Efforts to professionalize journalism began early in the twentieth century as a response to the hyper commercialization of newspapers and the “anything goes” approach to news that emerged in the late nineteenth century as a means of increasing street sales through sensationalism, twisting the truth, and outright lies.
The impetus for journalistic professionalism originated among publishers who wish to counter the trend and it gained support of journalists who saw it as a means of improving their working conditions and social standing. Journalism training and higher education programs, professional societies for journalists and editors, and codes of ethics and conduct emerged as part of professionalism. These promoted the core values of accuracy, fairness, completeness, and the pursuit of truth.
These efforts improved industry practices, pushed out the worst journalists and publishers, and creating some trust in the content of news. They also created environments in which advertisers were willing to promote their wares in newspapers and made news organizations more financially sustainable.
This is where journalistic professionalism took a wrong turn, however.
It did so in two ways. First, professional journalists were taught and accepted the idea that they should worry about the journalism and leave the business to itself. Second, journalists, along with other employees, decided to seek improvement to their compensation and working conditions through unionization—thus becoming adversaries of management rather than partners in the management of news organizations.
Both developments clearly improved journalism and lives of journalists; however, they also separated journalists from business decisions and removed them from any responsibility for the organization’s actions and sustainability.
Although some protests over editorial interference, owner avarice, and the corporatization of the news industry were heard in the 20th century, few efforts to alter the situation developed because the enterprises were willing to share a sufficient portion of the riches generated with journalists and because companies employed more journalists, improved newsrooms, built networks of bureaus, and provided resources to undertake interesting reporting activities.
That has all changed. The reporting resources are gone, the networks of bureaus are being dismantled, many enterprises can’t afford their own facilities, and journalists are being widely laid off. All of this is being done with little input and influence from journalists and editors precisely because they spent nearly a century denying responsibility and involvement in business decisions.
Today, many journalists are arguing for the creation of new types of news organizations—primarily not-for-profit enterprises—and they are repeating the same mistake. Most are suggesting, or already setting up, organizations in which journalists still have little say on strategy and business matters. Many are content merely with the idea that the new enterprises won’t be profit driven. That, however, is not enough.
Journalists need to be equally responsible in ensuring they produce news and information that has value. They need to be responsible for ensuring their new organizations create the revenues and organizational strength needed to carry out high quality journalism. They need to ensure that organizational decisions make the organizations and the journalism offered viable.
If journalists continue to deny responsibility for the operation and survival of their news enterprises, it will be impossible to create sustainable news organizations for the future.
Saturday, January 2, 2010
Saturday, December 26, 2009
THE WIDENING RANGE OF REVENUE SOURCES IN NEWS ENTERPRISES
It is obvious that both the offline and online news providers are in the midst of substantial transformation and that the traditional means of funding operations are no longer as viable as in the past. This is disturbing to the industry because it has enjoyed several decades of unusual financially wealth and few in the organizations know how to find and generate new sources of revenue.
The financial uncertainty facing the industry is not unusual, however. We tend to forget that news has historically been unable to pay for itself and was subsidized by other activities. In the past newspapers and other news organizations engaged in a far larger range of commercial activities than then they do today and publishers had to be highly entrepreneurial and seek income from a wide variety of sources in order to survive.
The initial gathering and distribution of news was paid for by emperors, monarchs, and other rulers who needed information for state purposes. Later, wealthy international merchants hired correspondents to gather and relay news that might affect their businesses. When news became a commercial product, newspaper publishers subsidized the operations with profits from printing books, magazines, pamphlets, and advertising sheets, income for editors from shipping and postal employment, profits from operating book shops and travel agencies, and subsidies from communities and political and social organizations.
Today, however, news organizations are struggling to maintain themselves and develop digital operations by primarily focusing on the two revenue streams they have known in recent decades: subscriptions and advertising. Many people are being disappointed because those are failing to provide sufficient financial resources to sustain their operations.
