The Future of Media - Journalism 2.0

Tip of hat to Howard Owens for a pointer to this very interesting paper on Journalism 2.0. Very useful read.

For example, this describes the core differences emerging very well:

Kevin Cullen, a projects reporter for The Boston Globe, was introduced to the
practice of blogging during the 2006 World Cup as a U.S. correspondent for the
Goethe-Institut. Simultaneously he was filing for The Globe’s sports desk.
“The next day, I compared my words that had gotten into the paper with what I
wrote for the blog,” Cullen wrote in the December 2006 issue of Nieman Reports.
“The blog entry seemed better than the newspaper story. It wasn’t much longer,
maybe by 300 to 400 words, but those extra words contained some good quotes,
some stylistic segues, and a little more color. It was, without a doubt, a better
read. Unencumbered by the need to squeeze words into a finite space, the Internet
proved better for me, as the writer, and I’d argue for readers, too, than newsprint.”

Yet the mainstream media has always resisted change......

Journalists are generally suspicious of new reporting methods. OK, this is actually
one of the slowest professions to embrace change. A few decades ago, reporters
were unsure about using quotes in a news story that came over the telephone,
that newfangled gadget. In the 1990s, the same reservations surfaced when
reporters began using e-mail. Today, despite the advances being made on news
Web sites, there remains a general disdain for the new medium by many “traditional”
journalists and a longing for the good old days before a fragmented media
landscape made the job of capturing the audience’s attention so demanding.

However, there is No Turning Back

This was the highlight of a study released in October 2006. The independent study
by C. Max Magee, as part of his master’s degree program at Northwestern University’s
Medill School of Journalism, surveyed 239 professionals working in online journalism and 199 people who are observing its evolution. Its goal:

To define the skills and intangible characteristics that are most important in online newsrooms.
Online journalists agreed that what makes online journalism different isn’t so much the technical skills as it is a way of thinking. A willingness to learn new things, to multitask and to work in teams were
especially appreciated, in addition to other skills that most working journalists already know such as attention to detail and ability to work under time pressure.

“The crucial obstacle is the mental one we impose on ourselves in sticking with
the belief that our job is to print ink on paper and deliver it with the help of
small boys in shorts before 7 a.m.,” Ulrik Haagerup wrote in the December 2006

This is the key issue - as I wrote earlier, to any vaguely strategic thinker in New Media it is clear that the Big New Thing of the Web (relating to the Media) is the separation of aggregation from distribution - and this means that media organisations need to optimise business models around their core competence rather than along a value chain. To me the above is blindingly obvious and has been for 10 years, but over a few conferences in the last few weeks when I have said this, people were praising me for my "insight".

The "epiphany moment" I have had is that this is now an "insight" because the mainstream media have only now got to the position where they can understand this is an insight. Five years ago the same statement would have been like Ancient Greek. (To be fair some like News International learned to read Ancient Greek and got into their Odysseys early)

Probably this has only happened because only in the last 2 years or so has sufficient money been lost, so that the key media decision makers realised they would have to act on their watch rather than trousering their pensions and pushing the problem to the next person to take their seat. (Patrick's Second Law of Organisations* states that organisations only act for change if the person on point may be fired for not acting)

But it is happening, and that means that media organisations must build business models around content creation/aggregation, and accepting that their distribution is multi channel, multi media, multi receptor. The differences between TV, Radio and Print media will increasingly blur.

Anyway, this is the subject of a much bigger post for later, so I'll end with some of Howard Owens 12 tips for journalists to save their skins

The new rules of the game are:

- The user is in control. They decided what, when, why, where and how to consume media.
- Users aren’t interested in our deadlines and desire to make sure we have the full story before publishing what we know. They want to know what we know when we know it. They want their news now.
- People want to participate. They want to talk back. They want to add to our stories, correct us and just spout off as need be with their own opinions.

And that to survive, newshounds will have to....

Be a learner. Technology and culture is changing fast. You can’t keep up unless you’re dedicated to learning. I love this quote from Eric Hoffer because it is so appropriate to what our industry is going through now: “In a time of drastic change it is the learners who inherit the future. The learned usually find themselves beautifully equipped to live in a world that no longer exists.”

The pen may be mightier than the sword, but the elephant is afraid of the mouse......

(* Patrick's First Law is that the most cynical explanation is usually correct)