Two seperate people have sent me this link with “10 reasons why newspapers won’t reinvent news.” It’s a pretty good post, with very compelling reasons. I thought this was pretty telling (and funny):
Hey news executives! Try this newsroom pop quiz: Give each staff member a pencil and tell everyone to stop what they’re doing and write out the tag that creates a hypertext link. If most can’t, you’re not spending enough on training. If anyone in your management team can’t, you’ve got a crisis…
It got me thinking…what is the new media model? Certainly the landscape has changed very quickly, partly due to the internet, and partly due to the short-sighted attitude of traditional media, which has sold its soul for profit on the stock market. This has given them incentives to cut corners and eat into their own raison d’être - namely, hard-hitting research, context, and meat. Lower quality means long-term profitability issues, which in turn drives them to cut more, which in turn…
But as you all probably realize, the blogs aren’t the complete answer. For one thing, working for free or mostly free means our business model is actually worse than the newspapers (who at least pay something). The reason the blog model works at all is “distribution of resources,” where lots of bloggers putting in a few hours each equal some amazing breakthrough research and context (you can see that at work at Talking Points Memo). But unless you are a major national blog, like Daily Kos or Huffington Post, you certainly don’t have the resources to devote to consistent, copious, real journalism. Which we still desperately need.
On weeks where I’m real busy or there doesn’t seem anything pressing news-wise in Lowell, I’ve had to cut back on the time I write, and the blog, unfortunately, suffers. I’m trying to alleviate this with LiL2.0 and user-generated content (which is slightly delayed as the software I want to use is about to come out with a new version and I want to develop in the new environment instead of upgrading it halfway through, but is still on its way eventually). But for local content, what is beyond traditional media, beyond bloggers? What is the next model for success, both as media business and good journalism?
The Lowell Sun has put a multimedia face on its paper, but in reality, isn’t making the “transition” any better than any of the other papers. One reason, says the Xark writer linked above, is that they have to get used to the idea that expecting a 20% profit margin is a little unrealistic. But I also think that this is the case precisely because these huge publicly traded media companies have shareholders, and the shareholders in publicly traded companies comes first (especially in the short term).
So any new model will have to address this constant focus on profitability rather than quality of reporting. One way is to break up media monopolies and keep our media companies from getting so large (we used to do that, you know). A locally-owned media outlet can afford to have a bad profit for a year or two without cutting back on staff, and shooting themselves in the foot in a downward spiral of lower profit means lower quality means lower profit means lower quality.
Would a nonprofit model work? Certainly, there are lots of nonprofit media outfits doing really good work right now. Democracy Now! comes to mind, as does PBS/NPR. In both, the quality is never sacrificed for profit. How about a profit share model, where the journalists and editors get shares in the company and the profit is distributed accordingly?
And how would a profit be generated, anyway? Models for advertising on the web have improved, but newspapers themselves are fond of complaining that internet advertising doesn’t make the same wads of cash they are used to, and though we’ve already explained that there’s too high an expectation of profit in the paper media world, the employees of the paper still need to eat.
Would that model incorporate bloggy goodness and traditional, editor-based journalism? BostonNOW was supposed to be one such model, though it quietly folded its doors last spring due to the currency crisis in its investors’ home country of Iceland. One could say, despite BostonNOW’s monetary and journalistic troubles, that it at least was trying something truly and wholly new media.
So, what would you like to see in a new media world, both for national news and for local? Do you think the traditional papers deserve to survive (in some form, likely diminished), or would you like to see the rise of something else, something that incorporates the interactive and user-driven online models with traditional journalism? How would such an entity make money, and should it? And would such an entity be enough to replace the dragging quality of journalism we have seen in the last few decades? A vital media is essential to our democracy. Whatever form media takes in the future, I hope that it holds fast to that one core ideal.
