The Mu

Bill Wyman (not the Rolling Stone but the critic) published an excellent essay about a month ago.  It outlines the prevailing mentality in the newspaper industry over the past twenty years.  He breaks down the reasons that newspapers are failing:

1. Consumers don’t pay for news. They have never paid for news.
2. Newspapers are the product of monopolistic thinking.
3. Timidity doesn’t work on the web.
4. The staffs of the papers, from management on down to the reporters, deserve a big share of the blame.
5. Newspaper websites suck.

As you can tell from the wording of these “reasons”, there is some emotion behind Wyman’s argument.  He has experienced first-hand the kinds of attitudes that amount to newspapers shooting themselves in the foot, then the other foot, and now taking aim at their own heads.  As someone who has only been peripherally involved in the business (many years ago), I found Wyman’s two-part analysis both depressing and insightful.

His prescription for fixing the problem is right on the money, even though I think the difficulties are too entrenched to easily embrace Wyman’s plan.  He recommends hyperlocal, debate-generating coverage that involves the community and puts ease of access as a priority.  No matter what, though, surely the days of huge profits for newspapers are over.  Aggregators (what newspapers used to be for a community) are so well-established on the Web that any news organization would find it difficult to make inroads.  If they were successful, they would still face the much lower ad rates in the Web world.  And even if they made those work for them, there would always be unpaid competitors (local bloggers) to contend with.

As bleak a picture as this paints, I still believe journalism as a profession has an important future.  If nothing else, patrons may rise up: mega-rich individuals with a genuine interest in uncovering truth and creating community debate.

Newspaper industry executives met this week in Chicago to figure out “Models to Monetize Content”.  I like the title, but I am troubled by some of the assumed results.

As Clay Shirky has pointed out, we haven’t arrived at any proven conclusions about how the industry upheaval will shake out.  But here’s my take on the current buzz:

Assumptions we’ve heard

• Newspapers can’t survive in an online world (true and false)
• Journalism can’t survive without newspapers (false)
• Advertising doesn’t work (false)
• Advertising can’t command the same revenue levels once accurate metrics are in place (true)
  • Newspaper circulation was used to “prove” advertising impact (true)
  • Measurement of clicks online is more accurate proof (true)
• Newspapers are dying without lucrative advertising dollars (true)
• Only newspapers can do objective, investigative, and local reporting (false)
• Readers should not expect to get this wonderful content for free (false)
• Aggregators “steal” readers away from content creators (true and false)
• Good content costs money to produce, therefore we must charge for content (false)

The fallacies and truth are intertwined in many cases but the list above is just a sampling of what we’ve heard recently in both the mainstream media and from the thought leaders in the industry.

For the items I listed as both true and false, I think an explanation is in order:

• Newspapers can’t survive in an online world (false): News organizations can survive in an online world once they establish a new business model.  They may need to go through the “cleansing fire of a radical restructuring” like Bob Lutz just prescribed for GM.
• Newspapers can’t survive in an online world (true): Cutting down trees, mashing them up, and then rolling ink onto them is clearly a doomed aspect to the news industry.  There is no future in the paper part of the newspaper industry.
• Aggregators “steal” readers away from content creators (true): Google and other news aggregators provide enough “overview” that many readers are satisfied with what they get from the aggregator alone and they do not progress any further. (Of course it remains a question as to how far they would have gone if the aggregator didn’t exist at all.)
• Aggregators “steal” readers away from content creators (false): Google and ethical news aggregators tease with the opening lines of a story and drive way more traffic to the content creator’s web site.  It is up to the content creator to leverage the additional traffic they are getting from all over the world.

I believe that the huge infrastructure built up by traditional media companies may not be sustainable under the current advertising model.  But I also believe that there are alternative business models to support a very vibrant and relevant community of journalists.  Depending on how they are funded, they can be objective, investigate deeply, and tap into the local community.  It is a struggle to come up with a good business model for three key reasons: there simply isn’t as much money floating around, channels to reader eyeballs are highly fragmented, and bias results from most third party “interests” paying the bills.

More pondering is clearly needed, which makes the meeting in Chicago sound great on the surface.  But we simply cannot allow close-minded approaches to prevail.  Here’s a quote that illustrates what I consider dangerous tunnel thinking:

Just because you got something for free on a trial basis for a few years doesn’t mean they can’t (and shouldn’t) turn off the spigot.

Content costs money to make and display ads don’t pay enough.

End of story.

Prepare to pay. Why do you expect to get this for free? It’s not a natural right.

It is not a natural right, but the laws of economics can’t be ignored either.  Newspapers thrived because they shouldered the expense of production and distribution.  Now that those costs are all but eliminated in the digital world, the content creation costs seem to be the remaining factor.  But in economics cost (and even price) does not equate to value.  (Breathable air is free, but highly valuable.  Jewelry is expensive but of questionable value to society.)  Thus some content, specialized in nature, will likely command a price.  But the greatest value delivered by news organizations will be in their archivist or analysis role. Read Dan Conover’s thoughts about “informatics” being the key to this kind of added value.  Still, if micropayments or other “charge the reader” schemes work… more power to those whose experiments succeed.

As an aside: I would hate to be a journalist at this time in history, but there is hope.  Michelle Manafy’s column in this month’s EContent magazine outlines a few ideas about where journalists can go from here.  The rise of content as a vehicle for marketers might feel like a sellout to hardcore journalists, but the more research I do into the advertising-supported model journalists have labored under for years, the more I realize that things are not as radically different as they first appear.

