The future of news

"There are known-knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known-unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we now know we don’t know. But there are also unknown-unknowns. These are things we do not know we don’t know." Donald Rumsfeld.

It's rare that I can use a Donald Rumsfeld quote and not feel more than a little dirty, but as quotes go it's a perfect fit for analysing the future of the news industry.

We know only one thing for sure; the next decade is going to produce more change in journalism and the news industry than we have ever seen before, even more than in the last tumultuous decade.

Looking back it's striking to note how different the news industry is today. The landscape has changed dramatically.

In the last 10 years the internet has become so omnipresent that sometimes it's hard to believe that Google was only founded in 1998: Wikipedia in 2001: YouTube in 2005. All are now tools that many journalists find indispensable, although there are obvious dangers inherent in their overuse.

Quality news publications like the Irish Times, The Guardian and many other found this out the hard way when Shane Fitzgerald proved the fallibility of Wikipedia as a source and the danger of journalists who don't double check their sources.

The Sociology student fabricated part of the composers Maurice Jarre's biography on Wikipedia and despite Wikipedia amending it twice, it was published in newspapers from Ireland to India.

"One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head that only I can hear."

A beautiful quote, but complete bullshit.

In the last decade newspapers have become news companies and the number of Irish newspapers that don't have an online edition could be counted on one hand.

Those that have resisted the longest, such as the Irish Daily Star are doing surprisingly well circulation-wise, while papers with longstanding online strategies like The Irish Times are losing readership and revenue.

But if the industrial revolution taught us anything it's that being a Luddite is a short term strategy. News organisations and journalists need to embrace the change, but manage it successfully.

Many newspaper managers will claim that the advent of the internet has damaged journalism and there may be some truth in that. But the the truth is far more complex than that and if the internet could be said to have damaged journalism, it can equally be said that it is journalism's only hope of survival.

Quality journalism has been under threat for decades, mostly from the same newspaper managers and owners who are now raging against the 'threat of the internet.'

Philip Knightley's excellent memoir on a life in journalism A Hack's Progress documents much of this decline, which came about as newspapers became publicly quoted companies and the focus went from quality journalism to high profits.

The next logical progress was to get fewer journalists to write more copy, then even fewer journalists to write even more copy. David Simon testified before the Senate commerce committee on the future of journalism that when he was bought out of his position in 1995, long before the internet began to impact news organisations, the Baltimore Sun was making 30% profits.

But the logical step for the papers owners was to let the more experienced journalists go in order to keep overheads down. Smaller wage-roll = Higher profits. The cuts kept coming and before long where 500 men and women once covered Maryland, there are now 140.

It's a story that has resonance in almost every newspaper market. As an article noted in the Sunday Times noted two days ago, journalists in London now write three times more copy than they did just a decade ago and newspapers are essentially being subsidised by the young intern journalists that provide their services for free in order to break into the industry.

No matter how well educated these journalists are, the quality of their journalism must suffer and with it the trust that readers place in their papers. Studies carried out in the US & the UK have shown over the period of the last 10 years, public trust of newspapers and journalists has hit subsequent and repeated 'all time lows.'

As usual, the customer is right. Nick Davies notes in Flat Earth News, research by Cardiff University (and repeated this year by MA students in DCU) show that large swathes of newspapers are unedited, unchecked, unverified PR Press Releases.

And if you trust journalists and newspapers less and less, why keep buying them? If you can get an equally inaccurate news source online for free, why pay?

So while newspaper owners and managers may whine that the internet is killing the industry, the truth is far more complex. David Simon phrased it beautifully:

"When you hear a newspaper executive claiming that his industry is an essential bulwark of society and that it stands threatened by a new technology that is, as of yet, unready to shoulder the same responsibility, you may be inclined to empathize. And indeed, that much is true enough as it goes.

But when that same newspaper executive then goes on to claim that this predicament has occurred through no fault on the industry's part, that they have merely been undone by new technologies, feel free to kick out his teeth. At that point, he's as fraudulent as the most self-aggrandized blogger."

