FROM OLD TO NEW MEDIAWill traditional journalism and its business models still be relevant in the age of the blogosphere?

Jan. 19, 2010

(with the aid of Slideshare—a free-shared service)

NEWS OF THE DAY

How will the New York Times get paid for content?

Will mobile services present a new economic model?

The Washington Post: whither this famous papers?

JOURNALISM IN THE AGE OF YOUTUBEThe rise of Web2.0 and the death of democracy? 

THEM MEDIA TO ME MEDIA TO WE MEDIA

The Internet begins as a chaotic, uncontrolled group of sites that quickly become corporatized—Them Media

Corporations realize that we didn’t just want old media moved online…so we move to “me” media…more personalization “MyTimes”

But we also wanted to create our own media and our own messages—moving to “we” media—but much of the technoloy is still owned anc controlled by big corporations or venture capital firms i.e. Google, News Corp, Yahoo!

2002-2008

YouTube MySpace Blogging. Wordpress.com Citizen journalism—cellphone cameras, pdas,

Twitter, iPhone make this much easier January 2004: My Space—bought by News

Corp. (which also bought the Wall Street Journal) in 2005 for $580 million—old media tries to buy their way into multimedia journalism.

February 2004: Facebook, with investments from Microsoft and venture capital firms including Accel and Greylock Partners

THE INTERNET IS NOW…

A medium to expand access to multiple sources of information and a platform for people to become producers of content—some of it is what we would call journalism. Much of it isn’t—unless you define journalism in a very different way.

“The flowering of ‘peer to peer’ communications may be the most disruptive innovation of the Internet both economically and socially.” –the Aspen Institute’s report on “Next-Generation Media: The Global Shift

THE NUMBERS In 2000, we spent 9.4 hours a week on the Internet, in 2007, it was 14

hours. 77.6 percent of Americans are online (over the age of 12) 48.3 percent of users have broadband access to the Internet Blogs have grown from 3.2 percent of users in 2003 to 7.4 percent in

2006. But 41 percent of all blogs are in Japanese vs. 26 percent in English.

Number of teen bloggers doubled from 2004 to 2006, women dominate with 35 percent of online female teens blogging versus 20 percent of online males.

Only 14 percent of teens report sending emails to friends every day, making it the least popular form of daily social communication.

One-third of bloggers believe they are engaged in a form of journalism. 12.5 percent of users maintain their own websites 3 billion mobile phones by the end of 2007.

Source: Aspen Institute Report; Pew Internet and American Life Project

THE NUMBERS CONTINUED

From a USC survey on attitudes and participation online:

67.2 percent said online communities are very important

43 percent said that “felt as strongly” about online community as they did real world communities.

56 percent log in every day to their online communities. So why don’t we log on to journalistic sites in the same way? Or do we?

WHAT THE INTERNET DID—AND IS STILL DOING—TO TRADITIONAL JOURNALISM

Traditional journalism moved slowly online Saw the Internet solely as a place to content of offline

newspapers online Didn’t make the case early on that readers and viewers were

going online—so advertising revenues online didn’t ramp up quickly.

Created two newsrooms—one online and one offline that created excess cost, confused readers, distracted the organizations from seeing what the Internet really meant—a new way of delivering good, or even, great journalism.

Lack of revenue meant traditional media didn’t move quickly to create great journalism online

Many traditional media completely missed social networking and online communities. Many also missed the multimedia opportunities.

Citizens and bloggers begin to step in to the void—and continue to do so. http://mudflats.wordpress.com/2008/09/04/a-letter-about-sa

rah-palin-from-anne-kilkenny/

9/11/2001

According to the Pew Internet Project, the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, generated the most traffic to traditional news sites in the history of the Web.

SEPTEMBER 11, 2001.

Immense demand for immediate news about the terror attacks had people turning to e-mail, weblogs and forums “as conduits for information, commentary and action.”

The response on the Internet gave rise to a new proliferation of “do-it-yourself journalism” including eyewitness accounts, photo galleries, commentary and personal storytelling.

FEB. 2, 2003

National Weather Service radar detects debris from the Space Shuttle Columbia, which broke up on atmospheric re-entry.

