what they are not – bloggers. Before bloggers and 24/7 TV news, both print and broadcast journalists moved slower on news, cautiously checking their facts, quizzing their sources (sometimes ruthlessly) and answering hard questions posed by editors in a grueling editorial meeting.
The Watergate story, for example, was not “breaking news” until the journalists had fully completed their work, checked every fact twice, and called Nixon’s people for a reaction – all before the news was released to the public. These days, the pressure is on for a journalist to produce multiple stories in a single day, on the fly, without pause for additional thought or the subject’s reaction. In other words, journalists are pushed to keep pace with the uber-producers (in terms of speed and volume): the bloggers. Journalists are even pressured to blog and Tweet on top of their increased reporting workload – all of it without extra pay or reprieve.
In reality, news consumers are better served if bloggers lead, much like radio and TV journalists have for years, and print follows with more in-depth information. That way, consumers get immediate information followed by more in-depth detail a little later. If you look back you’ll see that most of the comprehensive investigative reporting came from print journalists.
But there are other forces bastardizing the news. News aggregation was a good concept that has since turned ugly and gutted the news industry of its wealth of original content. Aggregators are great for researching information and should remain in place for this very reason. But, online and offline media soon started regurgitating content from aggregators to cut back on the costs of generating original content. This practice diminished the value of all media as readers increasingly get only repurposed material and quickly tire of visiting multiple media just to hear or read the same stuff. The same problem exists in broadcast news as TV anchors continue to drone on and on about the same old story, over and over again. Perhaps that is why they are inclined to add far too much personal opinion to their reporting. You have to fill the time with something.
The news industry, regardless of medium, needs to remember that our product is news – that is NEW and FRESH content. Without production of original news, the industry has nothing to sell. If a news medium is merely reselling content it is not truly a news vehicle; it is merely a distribution vehicle much like the vans that transport print publications to newsstands and book stores.
Robert Scoble: I am really worried about what’s going to happen with investigative reporting. Even superficial reporting costs money. When I travelled to DC and met with senators it cost a lot just to spend 15-20 minutes with each of them and you can’t dig deep into issues in that amount of time. Still, the trip cost me a bundle just for that much.
True investigative reporting can take six weeks or more of your life and involve 50 sources or more to drudge up all the facts. It’s like writing a book or something. So, if mainstream media dies, who’s going to do this very important work? Who can afford to do it?
On the other hand, whistle blowers can come to me or other bloggers and we’ll get the story immediate attention… and a lot of eyes to look it over. Whistle-blowers can even tweet the info to the world themselves. The only problem is that not every story that should be uncovered will have a whistle-blower willing to step forward.
I and other bloggers don’t have the resources, contacts and willingness to go to Iraq or Afghanistan to cover the wars and other big stories like that. We just can’t do what a team of 40 or so journalists can do. Newspapers will survive if they figure out how to keep that kind of reporting going strong.
On Reviving the Newspaper Industry:
Pam Baker: Print is not dead. Radio, TV and the Internet have all tried but failed to kill print although each wounded it for awhile. Print is merely in a wounded stage – but so is the rest of the country.
No, print isn’t dead. But it is broken. Instead of revising business models and changing content to fit market need, most newspapers and magazines dumped writers by the truck load, cut pages of content entirely and otherwise wrecked their brand. A few newspapers even hired writers in India to write local news. You can’t cut costs indefinitely and stay in business. Stop cutting and start rebuilding. It’s time to return to print’s core competencies.
Content must become more relevant, more personal and more localized. It should empower people to survive and prosper in these trying times. For example: Millions of people are now without health insurance. If newspapers print which local doctors accept patients without insurance, and what each doctor charges for an office fee – this empowers people to get the health care they need. It also makes it easier for them to spend money, rather than hoarding it, which helps the economy recover.
People are now eating at home more and dining on cheaper foods. Bring back the recipe section but fill it with “budget” recipes. With the upcoming price pressures on staples, such as corn and wheat, brought on by the burgeoning biofuel industry, newspapers should be warning people in advance and giving advice on coping strategies such as growing gardens at home or using alternate ingredients in recipes. People are unsure of local banks and investment opportunities, so fill the business section with this information. Really dig into those banks, expose bad practices and good players, thereby restoring faith in the industry and a measure of consumer control through knowledgeable choices. In the end, people will feel more empowered and more secure and therefore engage economically again. Advertising revenue will increase accordingly as struggling businesses seek to engage with consumers who are actually spending money.
Beyond content relevancy, newspapers need to change their business model. Yes, advertising revenue is down in both retail and classified. But that is the case on the Internet too.