I don't endorse the assault of managers of newspapers organisations (I'm legally obliged to put that in) but I do believe they have a lot to answer for. One of those mistakes has been offering their content free online.

(This isn't an analysis of the business model for news, but it's interesting to note that both News Corp and The New York Times are both going to be charging for their online content in the near future.)

Thankfully these newspaper owners are realising a lesson most others learned during the dot-com bust; giving stuff away for free is not a business model.

So what is the future of news and where does the future of journalism lie? One lesson that journalists and owners are going to need to learn fast is that "Being a great newspaper isn't enough in the internet era." John Temple should know a bit on the subject as he was the last managing editor of the Rocky Mountain News.

Newspapers and journalists are going to have to work hard to regain the trust of readers and this is going to require a lot of investment, not just in fancy bells & whistles websites and all that goes Twitter, but in quality journalists that can work across at least a few mediums.

There are a few signs of this happening in the Irish market, though not enough. The blogs on the irishtimes.com website, especially the politics blogs, are a fantastic example of what happens when well trained, experienced journalists provide excellent online content that complements the main paper.

But more and more newspapers, TV stations journalists need to realise that merely being in print or on TV is no longer enough.

On the TV front Irish news stations have made some inroads. The RTE iPlayer and TV3 player are both useful means to catch viewers who have missed an episode of a favourite show. But few RTE shows promote the option to view the show online and there is very little interaction with other multimedia options.

News shows such as Primetime need to drive viewers to their website for online discussion of the topics they have just viewed on TV and if necessary, the presenters or journalists who produced a particular segment need to interact with their viewers.

By getting viewers to debate topics on a Primetime forum, watch previews for upcoming shows and rewarding them with unique and extended content (interviews for instance) the show could make itself relevant to a generation which currently pays it no heed.

The future of journalism is dependent on correctly managing new mediums, but only if it is utilised as a means of delivering a quality message, which can be trusted by the consumer.

The need for investment in quality journalism and more journalists is needed now more than ever; the internet is simply the news delivery system for that message, in the same way that the printing press was, then radio, then TV.

Nicholas Tomalin of the Sunday Times famously said that "The only qualities essential for real success in journalism are rat-like cunning, a plausible manner, and a little literary ability."

Bar the method of delivery, not much has changed.

Who dunnit?

I've been blogging a lot recently about the Rocky Mountain News, partially out of morbid fascination and partially because I believe that there are some scary parallels between it and the future of some of our own markets.

Denver has a population of just over 500,000 and Colorado a population of just over 5 million, yet the market couldn't support two quality newspapers.

So, who killed The Rocky Mountain News? Was it the internet? In short, yes and no. Or was it massive mismanagement by incompetent ownership, in conjunction with the Internet?

For the long answer, check out John Temple's follow up to his talk in Berkley, which he gave at the 2009 Webcam conference. There's some overlap in content, but it's well worth watching.

Did the Internet kill the Rocky Mountain News? And, if it did, what can we learn from its death? from John Temple on Vimeo.

The Huffington Post

The leading advocate of a new citizen journalism model is Arianna Huffington who founded what is regarded by many as one of the most influential media organisations, online or offline, in America today.

The Huffington Post was founded in 2005 and is already one of the biggest individual news organisations in the US. It has 2,000 contributors, paid and unpaid and while avowedly liberal she says that "we are never going to cover up for anyone however much we love them."

As the Post moves into local reporting, Arianna Huffington looks set to be to Journalism in the early part of the 21st century what Rupert Murdoch was to the latter part of the 20th century.

Except a hell of a lot more liberal.

You can read a review here of a talk the Arianna gave at The Guardian's "Future of Journalism" conference last year, or you can listen to a six minute excerpt here.

Citizen Journalism

Citizen journalism is cited as being the biggest threat to legacy media by people who are, apparently, in the know. The main example cited used is the video of Neda Saltani, who was shot dead by police during the protests in Iran last year.

The question I ask is, are video's like this examples of citizen journalism?

