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 From time to time I work with media professionals in fledging democracies who are keen to improve their online offering and reach a wider audience. A recurring issue is how to define and concentrate on the special competencies of the media operation in question. Which kinds of content can this provider deliver, that no one else can, I ask.
The pattern is clear: The older the company, the more difficult it becomes for them to define their editorial backbone. They seem simply to have forgotten their raison d’etre. Only once a media operation recognises what it does best will it be able to cultivate its speciality. What is equally clear is that many media operations have also forgotten who their audience is and what that audience needs and is looking for.
A media operation shouldn’t try to do everything. It shouldn’t try to be all things to all men and women. That is a recipe for disaster. It is not the foundation for a sustainable business plan - and financial sustainability is the foundation for editorial independence.
This is all the more important as media consumption becomes more of a digital buffet and less of a set menu.
The other day a friend asked me whether I had seen the article "The News Impressionists" in the Danish daily, Politiken. I hadn’t. I did actually have the issue, but I hadn’t noticed that particular article.
I get three to four newspapers every day and visit even more websites, so I only have time to read sporadically. As a result, interesting things often pass me by unless someone points them out.
Sure enough, "The News Impressionists" really is worth recommending. It deals with younger generations’ consumption of multiple media, and how they combine news items from numerous sources, grab them on the fly, forward them, comment on them, and thereby construct their own interpretations of "what’s going on."
That same day I participated in a large Danish conference on the New Media which happened to address the same topic. Beforehand, all participants had been asked to nominate what had been the single most important medium to them in the past year.
A considerable number nominated podcasting - receiving radio programmes online and loading them onto an MP3 player to listen to when you want. You connected your player to a computer and it automatically download new editions of radio programs that you have subscribed to.
Many professionals and amateurs broadcasters make their radio shows accessible on the Internet now and the choice of themes for podcasts grows by the day. Not only is it across a wide range of music, but the editorial choice on offer is covering all views and interests.
My daily commute takes between two and three hours. I spend that time listening to the newest shows on my MP3. I really can’t be bothered anymore with the car stereo’s small talking radio show hosts and pop music. I select the shows I prefer, and I choose when to listen to them. With my newfound ability to pause, fast-forward, and rewind, the radio is back in my life - and I’m in charge!
Similar developments are happening to TV and print. We choose what we want to read, watch and listen to - and when. The consequences will be considerable once consumers no longer choose a particular channel or newspaper, but rather a definite show, section or journalist.
Take television. Devices now allow you to watch, record, pause, rewind and replay TV output without the need for an engineering degree to operate your machine. Obviously, this is a revolution for television and radio stations all over the globe. They stand to lose their power over programming. Conversely, consumers stand to gain the power to choose what they want to watch and listen to.
Some TV channels offer newscasts, weather forecasts and a number of other popular shows for on demand consumption on cell phones and other hand held screens. In Norway half the population now owns a ’3G’ telephone that supports the video format. More and more handheld devices support moving pictures. In October Apple started selling sitcoms, animated cartoons and short movies on the net. The first 20 days saw in excess of one million transactions. So the demand is there - beyond doubt.
The British Broadcasting Corporation, BBC, has sized up the development from linear, analogue media forms to digital self-service buffet: "TV is dead. We build content that can be delivered to all devices. The device the consumer receives it on is actually immaterial to us," says BBC’s Chief Technology Officer, John Varney.
So, what is up? Media convergence is up! Yeah, I know we have been talking about it for years, to the point of deafness. But it’s here! Information is leaving its original medium, and is being consumed in many different ways in many different contexts. Advanced primary school arts classes meet digital, real-time content. It’s a ball!
Newspapers are also faced with the same developments. When we think of newspapers, we usually think of a sum of information assembled by today’s editor. This is basically how internet editions are produced. But the last few years have witnessed an addition to this - the RSS feeds. An RSS item is a simple version of a news item. It only distinguishes between title and body, with no colours, typographical elements etc. Essentially an "easy reader format" for computers, not intended for humans. Human readers need some kind of converter in the form of software to interpret and present the text.
With RSS you can subscribe to the Le Monde culture section, local news from the BBC, news on technology from Wired Magazine, editorials from Malaysiakini etc. Each news item consists of a short appetizer, presented to the consumer in pure text far removed from the original newspaper or website layout. Despite the low tech presentation, they invite readers to click on the item in order to read the entire story, redirecting them to the good ol’ website.
And the public does use RSS. The research company Ipsos Insight reports that 31% of internet users now use RSS - without ever knowing that this is what it is called. The next version of Microsoft Explorer will include a reader that will make it even simpler to subscribe to personally relevant news.
The result is that readers combine feeds to produce their own "newspaper" consisting of news and other information of interest to them personally. All talk of news mixes is gradually becoming irrelevant. What remains is the need to produce specific information intended for individualised consumption.
To put it differently: Readers increasingly demand specific information on given subjects. Interesting pieces of news are more alluring than any publisher. Consumers want in-depth niche information. This is good news for trade journals, local newspapers and other specialised publications. But it is a demanding development for omnibus newspapers whose mission it is to give readers the broad picture of domestic and international events. To a large extent it is the mix that defines the "soul" of the omnibus newspaper - and this mix is losing its importance.
During an Internet training sessions in the Balkans recently, three radio stations and a newspaper were attempting to improve their online offerings. Most thought they knew who their local audience was, but they had forgotten their Diaspora audience - an audience desperate for news from home. At the same time, most were trying to be all things to all men and women; to serve up a media diet that covered every area of life. Clearly, they didn’t have the resources to do everything. It was only when they realised that they should be focusing on what they do best - produce trusted, balanced and authoritative local news - could they cultivate their specialities. Why try to provide a short national weather forecast, when the national meteorological institute provides local forecasts? Why provide a local movie theatre list when entertainment sites do it better?
In other words: Select your battles carefully, and make sure you win the ones you pick. The essence of internet publishing is defining one’s editorial content within one or more niches - and then maintaining this focus. Forget about providing content on international sporting events or TV-guides unless you want to be the best provider of such content. The best is only one click away, so better leave it to someone else, and concentrate on providing your core services sublimely.
Oh, and we must not forget the much debated weblogs. In October I heard Al Gore speaking about US media. Less that a third of the population believes that US media has credibility. The rest just do not believe in the media. Never before in American history have we seen this lack of trust in the media. (More than half the American population, incidentally, believes that Saddam Hussein sent those planes crashing into the World Trade Center, says Gore. And if what he says is true, one has to agree with him that the media "over there" has failed.)
Because the media has lost its credibility, the so-called blogs have become immensely successful in the US. Blogs are personal commentaries, that readers are free to post their own comments to. More and more journalists publish blogs, and the public flocks to them. They pick a writer, not a publication. They select someone they have faith in and whom they like to read rather than a brand. Or more precisely: The best writers become brands in their own right. And honestly: Wouldn’t we all prefer a source of content written solely by our favourite writers? (Say, delivered straight to our screen via RSS).
So how should the daily newspapers respond to the blogs? Well, they would be better off speeding to deliver! They should furnish the best writers and the most poignant commentary. Now would be a good time to promote persons and attitudes. I do not think it will be long before we will be seeing editorials with by-lines.
On my way home, my favourite radio reporter, Lasse Jensen, tells me on my MP3 player that Sky News in the US has limited itself to opening three new television channels - a week. The niches are just rolling in!
I can’t wait to talk to my friend about the news impressionists. I want to tell her, that I think they are here to stay. And to thank her for alerting me to the story. I am going to subscribe to the writer via RSS, no matter where he works. That will be possible - in just a short while.
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