The Iran crisis once again brought the present day tools of news gathering into the limelight, even while highlighting the inadequacies of traditional media. From real time tools like PicBrk to spoof ads and stories, the tools became the focal point of the protests. It was as much about changes in news gathering as it was about the ability to share, both in real time, a skill that traditional is yet to pick up, in spite of ‘breaking news’ on television. The significance of Twitter’s contribution can be gauged from the fact that the US government asked Twitter to postpone its scheduled maintenance so as not to disrupt the flow of news from Iran. The inability of traditional news gathering and distribution systems to come to terms with real time media consumption, and their usage of social media as yet another broadcast medium was highlighted at the 140 Characters Conference (#140conf). All this makes me consider, yet again, the future of traditional media systems and conglomerates, especially newspapers.
A few days back, I read about the Associated Press issuing social media guidelines to its staff – not to show political affiliations, or post views on contentious issues among other things. The ‘best’ part is that they also have to monitor their profile to ensure that comments by others do not violate AP standards!! Ahmadinejad Press? Here’s the policy in its awesome entirety.
It’s been quite a fun week, with a speech by Dow Jones Chief Executive Les Hinton – also the publisher of the WSJ, adding to the amazing show of perspective. He described Google as a giant vampire that was sucking the blood of the newspaper industry. Now, I have reasons enough of my own to be cross with the omnipotent Google, but even assuming that it is a vampire, who showed them the “X – blood here” sign in the first place? While Google states that its mission is to give readers more perspective by aggregating news from different sources, and even directs clicks to the newspaper sites. Newspapers argue that these clicks are nowhere near to the visits (and revenue) that they’d have gained if people came directly to their websites. They also have a problem with ads appearing on the side when people search for news. (Source) I have actually not come across those, and Google News definitely doesnt have them anyway.
That is context enough for an interesting article I saw on Adage – ” Why ‘Going Galt’ isn’t the solution for newspapers”. The article is in light of the digital startegy of The Newport Daily News in Rhode Island, that’s closing its ad supported site and selling digital subscription only. John Galt, meanwhile, doesn’t need introduction for Ayn Rand readers, but if you are asking “Who is John Galt”, catch up here. In this context, it means that newspapers stop creating content for aggregators to pick up and make money. As the article points out, its chances of success is only when it deals with news that’s not commodity – could be specific locality/genre where there aren’t competitors. Its quite easy for newspapers to stop Google from taking its content – a 2 line code, as has been pointed out regularly.
Cody Brown has an excellent article which shows the inherent differences between print and online, in terms of how news is processed. To summarise, print uses batch processing, where news and rumours are sifted through, verified and reverified and the crux is the final output and the credibility of the publication. The web, uses real time processing, it works like a gigantic wiki, everyone contributes, the crowd corrects, and the final output is of relatively less importance. The flaws of one become the benefits of the other. Batch processing finds few takers in the age of real time, and as this article points out so correctly, Twitter is the fastest way to get informed, or misinformed. This explains why I see stuff on my networks, and immediately move to a rediff/Google News to immediately verify from a trusted source.
So newspapers face a double whammy. On one hand, its news creation is facing obsolescence in the face of changing media consumption habits, and on the other hand, it cannot find ways to make enough revenue out of the content that it ‘painstakingly’ produces. There are of course, traditional players who are bucking this, but as this article makes a case for, there can only be one Apple, who is an un-Google. I am still trying to fit in this understanding with the David – Goliath model. Apple operates so differently from Google, that it would be easy to summarily dismiss them as non-competitors, but there’s more to it. That’s for later, but the idea seems to be not to be a better Goliath, but to be the best David and play by rules that would take Goliath enough time to figure out, for David to finish the game.
A small note on the Indian scene. We are perhaps a few years away from the mess that US newspapers are in, But consider, a Galt stance would’ve been possible a few years back, but with players as diverse as Rediff and Instablogs having a mechanism of reporting, it would be a folly to even try now. Rediff has built services and business models that doesn’t leave them to the mercy of making money out of news. Instablogs is also figuring out revenue models, at obviously lesser costs. Technology and faster news delivery platforms will appear, its inevitable. Newspapers in india need to replicate their real world credibility online very fast, understand ‘real time’ game rules, and evolve radically new business models if they don’t want to repeat the US scenario. For ““News doesn’t break, it tweets”, the TC article credits Paul Saffo as saying.
until next time, notice how many newspapers have ‘Times’ in their name? Real time? 😉
Since you mention revenue models, how about Times Treaties? Or does your employer’s ‘web policy’ prevent you from discussing it?
