Friday, October 10, 2008
The Financial Crisis and the Future of News
What do you think the impact of the global financial crisis will be on the future of the medium that you are covering most closely? (I know, “not good,” but try to tell us something more than that.) Think about revenues, staffing, content, audiences, and competition with other media.
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Well, yeah, obviously it doesn't look good. Whether it's actually as bad as everyone says is still yet to be proved. However, I don't think the economic and other problems that have been plaguing the US news industry are as bad in the UK. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not saying there aren’t problems, but the scale seems smaller and less urgent. Granted, that could all be skewed because of geographic size, readership numbers, etc. and is just my perception.
I ran across an interesting article in today’s Guardian (A shaky state of independence) about the Independent is trying to revitalize itself with a new(-ish) editor, look, and as writer Peter Wilby says, “the paper looks fresher and more energetic. Comment and analysis have more space, politics a higher profile.” However, he goes on to suggest that the Independent is aiming “down-market” even though the cost for the weekday version went up to £1, and that ultimately it will fail.
I totally agree with Wilby’s assertion that to truly stand out in today’s marketplace you need to do something different. If everyone is covering Britney Spears’ most recent escapade or what’s happening on “the Hills”, then the public has more than enough venues to stay up-to-date on that. Do something different than everyone else and, of course, do it better. Right now, there is a serious lack of hard-hitting news coverage.
Link: http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2008/oct/13/independent-roger-alton
---To support all of this rambling and ruminating I point to a presentation made by Jeff Jarvis at the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism this month called, New Business Models for News.---
I've been following US News and World Report on-line. I have seen virtually nothing comparing the latest U.S. bailout plan and the previous one put forward by the British. The only reference I could find- after considerable searching- was these two paragraphs:
Shortly after the British government unveiled a plan to put as much as $87 billion into its banks in exchange for shares in the companies, Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson highlighted the federal government's newly acquired authority to take similar measures.
The recently enacted bailout "empowers Treasury to use up to $700 billion to inject capital into financial institutions," Paulson said Wednesday.
Will the Government Buy Stakes in U.S. Banks?
Out of curiousity I did a quick search at NPR's website and found this almost immediately: U.S. Treasury To Follow Europe, Invest In Banks
The information I'm finding on the US News site also seems to be consistently connected to Opinions from USNWR writers' blogs as follow-ups to a main story. Blogs from such as Washington Whispers, Michael Barone, Ken Walsh on the Presidency, Sam Dealy, and Bonnie Erbe (to name a few in the prominent Opinion section) seem to be an integral part of the site. It makes for a confusing mashup of information for me sometimes. Also, I wonder how editorial decisions are made as to what story leads at the top of the home page? For a couple of days its been articles about nuclear power, followed by headline links to a potpourri of Recent Stories. After 13 blocks of various story headlines with links (all very interesting perhaps but not all recent by any means) comes the Breaking News sections: National, International, and Political. These are the items I expect to see at the top of the page.
It looks like the USNWR folks are mixing up the news with the infotainment to keep us coming back. They look very much like sites described in "The State of the News Media" as a site tied to the legacy media like CNN and MSNB except USNWR is much more concerned with putting its older stories front and center along side the new ones. This is effective as it gives a sense of the development of a story over time by providing context and history. But it can also be confusing if one doesn't look at the datelines. On the other hand, the content is amazingly diverse- kind of a National Geographic of news.
I think they are carving out a niche for themselves in this regard, especially when they are the US News and World Report, not the News Report of the US. They are incorporating web 2.0 tools throughout the site like RSS feeds, video and photos, podcasting, blogs for comments, and ways to get stories directly to your mobile phone. Their coverage ranges the whole planet and pretty much anything they find out there for coverage in any of many different sections and thus has a potentially huge audience and a brand name to build on- although they are not in the top 10 news sites as defined in the article.
Anyway, all this- and with ads galore that I'd say are geared to an upscale audience- and I'd say they are positioned pretty well to stick around for awhile whatever happens with the financial crisis.
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