With a couple other blog posts in the works, I feel silly starting yet another one; however, I am struggling to get my ideas out on paper right now. So this will have to do.Writer's block? Maybe, but it's more that I am out of practice writing freely like this. I have been working in Communications, editing and perfecting messaging, for so long that I am finding it hard to put my raw ideas down on paper.
Last week, I finally finished reading the PEW Center for Research State of the New Media 2012 report. It's long and full of detail, looking at the media world from all different angles. Worth reading if you are interested in the topic and have a long bus ride ahead of you. It's not one of those reports that you can squeeze into the five minute time slot that you have between morning meetings.So, what did I learn?
1. American consumers are relying more and more on technology for their news. Mobile apps, ipads, and laptops make news acquisition easy, mobile, and customizable. No longer do we have to stay chained to our desks to catch up on emails or the daily newscast on TV. Instead, we can decide what news is relevant to us and determine how often we want personal updates sent right to us. Now wherever we go, we are always informed.
2. TV has experienced an increase in viewers and revenue for 2012 - even though newspapers continue to decline. We have been hearing about the inevitable death of print journalism for the past decade. When I enterred college back in 2006, I remember wondering if I was exploring a dying industry. All fingers pointed towards the new digital world of news, thus condemning the old fashioned newspaper to an early grave. However, I am not sure that this will be the case. It is encouraging to see that broadcast journalism has found a way to harnass JO, perfect example being the New York Times.
The success of online newspapers will depend upon the effective monetization of the print news medium. This is a problem that print outlets have grappled with for some time. Although I have no perfect algorithm to offer up (I'll leave that to the computer programmers and mathematicians of the world), I do notice some of the more effective methods that the NYT has applied as it goes digital. I will only mention a few: slow transition to paying for online news, free articles per month to encourage subscriptions, offering a diversity of mobile app options to fit consumer's needs, and increasing newspaper SEO to better utilize their online platform. All of these things can lead to a smoother transition and integration to the digital world.
The young professionals from my generation are not against print news. I believe that quality content still reigns over sensationalist jargon. It's all about how you present the news; the more accessible you can make the interface, the better it is for readers/viewers. No one minds a makeover (one could argue our society is obsessed with them).
3. News remains very important to Americans; in order to stay informed, they are using mobile technology to access articles and stay informed 24-7. I check the NYT.com website at least three times a day (as often as I brush my teeth). I suppose that news checking would be a habbit for any PR/Communications professional, but my actions also stem from an innate desire to know what is going on in the world. If I was tweeting right now, I might link this directly to the #AmericanDream. We live in a society where we are free to ask questions and we have the right to know the truth about healthcare discoveries, our ruling government, and world events. This innate desire to self-educate will be the milk that keeps the news industry alive. Of course, trust factors into this equation as well (trust between the American public and the media), but I won't go into that now. My point is: as long as we are curious and demand news coverage, the media will have a role to play in our society.
4. Technology and News industries will have to either team up, or battle it out. The teaming up part does worry me - large conglomerates and all that jazz. This was another topic that I studied during my time at BU. As it happens, I have the perfect example of this from today's CNN Money headline news: "Facebook Acquires Instagram for $1 Billion." Twitter, Foursquare, Pinterest, MySpace, the Google+, and Facebook are some of the top 15 social media websites that are leading the online media industry at present. In many ways, these power houses have a huge influence on the future landscape of the media world. Without these online forums, newspapers' reach would be much smaller and the speed of global sharing would be impossible. Social media plays a key role in driving traffic to sites, after that it's up tothe site and the content as to how long the user's interest is held. For this reason, many predict that - not unlike big media buying small media- social media sites like Facebook will continue to buy out smaller successes, in order to consolidate power. It may be a stretch to say that these companies will go as far as buying out big media like the BBC and CNN, but this remains to be seen. Already, social media is teaming up with news orgs to host shows and newscasts.
Although I call myself a social media nerd, it is a bit scary to realize that someday my raw news could come from the same place that people post about their daily activities (i.e. GTL BRB)- a place like Facebook or MySpace.
