Could Smaller Indiana be a player in the "new" media business?

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Tom Butler on June 3, 2009 at 11:51pm

This is a very interesting discussion and good debate. I have thought about this topic quite a bit because I worked for a local newspaper in the marketing research department for a couple of years, but my background before or after was with other business ventures and quite a bit of them.

Newspapers and news organizations for that matter do not operate like all other for profit companies. The newsroom had a high and mighty higher purpose that this company had about their approach to marketing. They felt like they had to that they had to completely separate themselves from the revenue side of the business in order to keep their "journalistic integrity."

I had a great talk with some business consulting friends who did work helping Universities and Churches grow. They had a similar experience with some of the operational folks there.

As a guy who worked for companies before where it was "everyone's job" to do sales, I found it strange. Their news room did not want to try to write for their audience like many did, they were searching for some other higher neural goal - They were one of the last of their breed. The true reporting business as the neo-"Fourth Estate" of government creates kind of a hybrid company that had higher purposes than the average company...and newspapers once sacrificed a bit of profitability 15 to 30 years ago for this. Newspapers were not the most profitable companies with a 10% to 15% net income..and back then before recent times, that was acceptable for large public or private owners....but then the internet, Rupert Murdoch, Ted Turner and the Hedge Fund pump and dump approach to business came along....and it just was not possible to have the newspapers of old anymore. Newsrooms got hacked, deep investigative journalism everywhere, even on TV went away to a certain extent and lots of fun "feel good" fluff and cheaper opinion, especially on TV crept in.

Quaility suffered even more and the public lost even more interest, feedback loop.

In my mind, if the public wants good journalism and it can't be supported by private sector ad revenue anymore, then the not for profit model will have to fund good reporting and it already is happening in Great Britain with The Scottsman (which is run by a Charitable Foundation) and with the best newspaper of all - my beloved - Christian Science Monitor.

True journalism integrity is more of a worthy goal than a destination. Saying your reporting is 100% neutral is like saying your company is 100% efficient. A very interesting web site to go to is www.newsprism.com. The physical space located from right to left on the page is determined by a heuristic algorithm created by a linguistics professor from The University of South Carolina.

If you want to really be able to "bust" the neutrality of reporters, study linguistics.

Yes the internet "amateur" bloggers are for a general rule less neutral than reporters and stick to the easier cheaper to manufacture opinion most of the time, but it is getting better all the time as they evolve their art. Conversely during the last few years the rest of the media business reporting has gone down the tubes.

Ariana Huffington is saying that she is going to hire some deep invesigative reporters of her own, so perhaps in a year or two she will have her own 60 minutes online - albeit likely askew a bit to the left just like she is.

There is amazing research that you can find on the internet and no where else. There is no reason that the method of delivery should determine neutrality or journalistic excellence and as a public service message - Our society depends on good investigative journalism....so support them wherever and however they need to be. Perhaps in the future they will all be like that reporter in Iraq that was funding his internet reporting with Pay Pal...and doing it!

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Steph Woodward on June 4, 2009 at 1:08am

BRAVO!!! Brilliantly written. I agree entirely. I don't think I could express my own sentiments about this topic any better, so I'll simply say that I second your entire post.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Mike Seidle on June 4, 2009 at 10:17am

Pat -

Sure. There's not much propping up the newspapers, and aggressive web based companies are soooo much smaller.

▶ Reply to This

Permalink Reply by Tom Marsh on June 5, 2009 at 4:13pm

From the standpoint of total users, SI will never be a "player" to rival Facebook or MySpace--its too locally focused. But in the sphere of Indiana SMBs, I think it has a huge-potential to make an impact. Much like radio and television, "localism"--a focus on local personalities, events, and places--has traditionally allowed you to build a loyal and strong audience that advertisers will want to market to.

Consider your local NBC affiliate... Yes, ER and The Tonight Show are big programs, but they're marketed as a "lead-up" and "follow-on" to a local program that represents most of the station's advertising revenue--the local news. In the same way, think of SI as the ultimate in local business news--authored by the people doing the business.

▶ Reply to This

• ‹ Previous
• 1
• 2
• 3
• 4
• Next ›
• Page