We all know how the downturn in advertising spend has affected the press and publishing industries. Newsrooms appear to have been decimated as publishers across all sectors laid journalists out to pasture. In far too much haste commentators wasted no time in penning the obligatory obituary for their own industry. But how wrong they appeared to have been.
If there was one thing that came from last week’s news:rewired conference at London’s City University it was that journalism is rediscovering itself and using technology and it’s audience to do an even better job. The fact is that while the decline in advertising has decimated newspapers and magazine, publishers have been fighting back, restructuring and getting their journalists to use social media and networking platforms not just for promoting content but for reaching out, developing contacts and finding great stories.
Professor George Brock opened the day with a series of seminal questions, is there such a thing as news, is authority in the crowd or the expert, does news stay in bundles and how do we [journalists] tell what is true?
Brock challenged the news model and gave examples of how outlets in the US are re-establishing themselves. In his keynote speech he encouraged those present to not look at technology as the saviour of journalism, but to look backward and remember traditional journalism.
Using the 2009 Iranian election protests as an example Brock cited that while Twitter and video were important during the uprising, “it’s a less well known that one of the most effective ways of opposition ideas was slogans stamped on banknotes.” He added that opposition messages were, “now stamped on so many banknotes that the governor or the Iranian Central Bank – not very sympathetic to the authorities – is in an argument with the authorities who want them removed from circulation. Of course, in an economy you can’t just withdraw large numbers of banknotes [as] you will trigger an economic crisis. So the message remains in circulation!”
Technology and social media platforms are tools that support communications. They support journalism and public relations. BBC College of Journalism Editor Kevin Marsh highlighted how the BBC Newsroom had adopted web-centric journalism skills that allow engagement with its audience. Something that I’ve written about before.
Kevin Marsh at news:rewired 2010 from BBC College of Journalism on Vimeo.
Marsh confirmed that new skills and platforms are just that, new. They are there to back up traditional newsgathering skills such as organising an outside broadcast, gathering information from a court case or persuading people to talk and go on the record.
Seminars that took place confirmed that journalists have to learn and adapt to how people are moving online. Journalists needed to pick up new skills on how multimedia newsrooms work, the power of social media for journalists, crowd-sourcing and data-mashing.
Content and stories are online and it’s a journalist’s job is to find and report them depending on their beat. To use content to back up what contacts can provide.
But why is this so important to public relations professionals? Why should this shift matter to those who build and shape brands and reputations?
In my opinion it matters a lot. It matters because journalists are using citizens as an extension of their profession. And citizens that are happy to contribute. They are happy to be the eyes and ears on the ground.
During the crowd sourcing session tempers nearly got the better of some who objected to the term ‘citizen-journalists.’ Some attendees coined the term ‘eye-witness-journalists’ as professionals found it objectionable that people with no training described themselves as ‘journalists’. While it was a very well argued point, the fact is that while many people can contribute to a story it is a trained journalist that can filter out the coal from the diamonds.
All this matters to PRs because people that unhappy customers can be found very easily. Technology has herded people into online pens and it is the job of a good journalist to find them and work them into a story.
The same people want to receive their content through their social media platforms, online and on their mobiles. The same devices that can now capture any bit of breaking news.
Of course journalists are learning on the go as the news and publishing industry moved online. A channel where readers and viewers are less faithful. Loyalty will depend on the speed at which content is updated.
Award-winning videojournalist and Southbank artist-in-residence David Dunkley Gyimah shows us what can be done and possibly what journalists should be. Watching David confirmed that journalists might have to be multi-disciplined.
A brief visual history of videojournalism from david dunkley gyimah on Vimeo.
Journalism is evolving and the new technology that for so long had been blamed for its potential demise might in fact be its saviour. And that is important for everybody, not just journalists, and not just PRs.
Newman stated that what we are currently seeing in journalism is a, “quiet revolution.” Between 2007-2009 there’s been an explosion in participation, ‘driven by user-friendly internet tools, better connectivity and new mobile devices. Social Networking and UGC have become mainstream activities, accounting for almost 20 per cent of internet time in the UK and involving half of all internet users. This dramatic change has forced traditional news organisations to take note.’ And news outlets have reacted by abandoning attempts ‘to be first for breaking news, focusing instead on being the best at verifying and curating it.’
Financial Times Digital Media and Broadcast Conference – A Changing Landscape
Friday, March 5th, 2010Senior media and communications executives met in London this week for the 2010 FT Digital Media and Broadcast conference (#ftmedia10). At the heart of the debate were the questions of how the sectors were emerging from the global recession and the impact of online and social media on the creative industry and its revenues.
