Tuesday, October 20, 2009
A long report released yesterday about the erosion of mainstream media reflects a point we’ve been fixated on for some time. Because of financial difficulties at traditional publishing companies, the report states, “fewer journalists are reporting less news on fewer pages” today than ever before.
You can read the full report, which was issued jointly by Leonard Downie, Jr., vice president at large of The Washington Post, and Michael Schudson, professor at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism, here.
The trend is evident for anyone who follows media patterns, and it’s not tough to see why it concerns companies as well. In general, fewer journalists equals less coverage of the news that impacts their respective industries, and competition for the attention of the real journalists left is fierce. Reporters are faced with the challenge of refining their coverage in this new environment while their editors assign multiple beats and a heavier workload, and it’s a tough job to do well.
Recently, large organizations have approached us with some questions. How should they grapple with this change? When given a choice to break a piece of news in, for example, The Wall Street Journal or on TechCrunch, the influential technology blog, which option makes the most sense? And why?
Some of our advice has focused on self-publishing content. Because it suggests something a little more random and less strategic than most companies can stomach, “blogging” isn’t quite the right word for this, but it’s the first one that comes to mind. If an organization thinks the news media is missing critical industry issues – and most do think this about a handful of trends – then the first response is still to get in touch with those journalists to chime in. But if those journalists are too busy to care, don’t languish with new angles that never see the light of day. Self-publish the content instead.
The report puts forth thoughts on a reporting landscape that is more “participatory and collaborative.” Though journalists still interview sources, they are finding stories and sourcing facts in other ways too. This is why we’re urging clients to self-publish what they want to say. Reuters blogger Felix Salomon puts this idea into better words: “When PR people offer me interviews, my first response is always to simply say that the would-be interviewee should blog his or her thoughts, and then I can link to them. Better for both of us.”
The report will certainly raise eyebrows for some of its other assertions – for example, it claims that some financial support for news organizations should come from nonmarket sources like governments – but one point that seems apparent to the authors is the important role companies play when they publish things in the public domain that look kinda sorta like acts of actual journalism.
In a delicious irony to this entire story, several mainstream print publications apparently broke the news before its embargo was to expire this morning, in spite of the authors’ attempt to break the news in traditional ways. Maybe it should have put the report on its blog and distributed the link to its Twitter followers instead.
Andrew Graham
@andrew_graham on Twitter