The need to seek income from multiple sources is clear, but runs somewhat counter to the values of twentieth-century professional journalism, which denigrates commercial activity and thus engenders organizational resistance to new business initiatives. Continuing staff reductions and other budgetary cutbacks are eroding some internal opposition, but are rightfully leading to questions about how far one goes down the commercial road before news gives up its independence.
In both the online and offline news worlds, a wide variety of revenue generating activities are appearing—some based on traditional subscriber/single copy sales and advertising sales—but many others moving into new areas of monetization.
Many news organizations are increasing the range of advertising services provided to sell and create ads for their own media products, but also to provide clients services that can be used in competing products as well. New types of advertising offerings are being created to link across platforms, sponsorships of online and mobile news headlines are developing, video advertising is being offered online, and special “deals of the day” advertising spots are being offered.
Some organizations are increasing their product lines producing paid premium products and niche content for professional groups and persons with special interests; some are providing business service listings for a fee; others are creating a variety of non-news products; still others are operating additional business units creating paid events, running cafés, book and magazine shops, and providing training and education activities.
Sales of other products and services are being increasingly embraced through e-commerce (linking published reviews films, performances, and recordings to sites where customers can buy tickets, DVDs, CDs, etc.), creating and selling lists and databases of local businesses and consumers, producing special reports and books, selling photographs and photography services, and even selling items such as computers and appliances.
A growing number of news organizations are seekings subsidies though reader memberships and donations and grants from community and national foundations.
These are healthy developments because they increase the opportunities to create revenue that can fund news activities. Obviously, the abilities and willingness of different news enterprises to engage in the range activities vary widely, but the fact that they are appearing show that news organizations are beginning to adjust to the new environment and becoming more entrepreneurial than they have been for many decades.
What is needed now is not knee-jerk opposition to these efforts from news personnel, but thoughtful development of realistic principles and processes to minimize any negative effects of these new initiatives on news content so that trust and credibility are not diminished.
The financial uncertainty facing the industry is not unusual, however. We tend to forget that news has historically been unable to pay for itself and was subsidized by other activities. In the past newspapers and other news organizations engaged in a far larger range of commercial activities than then they do today and publishers had to be highly entrepreneurial and seek income from a wide variety of sources in order to survive.
The initial gathering and distribution of news was paid for by emperors, monarchs, and other rulers who needed information for state purposes. Later, wealthy international merchants hired correspondents to gather and relay news that might affect their businesses. When news became a commercial product, newspaper publishers subsidized the operations with profits from printing books, magazines, pamphlets, and advertising sheets, income for editors from shipping and postal employment, profits from operating book shops and travel agencies, and subsidies from communities and political and social organizations.
Today, however, news organizations are struggling to maintain themselves and develop digital operations by primarily focusing on the two revenue streams they have known in recent decades: subscriptions and advertising. Many people are being disappointed because those are failing to provide sufficient financial resources to sustain their operations.
The need to seek income from multiple sources is clear, but runs somewhat counter to the values of twentieth-century professional journalism, which denigrates commercial activity and thus engenders organizational resistance to new business initiatives. Continuing staff reductions and other budgetary cutbacks are eroding some internal opposition, but are rightfully leading to questions about how far one goes down the commercial road before news gives up its independence.
In both the online and offline news worlds, a wide variety of revenue generating activities are appearing—some based on traditional subscriber/single copy sales and advertising sales—but many others moving into new areas of monetization.
Many news organizations are increasing the range of advertising services provided to sell and create ads for their own media products, but also to provide clients services that can be used in competing products as well. New types of advertising offerings are being created to link across platforms, sponsorships of online and mobile news headlines are developing, video advertising is being offered online, and special “deals of the day” advertising spots are being offered.
Some organizations are increasing their product lines producing paid premium products and niche content for professional groups and persons with special interests; some are providing business service listings for a fee; others are creating a variety of non-news products; still others are operating additional business units creating paid events, running cafés, book and magazine shops, and providing training and education activities.
Sales of other products and services are being increasingly embraced through e-commerce (linking published reviews films, performances, and recordings to sites where customers can buy tickets, DVDs, CDs, etc.), creating and selling lists and databases of local businesses and consumers, producing special reports and books, selling photographs and photography services, and even selling items such as computers and appliances.
