Jul
23
Journalism matters but so do big news organisations
Filed Under Politics, Sport, Technology, Uncategorized | 8 Comments
The Media Standards Trust* is organising a series of events: ‘Why Journalism Matters’. The keynote speakers, Lionel Barber and Alan Rusbridger have both argued that journalism does matter and that it is being practised by more people than ever before.
Both speakers pointed to innovations such as blogs, Twitter, Google docs and Wikileaks as the means by which so many more people can engage in – and with – journalism than ever before. The Guardian’s technology desk has 900,000 followers on Twitter – more than double the print circulation of the whole newspaper.
Neither were particularly gloomy about their newspaper’s prospects of survival although both predicted problems: a shrinking of the “mediocre middle” (Barber) and the shrinking of the regional press (Rusbridger). Neither had any viable solutions to the financial crisis facing big news organisations.
Lionel Barber predicted that “almost all” news organisations would be charging for online content in 12 months. Alan Rusbridger said that the commercial aspect of The Guardian was not really his job but speculated that they could monetise Twitter followers by charging for access to high profile people (which sounded dangerously like becoming a lobbyist).
The lack of clarity and innovation was also apparent at News Innovation, an unconference the MST hosted earlier this month. At a session on the future of news the audience discussed how newspapers could finding new revenue streams or apply their journalistic skills to more lucrative sources of income. As someone who has run a sometimes struggling business, such solutions were eerily familiar – and destined to fail.
But without big news organisations, journalism will not succeed. It’s the difference between busking on the street and being on the X Factor.
In some regards, news organisations have been truly radical. The Guardian’s open platform, the Daily Mail’s comment sections (with the up and down ratings) Sun Talk, Comment is Free et al. But the core product remains remarkably unchanged. Newspapers are still predicated on the notion that they need to give ‘a little bit of everything’ as if it were the only source of news for that reader. There isn’t much price differential. The USPs are unclear.
Big news organisations need more thought, more innovation and more focus. If some are to survive it will be because others have tried to be different and failed. That requires a courage apparently lacking. But big news organisations aren’t short of options. Of the 9 national daily newspapers why doesn’t anyone try:
- A cover price that reflects the cost (and value) of the content?
- Specialising in a particular aspect of journalism (investigation, celebrity, whatever)?
- Targetting a particular demographic (why no newspaper for older people?)
I’ve picked these examples because they aren’t radical and because newspapers are doing bits of all of them. But not enough and not to the logical conclusion. Tabloid editors are convinced that only the News of the World would have broken the Max Mosley story. But the others all reported it after it had broke. New outlets are succeeding (Heat magazine, Saga, Guido) but not sufficiently to fill the gap left by mass circulation daily newspapers.
I read Red and White Kop for Liverpool news (and make a small donation). I pay for LFC TV. I subscribe to The Economist because it’s delivered to my door and covers the world in more depth, and with more analysis, than I can get elsewhere. I would pay for the PoliticsHome top 100 feed. I don’t buy a national newspaper.
Big news organisations need to survive. But it appears they would rather hang together to hang together.
* declaration of interest: The Media Standards Trust pay my wages.
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- PCC adjudication against Scottish News of the World inconsistent and a threat to press freedom
I don’t think journalism necessarily needs newspapers (dead tree) to survive.
Look at stuff like the Huffpost fund, independently funded investigative journos, sites like politico and global voices. All are doing excellent journalism. Plus, in the UK, we of course have the BBC.
You are right that newspapers need to completely rethink their usp. Some – like I think The Guardian – have a real ‘fanbase’ and brand. Others – NOTW for example – I think don’t.
It seems to me that this argument is the wrong way around. It shouldn’t be about the survival of newspapers but about (good) journalists finding ways for their journalism to survive. They should focus on that rather than clinging to their need to ‘belong’ to a newspaper.
I only agree partly, Paul.
Journalism is thriving outside newspapers. And news organistions do not need the physical newspaper to thrive. And Huffington Post just might have a big enough audience to fill the gap left by the shrinking NYT. But must new news organisations are not big enough to have the power of old news organisations in their pomp. They are still too easy for really powerful corporations and politicians to ignore.
Yes the Guardian has a great fanbase. And that fanbase far exceeds the circulation of its newspaper (even in the ‘good old days’) but without any knowledge of how to monetise it, that fanbase is unsustainable. So eventually the fanbase will shrink or be left without a brand to cling on to. And that could leave a myriad of organisations each too small to have the power of Fleet Street in its prime. And that’s a bad thing for democracy.
I believe that Guardian online is profitable. There is a debate about the efficacy of online advertising, which does effect potential monetisation as that’s the key element in any plan. But the models are ones we have now and I’ve seen enough other ideas come along to think that new models will emerge.
Politico is a good example of a power-shift which has undermined the idea of big newspapers solely changing government policy etc. It doesn’t feed off newspapers in the way Drudge/HuffPost do. The engagement of politicians with blogs/sites in the US shows, I think, the way power is shifting there. Masses of important stuff is breaking first online now. The UK just doesn’t have the web base of similar sites/blogs yet but there’s no reason why they can’t happen.
I blogged what I think is a key moment in this power shift in the US http://paulcanning.blogspot.com/2009/06/update-socmed-history-moment.html
That’s interesting. I didn’t know that Guardian online was profitable.
I think the key differences between the UK and the US are the US’ lack of national newspapers and the more staid style of the papers. These two factors created a massive void for the internet to fill – which it did successfully as you’ve said – and one which made politicians very grateful.
In the UK though, we’ve got a very different newspaper culture and – as you said previously – the BBC. I suggest that these are good reasons why the power shift you’ve written about won’t happen here in the same way.
But my real problem is the lack of new models. Debates about this are still focussed on selling advertising (which newspapers have been doing for ever) and charging for new features (which newspaper have been doing for a long time too). Neither of these are radical enough to find a way to pay for quality news journalism with a big platform.
You’re right on the UK but I also think no one has really tried to do something like HuffPost – even Drudge. Maybe it’s too late? Maybe the funding isn’t there?
Web ads are a real issue as they simply aren’t that successful. People hate online ads and the industry isn’t there yet with honing getting good ROI. There’s a lot of quiet despair about this. social media may be a better bet, online marketing wise but that doesn’t help monetising newspapers.
Good post, as always. The one big news organisation you didn’t mention was the BBC. What do you think of the debate about iPlayer: that it’s encroaching on outlets’ territory and may well prevent them monetising their output? Not too much hanging together in that relationship…
http://www.rowlandmanthorpe.com/blog/2009/07/why-conservatives-should-support-the-bbc/
I just think that a business model which depends on ads is short-sighted for quality journalism. Because as soon as you are chasing ads, it means you have to write about the most popular issues and people of the day, publish first etc: all things which potentially compromise high quality journalism.
Perhaps the size and power of our news organisations just makes a startup less attractive – though Will Perrin and thisislocal may have a thing or two to say about that!
It must be hugely difficult for news organisations competing with the BBC – particularly online. But it does also make the point about USP and specialisation important. Sky News have shown that it is possible to compete with the BBC on some fronts.
The problem with the iplayer – as I see it is this: that once you have a BBC, publicly funded, you have to enable it to do the best possible job. And a lot of what the BBC does is cutting-edge innovation – iplayer included. And as soon as you start saying the BBC can’t do stuff, you weaken it significantly.
So yes, the BBC makes it harder but not impossible. And remember that (as Rusbridger said last night) the trade off for competing against the BBC is that it is heavily regulated and has to be impartial and newspapers are light-touch regulated and are allowed to be biased.