The Adage article mentions “..could be specific locality/genre..”. Have you seen news in the USA? I should think that extending this logic the micro-reporting that goes on in American TV news may mean that local cable news companies are highly profitable. After all, people who live in Arlington, MA are hardly interested in a cat that got run over causing traffic jams near Arlington, VA!
You also mention “trustworthiness” of sources. Therein actually lies the rub. On Twitter, there are a few people I trust but for the others, well, as they say: Trust in God but lock your car.
Here is an experiment I wish someone would do – a linguistic assessment to identify the trends in how many pieces in newspapers are news/ reportage, and how many are opinions or future pronouncements. If news publishers could scale good quality commentary, as many are already doing, they may yet have a business model. After all how many bloggers have learnt to make money from their blogs – without that “donate to me” button? No, don’t bring up the book deals. They are scarcer than decent quality bloggers.
🙂 I would assume so.. all i’ll say is that if the business model is built on the might of the published product, then the fate of it hinges on that of the newspaper too…
Local stations in the US, possible, though I don’t have the data.. same goes for radio too, i think npr is doing some good experiments (http://mashable.com/2009/06/03/npr/).. but i’m not sure if they have managed to fully utilise the media fragmentation to their benefit…
yep, exactly why i said – i do double check.. it IS easy to get misinformed on any of the networks..
I think you’ll want to split the news/ reportage further into network sources and own bureau .. even with commentary I’m reasonably sure that it has to be a new model – in terms of scale and revenue stream…
NPR is definitely not what the mainstream listens to. Revenue is after all as much a function of the scale of the niche as it is of having identified a profitable niche in the first place. The bi-coastal listeners and the self-identified intellectuals are not the mass of listeners. NPR, in fact, runs on donations which, although a business model, is not a ‘profit-making’ one which is what, I believe, we are discussing. NPR also therefore does not have enough money do grow or experiment in ways that may cost more than they benefit.
The point I was making about local stations there was sarcastic by the way. Once you hear/ watch any of them you will know what I mean. It is one model indeed, but localisation requires far more subjective input than allowing the content consumer to pick and choose per his/ her will. For instance, yes I want to know there is an accident up the road from me. But I don’t really care if last night’s loud helicopter noise was due to police being called to a pub brawl.
hmm, i think they meant in the context that what npr is doing might be the way for mainstream too.. that’s as far as the title of that post goes… profit making is also a function of the cost, and if a local player is able to provide value at a lower cost, it might result in profitability… so the npr example was only to show that their experimentation and results in news delivery may be an indicator for local and perhaps even national players, if it works out… like i said earlier, i dont think they’ve managed to take advantage of the fragmenting, but at least they’re experimenting…
didn’t get the sarcasm.. the logic is not that the current form of local stations is the best, it’s more in terms of thrust areas that traditional media outlets could look at – local and genre specific..there are quite a few publications here who are experimenting with local and hyper local content with the traditional ad revenue models…
You basically make the point that information is cheap, insight is rare. So sites that offer valuable insight can charge, whereas info aggregators cannot.
Re mechanisms like private treaties they are essentially barter agreements for space. of course that’s when editorial is clearly demarcated away from commercial as per good journalistic practice.
i think tv is the next logical leap for papers in india as internet penetration is still quite low. and by the time internet becomes big in india there should be a convergence of tv and internet.
hmm, yes, news is definitely a commodity and insight is perhaps not… more importantly, news gathering and delivery is also changing.. and it’ll take a radical change from the current ways for survival in the days to come…
I agree on internet penetration, but am not so sure of TV.. in a way that’ll only be delaying the degeneration.. the comment about cnn’s breaking news ticker – that it should be renamed to ‘yesterday on the internet’ is an indicator… i still think its a problem with the current processes of collecting and distributing news, and the inability to change wrt media consumption habits…
I think the issue is not just about newspapers, it’s about media industry in general. I see two day old stories so often in the wires (like reuters/afp/ap) and it’s not even funny as you are told to carry them. The same issue with TV channels too, they wake up too late to news and then try to make up by relay telecasts of the info. It’s mind numbing in a way. The problem is not with the written word, the problem is with the speed and monetising options. Prominent media sites can’t splash ads all over, as readers protest. The aggregators however, do the same thing and get away, because these guys depend on traffic from search while news sites expect people to visit their home page and navigate around.
I’d tend to agree with you – that the issue is with all media, though i feel that the complacency is more in newspapers because they’re a once-in-a-day product..
So either they have to figure out cheaper ways of sourcing and delivering news, or find better revenue models…