Commentary

The Day The News Dies

by Joe Marchese , July 6, 2010

The future of news is getting bleaker and bleaker. If something doesn't change soon, we may soon see a day when real news journalism dies. I am not talking about the media companies that own today's newspapers and television stations, although they are obviously facing their own challenges, I am talking about the news that is a product of professional journalism.

What is the distinction, you might ask? More and more, as media companies are forced to compete for ratings, those companies are forced to blur the lines between news and entertainment to capture audiences. This trend is playing itself out in the world of cable television, as anyone who wants to broadcast the news today must compete with dozens of other potential news sources. Taking this trend to the extreme in a world of digital media with infinite choice, one wonders if there will be any news sources that can be distinguishable from editorial opinion produced to attract the largest audience at the lowest cost.

Every day there's another story about the challenges facing journalism in a digital world, but this headline might encapsulate the issue: "People happier to pay for news content in print than online." According to the post, "Experian Hitwise found that traffic to the [U.K.] Times Web site, which went behind a paywall last month, has dropped from a share of 4.37% to 1.81% since it made the move". But if paywalls are the only solution, what is the news to do? This is at the same time that iTunes and Hulu are finding countless new ways to charge people for digital entertainment, from applications to subscription services.

The impact of journalism competing with entertainment, and the subsequent blurring of the lines between the two, is a scary thought. For example, given the choice, people tend to seek news from sources that reflect their views. This means liberal-leaning individuals will likely prefer MSNBC, while conservative-leaning individuals might prefer to get their news from Fox News. The result is a very polarizing effect on the population.

Of course the evolution of separate liberal and conservative news sources is only one effect of nearly endless media choices. The ability of well-researched (re: expensive) journalism to monetize effectively is nonexistent today in a digital world that can, and does, churn out more content everyday than people can possibly consume.

Will social media save the news? Will a monetization model be figured out in time? Will the market eventually demand digital news sources that could not be mistaken for opinion/entertainment? It's hard to tell today, but I am hoping for "all of the above," because I don't want to see the day the news dies.

Love to hear your opinions on what the news will become. Connect with me on Twitter at www.twitter.com/joemarchese, and drop a comment on the Spin board.

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12 comments about "The Day The News Dies".

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Kerry Inserra from CBS Integrated Media, July 4, 2010 at 3:47 p.m.
You pose two interesting dilemma's-the demise of journalism and the issue of paywalls as a business model. As one who has worked for major news companies for most of my career, there most definitely is a conflict of interest between reporting the news in an objective, non-biased manner, and generating revenue. Additionally, as more and more regional newspapers go belly-up, local government and other regional substantive issues get little to no coverage making it easy for local government to operate in a more covert manner. I can find many sources for major news coverage, it's the more local and regional stuff that is way under the radar due to a radically changing media climate. Our local news stations in the SF Bay Area allow any person to upload video content and they could potentially run it as a news story....not a lot of discretion here. The bar is quite low for local media outlets.
As for subscription based services, I think that model is going to be a tough sell. So many companies are trying to move in this direction and the public is becoming much more discerning. Why would I pay a $9.99 premium for Hulu (which by the way I do like and use) AND continue to get pummeled by their ads when I can get much of their content for free on Project Free TV? There simply is too much content redundancy out there to justify these paywalls. Subscription based services are flooding the marketplace and consumers are getting fed up, myself included. I've canceled most of my subscription services (including Netflix) because I simply wasn't using them.
Reply

Kraig Smith from PReturn Inc., July 6, 2010 at 2:59 p.m.

Great commentary! Unfortunately, news broadcasts are now a bit like statistics - you can find viewpoints to support any stance. "Very polarizing" indeed!

Charles Rosin from Live Dibs, July 6, 2010 at 3:05 p.m.

To stop the polarization bring back The Fairness Doctrine which forces broadcasters to make time available to present both sides of an issue...

Kathy Keating, July 6, 2010 at 3:16 p.m.

The vast majority of what is written as "news" I personally would never pay for. I would certainly never pay a single-source for my news, since no single-source fairly reports everything that I am interested in.

The media is fractured. But it's not only fractured along the liberal vs. conservative lines. Each outlet reports only what THEY think is important - suicides, murders, human interest stories, op-ed articles (disguised to look like impartial reporting), etc. It's hit/miss what you're going to get from each individual news source.

As it is today, I have to pull together 30-40 different news sources, then cull through them and read the 1% of news that I am actually interested in. If i had to pay for this, I would consider it to be "poor customer service."

The internet has given the power to the people to pull together a unique blend of news that we each individually feel is important. The old model of "single trusted source" simply doesn't exist anymore, and anyone tries to apply those old rules to this new mindset are going to fail.

Most people will not pay one source and then get only a stilted view of the world. Until a great news aggregator platform shows up, we're going to continue to have this situation.

The model that would work would be a TiVo-like news aggregator that learns what you are interested in and where the monetary funds get directed to the news stories/outlets that are actually read. Sort of like Google AdWords except the customer pays for the click.

Consider it a 'pay for performance' model. Maybe then we'll start having access to higher quality news.

Paula Lynn from Who Else Unlimited, July 6, 2010 at 3:21 p.m.