I read Jason Pontin’s “How To Save Media” with a skeptical eye.

It was refreshing to see someone else in the traditional media industry thinking about some fundamental shifts that obviously need to occur.  But I also detected some assertions that are based on historical perspective.

The one that jumped out at me, but has not been highlighted elsewhere in the blogosphere was this: “Classifieds, except in the very narrow sense of job listings in professional publications, are no longer part of the business of publishing. Get over it.”  I think he is referring to the influence of Craigslist and Kajiji on traditional media.  But I strongly believe that the industry’s current definition of “classifieds” is problematic.

Short succinct ads, targeted by category are really what keyword advertising is all about.  To me this means that “classified” ads take on a new form in the new media — they will no longer appear in big long lists that the human reader needs to sift through.  Even Craigslist and Kajiji are a pain because of the huge number of “classifications”.  Search is surely a more efficient way to get at exactly what you want.  Synonyms help: in a folksonomy, the more people tagging content with what they think it should be classified as, the more accurate the search results become.  And if you have all those “synonyms” you’re really talking about keywords that “attach” a classified ad to editorial content.  More targeted (perfectly classified) advertising with conversion rates that can be accurately measured is, after all, the goal I think we’re all heading towards.

The science of classifying, accessing, and processing information falls into the realm of informatics.  Coincidentally, one of the most eloquent and brilliant responses to Pontin’s manifesto comes from Dan Conover, who says that an approach to journalism based on informatics is his “best new shtick.”

This year seems to be the time when the klaxons are sounding louder than ever for the crisis in the traditional media industry.

There has been a great deal written recently and it may feel like an echo chamber of sorts, but to me it means that the ripple effect is spreading to more and more thinkers.  There may be no solution yet, but with the widening circle of people calling for a new business model, I believe we’re getting closer to “the new reality”.

I particularly enjoyed Michelle Manafy’s introduction to Michael LoPresti’s article in this month’s eContent magazine.  Michelle says “news” and “paper” may not be linked in the future.  She also provides several examples of things people are trying: from the wacky idea in France to give free newspaper subscriptions to 18 year olds, to the rising popularity of sites like Demand Media. Remember, as misguided as some ideas may seem, no one knows for sure which foray will stick and which failures will be most instructive — but I seriously doubt that many 18 year olds will get hooked on paper editions of newspapers just because they are free.

Some other great reading from recent articles on the subject:

• Chris Anderson: The future of newspapers
• Steven Johnson: Old growth media and the future of news

More and more, media commentary includes the phrase “the downfall of journalism”.  I find that fascinating — and slightly unsettling.  Sure, we are clearly in a transitionary phase from traditional media to digital media.

Journalism today is not where it is because of the dire straits that newspapers find themselves in (although it is admittedly another chicken and egg argument).  Technology has certainly precipitated big change.  But many of the modern thinkers acknowledge that newspapers had been suffering from estrangement from their readers for years. I firmly believe that journalism will not die.  On the other hand, journalism will undergo its own changes, some directly related to technology, but most related to new approaches spawned by the digital age.

Community has always been a feature of a good newspaper.  Journalists who knew their community, who had an “inside track” on a story as it broke, were the most successful.  But, as Jay Rosen points out, communities can form on the “margins” of the known group.  In other words, on the Web there is no well-defined geographic boundary, nor even a demographic or interest-bounded group.  Communities will rise up, be served by writers and thinkers (the journalists of the future), and eventually disappear.

In the same podcast, Dave Winer talks about how user interface design rules were tossed out when the Web was born.  They have since been re-established and in some ways reinvented.  He itemizes almost a dozen platform revolutions like that.  I believe the analogy he makes is utterly appropriate: ten or eleven platform revolutions versus one or two revolutions for journalists.  He says: “Journalism must keep its own downfall in perspective.”  Although I take issue with calling it a downfall, I have to applaud Winer’s admonishment.  Things do change, so roll with it.

My favorite comment about all this is still from Clay Shirky. We are definitely going through a transition and it is very difficult to know where we will end up.  I am stating emphatically that no matter how it all turns out, we will still have journalists: people who investigate, research, think, and write.  We have bloggers today, but just as journalists (as we currently define them) will need to get more “interactive” and latch on to digital sharing, bloggers will probably have to learn to do more “legwork”.  The future end result, hitting the sweet spot for some sort of sustainable institution, I would still call journalism.  I might even still call it the Fourth Estate.

There’s something that people find comforting and convenient about a newspaper.  It is portable.  It is easy to see in many different light conditions.

I believe that the Kindle is starting to address some of these features and that eventually newsprint will truly be phased out.  I was recently talking with people who find comfort in the newspaper.  Booting up a computer or even carrying around an electronic device like a Kindle is too inconvenient for them.  Recycling the newspaper when they are finished with it is another key requirement.  So I painted a picture of the future for them: thin, flexible sheets that were electronically and wirelessly updated every day, could access and display the same amount of content as today’s bulky weekend paper, and could be read in all light conditions.  Also part of the appeal: jotting notes in the margins and doing the crossword, using a standard stylus or a retracted ballpoint pen.  Losing the sheet would not be terrible because it will be so cost effective, yet there would be far less going to landfill or the recycling center because it would refresh itself every day.

The technology is in its infancy, but this is not some far-fetched sci-fi scenario.  Almost all of what I described is possible today.  How many newspapers are embracing it, funding more research to perfect it, and betting their futures on it?  I haven’t heard of one.