FEB. 2, 2003

Following the Columbia Space Shuttle disaster, news and government organizations, including NASA and the Dallas Morning News, called upon the public to submit eyewitness accounts and photographs that might lead to clues to the cause of the spacecraft’s disintegration.

FEBRUARY 18, 2003 In response to the massive worldwide

demonstration organized to protest the start of the Iraq war, BBC News asked readers to send in images of the anti-war demonstrations around the world.

FEBRUARY 18, 2003

The BBC asked specifically for protest images taken with digital cameras and cell phones with built-in cameras.

It published the best photos on its web site. But who determines what is “best”? Who vets these photos? Can we trust what

we are seeing online? These citizen photographers aren’t trained as

news photographers.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2004

A 9.1-magnitude underwater earthquake caused a huge tsunami in Banda Aceh, Indonesia.

SUNDAY, DECEMBER 26, 2004

More than 225,000 people in 11 countries died as a result of the tsunami.

News footage taken by witnesses armed with mobile communication devices was widely disseminated, stirring a worldwide humanitarian effort.

JULY 7, 2005.  Terrorists

blow up three underground trains and a double-decker bus in London, killing scores and injuring hundreds.

JULY 7, 2005The use of

camera and video phones by passengers provided on-scene news photos of the terrible event in London.

MARCH 9-18, 2007. Twitter gains attention from news

organizations during the South by Southwest Music Festival in Austin, Texas.

It is named the best blogging tool by attendees to share news and opinion, and to arrange tweet-ups at parties. 

APRIL 16, 2007.

The Virginia Tech massacre. The perpetrator, Seung-Hui Cho, kills 32 people and wounds many others before committing suicide.

APRIL 16, 2007.

The video clips were then broadcast widely by CNN and other media.

VT student Jamal Albarghouti used his cell phone to capture video of the shootings in progress and sent them to CNN’s iReport citizen journalism website.

AUGUST 1, 2007.MINNEAPOLIS BRIDGE COLLAPSE

AUGUST 2007.MINNEAPOLIS BRIDGE COLLAPSE Citizen journalists using mobile devices

captured some of the first images of the devastation and posted them to CNN’s iReport website, which were then broadcast widely.

Citizen journalist witnesses also helped to describe the disaster to CNN anchors on air.

The Minneapolis Star Tribune steps in with a multimedia effort that continues today.

SEPTEMBER 2007. PROTESTS IN BURMA

Citizen protests in Burma were largely reported to the world through photos and video captured on mobile phones.

SEPTEMBER 2007. PROTESTS IN BURMA

Immediacy: Images of monks being attacked in Burma (Myanmar) reached a global online public in a matter of hours, rather than days, quickly moving the world to action.

But how do we verify what we are seeing—isn’t that one the main tenets of journalism espoused by “Elements”—Verification.

Why does “immediacy” trump “verification?

OCTOBER 2007.CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES Traditional media outlets solicit submissions from people capturing news about the fires with cell phone cameras and posting the information on blogs, Twitter, Flickr and YouTube.

OCTOBER 2007.CALIFORNIA WILDFIRES

Multimedia platform Veeker, which signed a deal with NBC to handle viewer uploads in 10 major cities, said that NBC San Diego received more than 2000 submissions of pictures and video related to the wildfires.

OCTOBER 2007.Nokia and Reuters announce partnership to create the Mobile Journalism Toolkit: Nokia N95 cell phone, keyboard, small tripod, solar charger — technologies used by amateurs to capture local news.

SEPTEMBER 2008.KASHMIR’S MOBILE PHONE CHRONICLERSCitizens using mobile phones document

atrocities during demonstrations, then post footage on YouTube.

2007-2008.U.S. PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION

Journalists and many others use their mobile devices and Twitter to “microblog.”

Thousands of individuals, as well as major news organizations, post 140-character news updates and opinion using Twitter.

BLOGGERS: GLOBAL PHENOMENON

Bloggers have been at it an average of four years and are collectively creating more than a millon posts a day.

How do we keep up with this information overload?

Can demand ever meet supply? And is that the problem with our economic models?

Blogs have representation in top-10 website lists across all key categories, and have become integral to the media ecosystem.

BLOGGERS

http://technorati.com/blogging/state-of-the-blogosphere/

JUNE 2009.IRANIAN ELECTIONS

Twitter proves significant in keeping Iranians and the world advised as to happenings in Iran -- where open Internet and cell phone communication has been thwarted.