Unfortunately, you are right and I do not see improvement in the immediate future. Actually, this situation will worsen. It will not change until one side wins out over the other - just based on past history of the world. One side permits both sides; the other would prefer only their side. Which do you prefer?

Michael Senno from New York University, July 6, 2010 at 3:31 p.m.

The situation is getting worse, but forget social media saving the news, social media is what is killing professional journalism. Though you may not agree with certain views, MSNBC, Fox News, and the like are professional journalism - that is, well researched, correctly attributed, and well-written. It's the glut of blogs and sprint to break news in an always-on world that is killing professional journalism.

Is it dead or will it die? No, but it will transition and leave many casualties in its wake. Also, if you've paid attention to the history of journalism, news outlets have always been slanted, just that there were fewer of them and less attention was paid. I think integrity is more important than views, and the lack of accountability and credibility in the social sphere is both threatening and damaging traditional, professional news outlets. Someone needs to find a way to make the two work well together.

William Mcgarry from BuzzMedia, July 6, 2010 at 3:33 p.m.

There will always be a need for quality journalism and reporting because at their cores, everyone wants to know the truth. The question is, what are people willing to believe as the truth and how does each individual define quality?

Douglas Ferguson from College of Charleston, July 6, 2010 at 3:37 p.m.

All the Fairness Doctrine did was chill discussion of controversial issues, because stations didn't want to litigate. It forced small stations to heed to the dominant world view. So the audience got one side, the pro-government, pro-Democrat side. Which was just FINE with most journalists who already voted that way.

Polarization is just code for "we don't get the same story from all outlets anymore (and Rush Limbaugh makes us feel uncomfortable)" --which leads to calls for anti-First Amendment ideas from the 1930s and 1940s, like the Fairness Doctrine. If it squelches alternative voices like right-wing radio, then how fair is it?

There is no such thing as "quality" news, anyway. Quality is just code for "content that I like" and anything not liked is thus branded low quality.

Lorenz Weiner, July 6, 2010 at 4:14 p.m.

"Given the choice, people tend to seek news from sources that reflect their views. This means liberal-leaning individuals will likely prefer MSNBC, while conservative-leaning individuals might prefer to get their news from Fox News".
Of course, but wasn't this even truer for print? If anything, the web has facilitated access to diverse points of view. It obviously doesn't always work this way, as many people won't open their minds regardless of the medium. But the fact that we can now browse the Christian Science Monitor or a newspaper in the UK (generally more liberal than in the US) is clearly more than what we could do before the web. Right?

Joshua Chasin from KnotSimpler, July 6, 2010 at 4:39 p.m.

Once upon a time, there were two general levels of distribution. There was the individual-- what one person thought or knew, and who he or she could tell-- and there was the press (the reach of a printed and distributed newspaper.)

These two levels were binary and totally different-- the former, way down here, the latter, WAY UP HERE.

Now, there is no discontinuous jump from individual to mass medium; anyone can blog or tweet, and something juicy gets passed along by sources (blogs, tweeters) with ever-increasing audiences. There are individuals who can tell something to 10 other people... and there are people who can tweet or blog to 10, 100, 1,000, 10,000, 100,000 others. And at 100,000, you have a newspaper-sized circulation. So there is no longer any logical dichotomy or cut-off between the audience of a persona nd the audience of a news outlet.

As a result, it is effectively impossible for traditional main stream journalism to have a scoop. Anything that might appear in, say, the New York Times as news, will make its way into some smaller vehicle that doesn't have the same rigor, fact checking, and integrity as the Times.

Put another way, these days, by the time something makes its way to a newspaper, by definition it isn't news anymore. Someone somewhere will have run with the content before capital-J journalism has a chance to vet it.

Mat Drudge broke the Monica Lewinsky story. That may have been the opening salvo in what is now 21st century news dissemination.

So think what impact this has on news.

The old models of journalism and news are dead and we can't revive them-- not unless we pull the plug on all the blogging and tweeting and Facebook postings. Information flows in a fundamentally different fashion now. We used to rely on "the media" to pick through all the chatter and decide for us what was important (or likely to be true.) Not anymore. Now, "the media" simply allocates space and airtime to those things coming bottom up that have attracted the greatest buzz on the way (which is why for every person in the US who can name the secretary of State, there are 20 who can name the Kardashian sisters.)

Would Anna Nicole Smith's death have dominated news coverage across all major outlets in 1970? I'm sure the answer is no.

Steven Cohn from Media Industry Newsletter, July 6, 2010 at 5:25 p.m.

Amazingly, Rolling Stone's July 8 newsstand sales went up in the aftermath of Michael Hastings' revelations about Gen. Stanley McChrystal even after the story was posted on the Web.

Further evidence that people want to see a "hot" story in its original format--and are willing to pay for it.

In that context, news will never "die."

Craig Mcdaniel from Sweepstakes Today LLC, July 6, 2010 at 8:30 p.m.

There is another side to this... That is companies are now using more and more public relation agencies to get their message out. This is because the press is not interested in writing about business, product releases or good news in general. Only the negative news stories like the gulf spill and BP. Now instead of spending ad dollars in print, they are putting their message in Facebook and Twitter. I think the print media needs to look at this seriously.