A growing number of news organizations are seekings subsidies though reader memberships and donations and grants from community and national foundations.
These are healthy developments because they increase the opportunities to create revenue that can fund news activities. Obviously, the abilities and willingness of different news enterprises to engage in the range activities vary widely, but the fact that they are appearing show that news organizations are beginning to adjust to the new environment and becoming more entrepreneurial than they have been for many decades.
What is needed now is not knee-jerk opposition to these efforts from news personnel, but thoughtful development of realistic principles and processes to minimize any negative effects of these new initiatives on news content so that trust and credibility are not diminished.
Monday, December 21, 2009
IMPLICATIONS OF CHANGING DEFINITIONS OF MEDIA MARKETS
An important contemporary development is the shift of media market definitions from traditional platform-based definitions to functional definitions. This is occurring because media product platform definitions are losing their specificity and uniqueness due to digitalization and cross-platform distribution developments.
Newspapers are becoming news providers, delivering news and information via print, online, mobile, and other platforms; broadcasters are moving off the radio spectrum, exploiting not only other streaming and video-on-demand opportunities, but also text-based communication on web and mobile platforms.
Although functional definitions clarify what companies actually do, they obscure wide differences in audiences, business relations, and revenue sources on the different platforms and give some the mistaken impression that a functionally defined operation can be successful operating the same way across the different platform environments. The functional definition is also confusing some policy makers and regulators concerned with effects of cross-media activity, consolidation, and concentration who do not carefully sort out the different elements of product and geographic market definitions among the platforms.
From the business standpoint, the fundamental problem of the functional definitions is that it leads many content providers to believe they can simply repurpose existing content across platforms. They are happy to do so because the marginal cost is near zero, but they ignore the facts that it also commoditizes the content, that the content losses uniqueness, and that similar presentation may not be appropriate on other platforms. Consequently, the repurposed content can produce only a small marginal increase in revenue.
To ultimately be successful in functional markets, companies need to offer a good deal of new content and launch new products on the new platforms rather than merely reusing what is already there in the traditional ways. Leading cable channels, for example, early in their development relied on motion pictures and syndicated programs previously shown on network television, but soon realized that they needed original programming to attract better audiences and gain additional revenue. Financial newspapers have begun to get it right on the Internet, offering more content and tools than in their print editions and establishing specialized niche products for different types of industry and business readers.
We are all watching to see who among general content providers manages to get their functional approach to markets right using the Internet, Mobile, e-Readers, and other platforms.
Newspapers are becoming news providers, delivering news and information via print, online, mobile, and other platforms; broadcasters are moving off the radio spectrum, exploiting not only other streaming and video-on-demand opportunities, but also text-based communication on web and mobile platforms.
Although functional definitions clarify what companies actually do, they obscure wide differences in audiences, business relations, and revenue sources on the different platforms and give some the mistaken impression that a functionally defined operation can be successful operating the same way across the different platform environments. The functional definition is also confusing some policy makers and regulators concerned with effects of cross-media activity, consolidation, and concentration who do not carefully sort out the different elements of product and geographic market definitions among the platforms.
From the business standpoint, the fundamental problem of the functional definitions is that it leads many content providers to believe they can simply repurpose existing content across platforms. They are happy to do so because the marginal cost is near zero, but they ignore the facts that it also commoditizes the content, that the content losses uniqueness, and that similar presentation may not be appropriate on other platforms. Consequently, the repurposed content can produce only a small marginal increase in revenue.
To ultimately be successful in functional markets, companies need to offer a good deal of new content and launch new products on the new platforms rather than merely reusing what is already there in the traditional ways. Leading cable channels, for example, early in their development relied on motion pictures and syndicated programs previously shown on network television, but soon realized that they needed original programming to attract better audiences and gain additional revenue. Financial newspapers have begun to get it right on the Internet, offering more content and tools than in their print editions and establishing specialized niche products for different types of industry and business readers.
We are all watching to see who among general content providers manages to get their functional approach to markets right using the Internet, Mobile, e-Readers, and other platforms.
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