Where is Journalism Headed?

The full answer to that question is yet not clear.  What is clear though is that the ride is going to be bumpy.

The Chicago Tribune announced that it is cutting 20 percent of its remaining newsroom staff, which has already experienced several cuts over the last 18 months until now.  While some might say this is an indication that the Tribune is dying, I think we must all read between the lines.  Yes, the Tribune is cutting important journalists who used to bring more robust and complete news coverage to its readers. But, the Trib is also hiring in places that it sees as growth areas and consolidating job duties that make sense in a 21st Century newsroom.  Had

Image Credit: Flickr User jk5954

not the Tribune been mismanaged for so long, they would have done this a long time ago and maybe would have been able to maintain a high level of news content.

The New York Times suggested the news may be taking not only a more online format (e.g. Rocky Mountain News) but also a more local format.  Looking at the cost side of the news business, I see that making a lot of sense.  It costs a lot less to report on what’s happening in a centralized, defined geographic area than it is to maintain bureaus all around a state, country or world.  Plus, the Tribune and other city papers never covered national and international news like the New York Times, Wall Street Journal or Washington Post.  So, if they and others can’t compete, just get out of that business.

Claire Cain Miller and Brad Stone writing in the New York Times on April 12 describe the hyperlocal news startups, such as Chicago-based Everyblock or Outside.in.  I think these entrepreneurs found an area in news coverage that was just being overlooked for a long time.  As far as newspapers go, how many people really feel well-informed about what’s happening within their geographic realm of life?  Not many.

What the article didn’t say though, was that the big media groups are following these entrepreneurial leads.  The Tribune launched TribLocal that is an interesting mix of professional and user-generated media covering specific locales throughout Chicagoland.  Likewise, the Printed Blog has found a hyperlocal focus pretty successful in its short life thus far.  Their razor sharp geographic coverage can be very compelling as an advertising medium, allowing local businesses to afford media advertising that was way out of their budgets when big media dominated.

The last point here that I would argue is important for where media is headed, is the role of aggregators.  In Chicago, the Hufington Post and the WindyCitizen are able to source the best material from any online source – a big media name or local blog – and make it available to lots of people who want, but until now were unable to find, that content.  Again, that’s lucrative to advertisers as they can get a better handle to match relevant content with their business and serve up ads accordingly.

Still left unanswered though is what will happen to professional journalism.  As big newsrooms cut back, will journalists migrate to start-ups?  Will they start their own niche publication?  It’s not very clear to me right now.

I’m sure those questions will be dealt with though at the Chicago Media Future Conference, to be held in June.  It seems this gathering promises to talk about the questions that should have been talked about at the Chicago Journalism Townhall back in February.

Oh, and I would be remiss not to congratulate the Beachwood Reporter, for their excellent publication and recent award from the Society of Professional Journalists.  Check out their coverage of City Hall’s procedural negligance.

New Study: Newspapers’ Progress Going Social

The Bivings Group just published their latest annual “Use of the Internet by America’s Largest Newspapers.”  The study shows newspapers have made significant progress from a year ago  to become more social, open its content by linking outside its own web universe, and allow more user-generated content.

Courtesy of Precious Roy via Flickr

The study is indicative of two trends that run parallel and in many ways, hold the key to large newspapers’ ability to make profits.  First, newspapers by now fully understand the environment in which they are publishing.  Blogs, online video, social networking sites and mobile will not be beaten and major newspapers cannot simply fend them off.  Information sources outside of newspapers will exist alongside them.  Newspapers get that.  They’re figuring out now how to best handle that relationship.  As the Bivings Group report shows, newspapers understand this reality and are embracing this new media environment.

Second, the Bivings’ study also demonstrates that while newspapers are becoming more social, and therefore more relevant in the social webosphere in which information is exchanged, they are still a long ways away from monetizing their content in a digital medium.  In other words, they’re improving their online audience aggregation, but cannot match the audience with advertisements in a profitable way that existed with paper editions.  That’s traditional media’s new media dilemma.

Just this week, I read that Digg founder Kevin Rose is also grappling with how to best monetize his highly trafficked site.  Inc magazine reports that Digg is in fact losing money.  For me, I see the financial challenges Digg is facing, without all the overhead that traditional media carries, and I believe it will take some massive traditional media reorganization to remain profitable.

My prediction is that the very biggest newspapers, like the New York Times and Wall Street Journal will be able to continue to focus on the journalism they are currently engaged in and get by.  But others, like the Chicago Tribune, Boston Globe and Washington Post will have to do a better job of becoming something unique and meaningful to its readers.

I think that’s a healthy process and is a natural outcome of technological and media advancements.  Years ago, getting national newspapers in my hometown, Chicago, was just more expensive and often came at the expense of missing some of the local news that I liked in my Chicago papers.  But now, I can easily access national newspapers like the Times, get the content I want, which makes my reliance on Chicago papers for information significantly less.  In other words, I’m not going to read Chicago papers for international or national political coverage when I can get better coverage and writing from other places.

In that environment Chicago papers have to provide something relevant to consumers.  I doubt a paper like the Tribune will have a readership as big as it once did.  That’s just the reality of the new media envrionment.  I think the Tribune should be building new expectations for this new media age.

Thank you to the Bivings Group for great research.

The New Journalism

We all know that journalism has changed drastically over the last ten years. In turn, the way stories are pitched, created and read have been turned on its head. There’s a great slideshow from slideshare.net that I wanted to post here for people to view:

I really like the new models of journalism that this presentation features as well as the new sort of jobs a journalist can have. The main point I have is linking. In this world, public affairs and news coverage is all about integration. The more information links to each other the greater the possibility it is for news to found by readers.

Big journalism may be decrying that their business model is damaged beyond repair. It’s also interesting to see how the big papers are clinging on to model of writing and publishing.

Here in Chicago, the Tribune and the Sun-Times are threatened. It’s conceivable that Chicago will be without a major newspaper in the future. That being said, what can these papers do?

One thing they’ve done is integrating more video with articles. Another approach has seen the both papers focus much more on celebrity gossip rather than the hard-core new and public affairs that these publications were founded and built a brand on. I think this new approach in particular has made both papers much less appealing to the point where I hate reading either of them.

Maybe it’s time to begin linking? That would mean hotlinking other stories and blogs outside their websites. Sure, it would draw readers away from their websites in the short turn, but it would create more interesting reading and greater community that would build readership in the long term.

If they don’t start changing business as usual, watch out Chicago, our big papers may go away and new paper could usher the city’s new journalism.