WPP Group Chief Executive Sir Martin Sorrell launched the opening salvo by questioning companies that, from an advertising perspective, were being over-optimistic about social media. Sir Martin described social media as a phenomenon that was “personal” and therefore “not suited to being invaded by adverts.” He was right. This phenomenon is personal and it works because it’s based on conversational marketing that’s more suited to public relations than advertising.
Answering a question that I put to him about if he agreed with Facebook’s CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s comment that privacy was no longer a ‘social norm,’ Sir Martin said that “privacy was still the norm” and that this was one point with which he disagreed with Mark on. “People are still concerned by it and the invasion of it,” Sir Martin added. We should remember that privacy is individuality.
This opening day coincided with one of the speakers’ key policy announcements. Mark Thompson, the BBC’s Director General, had been forced to bring forward by a week the results of the much-anticipated strategic review into the corporation. Thompson outlined to the conference the plans that he was putting forward for consultation.
I was thankful that while we were in a panel discussion on ‘The Future Of News,’ before Thompson arrived, friends at the BBC tweeted me to let me know that Mark was first on Five Live and then on the BBC News Channel. I also received a link to the following blog by Pete Ashton, which in my view nailed it with regards to what Thompson is aiming for.
While Strategic Review is aiming to slim down the BBC, detractors will keep giving it flak to avoid commentators questioning why their own companies are not performing as well as they should be. A contact at the BBC tweeted me a private message that stated the obvious, “Part of the fun is that the BBC will always get flak for whatever it does from someone.“ Pete Ashton’s blog post said it well by highlighting how the “BBC spent a decade or more figuring it out and, surprise, they’ve kinda successful at this digital / internet game.” And that is why I applaud the BBC.
So the Auntie is going on a self-imposed diet and will be focusing on: 1) best journalism in the world, 2) Inspiring content that brings knowledge, music and culture to life, 3) Ambitious UK drama and comedy, 4) Outstanding children’s content, and 5) Events that bring communities and the nation together. These sound like the corporation’s key strengths, but will the cutbacks satisfy its critics? Will it hell. But here is the problem, apart from the reaction to the BBC’s own 6 Music DAB station – which is wrong (#saveBBC6music), a slimmed down Auntie will emerge stronger, tougher and more focused on delivering great content.
In fact, in his speech, Thompson stated without any ambiguity, “one day, the web may be the principle platform for all the BBC’s services.” Ten years ago the BBC went online. Today, commercial news outlets are still trying to see how to make online work for an audience that is reluctant to pay.
Before Mark Thompson’s arrival New York Times Chairman and Publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr, Financial Times CEO John Ridding and Google’s MD Matt Brittin had been discussing the future of news. All the talk in the lead up to the conference had been about paywalls, would they or wouldn’t they work?
Ridding confirmed that readers were willing to pay for content by stating that the FT had “40 per cent year on year growth” with regards to subscriptions, while Brittin said that “British content [journalism] had a reputation for quality.” But of course Brittin represented the outcast of the industry after Rupert Murdoch threatened to pull News International content out of Google’s News and it’s search. Of course Brittin was well armed and highlighted that the search mammoth “send over 4 billion hits a month to publishers websites,” a fact that news publishers cannot ignore.
The Apple iPad was also talked about with comments from the panel about it’s potential for generating revenue. The FT’s Ridding noted a word of caution by highlighting the risks of subscription fatigue amongst readers.
At this point you start to see what I’d noted for some time, how the media landscape was changing and how the various communications sectors were battling for survival. Convergence is the word that sprang to mind.
For production companies it is about maximising revenues that can be reinvested elsewhere. Yes, broadcasters are shop window from which historically they have made money, but with this stream’s drying up forcing many producers to become creative and look to use social media and other networking tools to make money.
Producers such as Endemol know that in today’s multi-platform world the audience is no longer just on television, and they are not just a viewer. Thanks to user-generated-content and the various online tools people today are producers, promoters and marketers. A point that is also relevant to the audiences that PRs and journalists are working to engage and influence.
The conference set out a world that is very different to that of a few back. Consumers are more demanding and want content on the go. They also want to be able to communicate and share, both opinion and content. Social media is having a profound effect on how companies interact with consumers, how newspapers and media outlets get stories and how the customer is served.
Today, we live in a world where the audience wants ‘quality’ content that is either “free or cheap” and, as VivaKi’s Rishad Tobaccowala said, “the half life of data is minutes” as everything becomes “real-time”.
So there, go figure how to crack this one and bring the audience onside. What I do know is that as a PR we need to learn quickly how to navigate this changing media landscape.
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