HAITI JANUARY 2010

CNN’s iReport An interesting take

on Twitter as a news source in Haiti

Eyewitness video—ethical concerns about putting this up.

SO WHERE ARE WE NOW? AND WHAT IS THE FUTURE?

Pessimists Continuation of “Tower of

Babel” effect of the Internet.

Anyone can create content

No one is editing No one is checking for

accuracy And the wisdom of crowds

isn’t strong enough to maintain truth online…too much goes unnoticed

Optimists More conversations

leads to more truth? The more content the

better Democratization of

journalism is a good thing

Who are we to decide what is accurate or not? Especially when traditional journalism hasn’t shown itself to be all that great in the realm of truth.

Media futurist Dan Gillmor predicts that by 2021, ‘citizens will produce 50 percent of the news peer-to-peer’, however mainstream news media, that we have grown up with, are yet to meaningfully adopt or experiment with these new forms.

YOUTUBE AND THESURVEILLANCE SOCIETY

Police and other authorities now surveiling YouTube for “criminal” activity

THE DIGITAL SUBLIME

every radical media transformation induced by a new technology brings along the myth of the beginning of a new era Television was going to be educational Television would create a global culture

including the hopes for social change and almost religious visions of miracles which the new modes to move information should bring But technology is only as useful—as good if you will—

as the people using it.

NON-PROFESSIONALS Accidental journalists – eyewitnesses with a recording

device/cellphone—we’ve always used eyewitness accounts so tht is nothing new

Amateur journalists – bloggers who cover news, do original research and expose hidden issues. This is where we might have the most impact—teaching the basics of journalists.

Citizen journalists – Amateurs with a particular social mission in politics, etc. These are people we need to help as well—but also understand what their “mission” is.

Pro-am – a combination of the above with a professional journalist/mentor.

‘BY THE PEOPLE, FOR THE PEOPLE’ Gillmor is a digital optimist

Society can no longer afford to rely on “Big Media”—but we still do because technology we use is owned by “big media”

News reporting is becoming a two-way conversation—a “seminar”, not a “lecture”

“Professional journalism’s worst enemy may be itself.” (xxvi)

Blogging and citizen journalism are in the tradition of bourgeois liberalism (eg: Thomas Paine)

NEIL HENRY: THE PESSMIST

The weakening of journalistic professionalism and centrality in this rapidly transforming system not only makes lies and hoaxes more possible but also poses compelling new questions about the quality of news informing democratic society. (p.117)

In such a new and still-evolving order, governed less and less by professionalism—or at least incognizant of the need for standards—it becomes far easier for objective truth and basic facts about important issues to become debatable notions in civil society and political discourse. (p.31)

Neil Henry, American Carnival (2007)

BLOGGING ISN’T JOURNALISM—AT LEAST NOT YET…

Bloggers and citizens don’t: Fact-check (generally) Abide by the rules of engagement—telling

sources that they are going to write about them. They DO mix opinion and fact-based reporting Many don’t create their own journalism—

although that is changing—but link to traditional media—so the two need each other?

Create confusion over what is media—and what is not? Digital convergence has led to a blurring of the boundaries between reporter and audience.

But bloggers do make news…because traditional journalists now feel compelled to follow them

SO WHERE DOES THIS LEAVE TRADITIONAL JOURNALISM?

Journalism—and what we mean by it—will continue to evolved, morph and change.

But we (by this I mean me as a traditional journalist and professor) must teach the amateurs, the pro-ams, the citizens some of the basics of journalism.

This will make “citizen journalism,” blogging, etc. better (imho) because it will not leave accuracy, truth, etc. to the wisdom of the crowds

Do it right the first time. Then you don’t have to correct again and again.

TRADITIONAL NON-NET MODELS

Newspapers and magazines supported through advertising and subscriptions that make up 80 percent of their revenues

Television supported through advertising Radio supported through advertising Public radio and television supported through

government funding, viewer funding, and non-profit funding

EARLY NET JOURNALISM MODELS

No funding model for news websites. They were “shovelware” sites that offered no more than the news that was already in print and broadcast

Websites were initially expensive to produce. Media got caught up in the dot.com craze—IPOs were planned for the likes of NYTimes.com and others—to provide the funding

Two newsrooms were generally created, adding to cost and confusion.