IDC’s report Worldwide and U.S. Internet Ad Spend Report 4Q08 by analyst Karsten Weide (soon to be released) says “fourth quarter U.S. Internet advertising sales have been much worse than anticipated. Growth was essentially flat year-on-year: Total U.S. advertising spending increased by just 0.4% to $7.13 billion from $7.10 billion in the same quarter a year ago.
Search ads still grew at 10% year on year in 4Q, barely keeping Internet advertising at large afloat. But display ads declined by 7% in the past quarter, largely because brand marketers were compelled to save such a lot of advertising money that they also had to pull back on display ads even if they didn't want to. And classified ads were affected even worse and declined by 18%, largely because houses, jobs and cars are not traded as actively in the current situation, and because of the continuing weak performance of eBay, the major company in this segment.
All of this does not bode well. U.S. online ad spending may very well experience a decline in 1Q09, and perhaps also in 2Q09. This suggests that the low double-digit growth rates that most industry forecasts assume for 2009 (including IDC's 10% growth forecast) are too optimistic.”
New models are needed throughout the news industry and the excuse that one medium wrecked another no longer holds.
A good first start would be to consider content the product, and each medium merely distribution vehicles. Make print news useable as a stand-alone but also as an integrated piece of a larger model that includes all distribution points, the Web, TV, radio, etc. Look at regenerating classified ads in new ways; the Internet is no longer king of classifieds – jump on that! With new job creation coming out of the stimulus plan, send a few reporters out to report on what jobs are coming -- and where and how to apply -- to drive traffic to your classified ads again. Give the reader multiple channels to access your content.
Look at cutting costs by using new technologies (historically not a strong suit for print media). Instead of cutting your content producers (employees on the editorial side), look at cutting production costs. There is some incredible software out there that can do wondrous things in this regard.
For example, Atlanta-based startup
Screen 5ive Media has a cool set of all-in-one publishing tools that allows the creation of content for print, Web and mobile in a single pass and to build communities around each nearly effortlessly. That means one person can do the job of dozens in production with little or no training as Screen 5ive products are intuitive and automated.
Specifically, Screen 5ive’s products are an interactive publishing platform called OTTO; first generation derivatives: Pixurebox and Pixel press; a community collaboration platform: 360/5; and first generation communities: cliq.in. Today, Screen 5ive’s products are primarily used by schools to produce traditional yearbooks and online, multimedia yearbooks, both surrounded by social media and completely produced by students with no production or publishing training – and all within the means of the smallest of school budgets.
In the interest of full disclosure, I do consulting work for Screen 5ive which is why I am so familiar with their products. (Do notice, however, that I have never included them in my own news reporting to avoid conflict of interests). As far as I know though, Screen 5ive does not yet have a full competitor. My point, however, is that it is time print media got up to speed on new technologies from production and community building to customer relationship management (CRM) and business intelligence (BI). These technologies cut costs in responsible ways and magnify views of customers so the product can be tweaked as needed in near real-time.
Robert Scoble: If I was running a newspaper, I would try to build a community and get them to report a lot of it for free or for very cheap. The days of paying a journalist $50,000 a year or so just to cover city hall meetings are gone. You can pull a lot of good content from the community.
Then I would restructure the newspaper into a sort of directory of news. Look at how USA Today shook the industry a few years back with their short articles, snappy headlines and punchy graphics. I would go further with that idea. Have fewer newspaper pages so print costs are low and fill them with 1 inch stories on the front page and 3 inch feature stories inside and link them all out. You could use MS tags so a reader can aim a cell phone at the story and immediately read more about it on the Internet. That way you have tons of stories but few printed pages. The paper could be a directory of what’s cool on the Internet in the last 24 hours which could be a tremendously helpful resource for readers. After all, people with phones and Kindle readers are the people with disposable income that advertisers want to reach so reaching out to these readers would increase your revenue.
You could produce a newspaper in three to four pages with as much or more info as you have in 40 pages now for considerably less cost.
You have to take advantage of the old and the new. Newspapers have great distribution models, for example, they should leverage that. They also have investigative reporting and the resources to produce incredible original content – that should be the center of the branding effort and an “exclusive” value to the readers.
Technology can be better used by mainstream media, too. Some of that is happening now but more needs to happen. I saw a NBC cameraman at the White House who was cameraman, anchor and crew – much like I work. Reuters has used some flipcams as has CNN. Flipcams have come a long way and are almost good enough for daily reporting. Incorporating new technology controls costs and opens your opportunities.
With newspaper sites incorporating video and audio, and broadcast media using text, blogging and social media, the lines are blurring between who is print and who is broadcast. Technology will further blur that line. It will all come down to content and sophisticated multimedia approaches.
There you have it, our combined thoughts on the news industry. Now it’s your turn. Tell us what you think is the future of news and your ideas on how it can be done better.