If a news organisation comes across someone who has access to files relating to government corruption, or pictures or videos of police brutality, are they citizen journalists? Or, are they what is traditionally known as sources?

As David Simon notes, "you do not – in my city -- run into bloggers or so-called citizen journalists at City Hall, or in the courthouse hallways or at the bars and union halls where police officers gather. You do not see them consistently nurturing and then pressing sources."

Real citizen journalism is rare and often of questionable quality. There are some exceptions; The Huffington Post is the largest, and most influential, but some smaller organisations are doing a good job.

The Uptake did a great job of covering the Republican Party's National Convention in Minnesota in 2008, as well as the marathon recount after recount in the Senate race in 2009 (eventually won by (former?) comedian Al Franken.

Unlike most citizen journalism organisations however, The Uptake uses trained, professional journalists in conjunction with trained amateur journalists.

It's not just a group of bloggers sitting around talking about whatever they feel like and stealing content from news sites without attribution.

But while The Uptake do a good job, what happens when the GOP's convention is in a different state the next time? Will there be an Uptake in every town and city around the world, dedicated to reporting the truth and holding those in power to account?

Can citizen journalism really fill the hole left by the death of 'legacy journalism', should that transpire? I'm not convinced. Yet.

Lessons from the death of a great paper

John Temple was the editor, president and publisher of the Rocky Mountain News which closed down a little over a year ago after almost 150 years in business. You may recognise him from Matt Robert's excellent 'Final Edition' video which I blogged on last week.

Under his leadership, the paper won four Pulitzer Prizes for journalistic excellence; despite this, and despite the prospect of the paper being profit-making in the future, the publicly-quoted owners, EW Scripps (worth about $6 billion) shut the paper down.

John gave a talk at the UC Berkley (Go Bears!) Media Technology Summit at the Google Headquarters in Mountain View, California on September 30th, 2009. You can read the text of the talk here, or you can watch the slideshow and listen to the talk in the video below.

I don't agree with all of John's observations, but he is extremely honest about the mistakes that he made as well as those made by the owners of the paper.

Managing Directors and Managing Editors of newspapers on this side of the Atlantic would be wise to listen to what he has to say. Before too long, they may find themselves in the same position that 'my Rocky' was in 2009.

The 'C' word

Convergence has been the buzz word in journalism for the last decade and for most journalists it means more work, less pay and less time to work on in depth stories.

Lest there be any confusion the 'convergence' I'm talking about here is the convergance of skills across a number of mediums that modern journalists are expected to work on; print; online; video; audio. The backpack journalist.

Is this convergence about serving the consumer or pandering to them? And are consumers (once known as readers) really served by this, or is it simply a case of less journalists to act as watchdogs?

The problem with newspapers being run like fast-food outlets (the minimal standard the consumer will accept with the least amount of staff possible) is that societey eventually suffers.

Less journalists = Fewer Watchdogs = More Corruption. A fair enough assumption I think.

That's not to say that there aren't positives to multi-media, or that audio, video and online don't enhance the media offering (if and when necessary.) And no doubt as younger journalists come into the industry, working across mediums will be easier for them.

But as Markham Nolan asks on his blog today, does multi-media = multi-mediocre? If today's online editions of Irish papers are anything to go by... Sadly, yep.

How to run a newspaper

Most news organisations are now owned by publicly quoted companies, whose sole aim is to generate profit and shareholder value for it's owners.

The result over the past number of years has been newspaper closures, job losses and less journalists reporting on a far smaller pool of stories.

Were there ever 'Good Old Days' in the news industry, or have things always been going to the dogs?

Whatever the case, it's highly unlikely that news owners are going to continue ploughing money into papers which continue to generate minimal profit from what is undoubtedly the news delivery system of the future (i.e. the internet.)

Is there a Citizen Kane in every market, or are we going to have to look at new ways of funding our news oganisations?

What is evident is that the shareholder model does not work for news organisations and benevolent billionaires notwithstanding, the non-profit model is the only way to guarantee a free and fair press.