Today, we are still paying the price for this mistake in media convergence (or lack thereof)

MOVING TOWARD A NEW FUNDING MODEL Problem is that the early ‘Net models were not good—

advertisers weren’t willing to pay high prices for ‘Net advertising—and they still aren’t.

In fact, companies are shifting to other forms of online advertising: branded websites, social networking.

While we have become better at creating multimedia journalism from the days of “shovelware,” we haven’t spent as much time creating new funding model.

We haven’t explored with advertisers what content draws consumers—and what doesn’t.

Can we make it for the next couple of years as we work out how to pay for journalism online?

How do we “monetize content?”

MAKING A PROFIT—SOME IDEAS

  The Rich Uncle Model – Media moguls decide to fund through acquisition websites that look a bit like journalism—but aren’t really. They are more facilitators of multimedia journalism.

Example: Rupert Murdoch buys MySpace for $580 MM and Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion. Yet neither have truly figured out how to monetize the content or their audience.

Example: Huffington Post—Arianna and friends and venture capital

Example: Sharesleuth and Mark Cuban

RICH UNCLE SAM

The federal government continues to consider how to help the ailing newspaper industry—just as it helped autos and finance.

FTC is considering changing how newspapers are regulated News-gathering organizations could be exempt

from anti-trust laws—which could mean that all newspapers could move to a paid model on the same day without being charged with violation of anti-trust?

Could grant subsidies or ease tax burden as well.

TIP JAR

The Tip Jar Model – Many content sites and the famed release of Radiohead’s “In Rainbows” album asked consumers to pay however much they thought the content was worth. Some bloggers also subscribe to this “tip jar” method. While there are some people making money, most aren’t.

Example: Chris Albritton funded a reporting trip to Iraq to cover the war with $15,000 in donations from his readers

NEWS AGGREGATORS

Aggregators like the Huffington Post, Fark.com Websites are far less expensive to create—so

the new ‘Net journalism models don’t have the same overhead as the old model.

So they can be “free.” Content, however, still has to come from

somewhere, even as newsrooms are cutting staff…so how do we pay for journalism so that we can still aggregate it

Big news: News Corp’s Murdoch wants to block Google from searching its sites and will only allow Microsoft’s Bing to search (and pay)

MORE NEWS ON AGGREGATORS

Fark.com—which aggregates user-generated links—signs a deal with USA Today in which it will sponsor Fark’s Tech aggregation section and share ad revenue

MSNBC buys BNO—a Twitter service that nearly 1.5 million people receive streams of news updates on their mobiles or the Web. (Started by a Dutch teenager)

CROWDFUNDING

Crowdfunding Model—like Obama’s campaign or Radiohead…but for journalism

Example: Spot.us—created by journalist DigiDave and NYU. The rules: Anyone can come up with a "Tip" or story idea they'd like to see

covered. People can "pledge" money toward that story. Freelance journalists can sign up to cover those story ideas or pitch

their own stories, attaching a cost to writing the story. Once a story has a journalist attached to it, people can donate

money to help fund it (but no one can give more than 20% of the total cost of the story).

When the story has full funding, the journalist writes the story, and a fact-checker is paid 10% of the funding to edit and check it.

Before the story is posted, news organizations have a chance to get exclusive rights to the story by paying the full cost, which is given back to the donors. Otherwise, the story is posted online and any news organization can run the story for free.

AD-SUPPORTED

The Ad-Supported Model (big media). To date, the most successful content models are those that are free, but advertising supported with only a few still offering content for a fee.

Example: New York Times, CNN, Washington Post

AD-SUPPORTED

The Ad-Supported Model (small media)—Google AdSense and other advertising aggregate models are reliable sources of revenue—it’s just not very much revenue.

Example: Most news sites have Google AdSense, but it isn’t their main source of revenue

SUBSCRIPTION AND SERVICES

The Subscription / Services Model – WSJ was one of the first out of the gate with a true subscription-based model. It remains one of the few subscription models that still works, although Murdoch has talked about making the site free. Still it also added advertising to support its revenue stream.

Services may include job listings or content that is aggregated for use by a specific industry.

Example: www.wsj.com, www.bondbuyer.com

AD NETWORKS

The Ad Network Model – A derivative of the ad-supported model, but in this case publishers participate in an ad network and receive a share the revenue for ads sold on their sites. In the blog world, look at Weblogs, Inc. and Gawker Media as the pioneering models. Outside of the blog world, there are literally hundreds of ad networks working off of a revenue share based on either impressions or clicks.

Example: www.celinabean.com, part of the Martha Stewart ad network that aggregates blogs and websites

Example: www.voiceofsandiego.org--and other city sites that may be able to band together to create a network that advertisers would want to buy into—when they wouldn’t buy one city.

AFFILIATE

   The Affiliate Marketing Model – Marrying your content with ads for 3rd party products and services, publishers are paid a fixed commission (usually in the 5-15% range) based on sales directly resulting from clicks on the publishers’ site.

Example: Amazon’s and Barnes & Noble affiliate programs

NON-PROFIT

Non-profit/public service model—taken from the world of public television and public radio

Examples: www.propublica.org, www.michiganmessenger.org.

Foundation money to support journalism with the next step being traditional media using that journalism in their publications—either free or paid—to raise awareness levels.

SPLOGGING?

Outside of journalism—but still in the realm of content, brand marketers who create their own social networking sites. P&G’s www.beinggirl.com.

Sometimes referred to as “splogging,” bloggers who are paid by companies to create content.

 

CELEBRITY CONTENT?

Individuals who have managed to monetize their content and launch careers—in celebrity—not necessarily journalism…but what can we learn from Obama Girl, Lonely Girl 15, and the dancing guy from The Evolution of Dance? The creation of “web celebs.” Why not “web journalists?” 

NEW RESEARCH…TOWARD A FUTURE MODEL

New research shows that you may actually be willing to pay for news on personal computers and especially on mobile devices But it has to be “cheap and easy” in the words of

Steve Brill, founder of Journalism Online In the U.S., Boston Consulting Group’s research

shows people would pay $3 a month for news especially if it falls into these categories. Unique, local news Specialized news Timely, especially if there were news alert service Accessible on any device And news that isn’t available for free anywhere else

DIGITAL YOUTH RESEARCH PROJECT

Community is king. Teens live their online lives within communities, not alone.

Remix culture. Teens respond to information and culture by appropriating, sampling and remixing it. They then look to their communities for reaction.

Multimedia rules. Teens expect that information will be delivered by multimedia. They expect self-taught multimedia expertise among each other, including video and audio, graphic design and coding.

SO WHAT’S NEXT: WILL CONTENT STAY FREE?

Clay Shirky “Revolutions Get Worse First.” Demand Studios—starts from the other side

—determining how much revenue the multimedia piece will generate (using algorithms on search words and phrases) and then determines whether to create the work.

Maggwire—buy pieces of content from many different magazines along the iTunes model.

FLYP—a new multimedia online “magazine” run by

FROM POYNTER’S “WHO WILL PAY FOR THE NEWS?”

Collaborate and partner—Yahoo creates an ad marketplace that brings together publishers with advertisers

Harness experimentation—The Knight News Challenge Target and customize Promote the value of news—why should we care

anyway? If people care, they may pay? Get over being “jilted by your audience.”

Quote: Mike Orren of Pegasus News said at the event, "Stop thinking about how to regain what was 'lost' and focus on what can be gained. Play offense more than defense. Be opportunistic.“

FREE THOUGHTS?

Is Anderson confusing two things: distribution costs and storage costs converging toward free or too cheap to meter and the cost of content?

The cost of creating content hasn’t halved every 18 months unless you count blogging.

It has stayed constant or fluctuated depending on supply and demand. Right now, we have too much supply and too little demand?

FREE THOUGHTS?

On the one hand, information wants to be expensive, because it’s so valuable. The right information in the right places just changes our life. On the other hand, information wants to be free, because the cost of getting it out is lower and lower all the time. So you have these two fighting against each other.

Abundant information wants to be free. Scarce information wants to be expensive.

Where are the news media when it comes to the five stages of getting to “free?”

FREE THOUGHTS

Denial Anger Bargaining Depression Acceptance

Maybe all five at once.

WILL FREE LEAD TO A FREE WORLD?