American Onslaught

Prior to starting this blog and co-founding three new media companies, I worked as a journalist. Those who have followed some of what I have written and what I have been doing may know this already. And if you don’t, you do now. 

While working as a journalist, I was a reporter for a daily newspaper in central New Hampshire. I covered everything from grandmas birthday to the murder down the street. I did develop a specialty in investigative reporting. I wasn’t something that I pushed for, but it just kind of happened. Actually, below I have one of my investigative articles posted.

The reason I tell you my background first, is because it has a lot of relevance on what I am going to write about in this post. Over the course of my time as a journalist, though it may have only been for a few years, I took notice of a few things. Mainly, that the industry leaders, managers, and owners had and continue to have their eyes closed behind the wheel.

What I mean by this is these industry leaders thought the same old way of doing things that worked back in the 1950s would continue to work in the changing world of today. Now if your not an ostridge, having had your head buried in the sand for the last 10 years, then you know things have changed. Things continue to change. No one is connecting the same way they have always connected. And these changes are having an effect on journalism.

While I worked I watched. I watched as my boss, month after month, had trouble meeting sales quotas. The company had to lay off people, and at every step cashflow became more of an issue. 

But what was happening was entirely within his control. You see, the website of the paper lacked even the very basics. It took two years to allow readers to comment on an article. Even today, three years later, there are no advertisements embedded in the articles. 

I remember he would always talk about the 90 year old subscriber in some remote town and what he/she would like to read. Well, I have news for you, that is a dying market segment (literally).

So the paper’s ailing condition was not as a result of hard times, disinterest in news itself, but it was the unwillingness to change. This what was killing the paper and many papers around the country.

These newspapers are not dying, quite the opposite, they are committing suicide before our eyes.

So what is the solution. Adapt. That is the only course. Many of these newspapers, far from the national level, may never become a Digg or StumbleUpon, but they can adapt.

Recently, I read about two newspapers in Detroit that seemed to have the right idea. You see this papers recognized a fundimental thing, times they are a changing and have been for some time. In realizing this they noticed that their website traffic continued to rise while subscriptions continued to fall.

Instead of doing something that my former boss might have done, they decided to adapt to the emerging online market and devote resources there while making print news a-la-cart.

Within Q1 of next year, the newspapers will add digital news channels and offer subscription-based electronic editions, while reducing frequency of its print products. Home delivery of the papers will be limited to Thursdays, Fridays, and Sundays, and print editions — some just single sections — will be sold on newsstands every day. The company also aims to place more emphasis on digital audio and video and mobile offerings.

So there is hope for newspapers after all, if we can get them to just put down the gun and take a step back. My advise to those owners out there, fire your current managers and executive editors. Then bring in some young minded people that are in tune with the changing face of media, and put them in charge.

Some may think the sell off of assets and struggling business models of media conglomerates, like Viacom and News Corp., are merely a symptom of an ailing economy. However, others argue a different cause.

With the dawning of the Internet, something happened within media. This was the beginning of technological socialization. Everything began with the desire for information; information about everything. This slowly blossomed into social media, which let’s face it is really information about people. 

Now, the Internet as a whole is being taken one step further. It is going beyond merely socializing or information seeking and is becoming something more, much more. Users are driving content in ways never before seen. 

This New Media Revolution can best be illustrated by the analogy of a third grade classroom. In third grade there was that old adage, “No question is a stupid question.” But it was third grade, so no one ever raised their hand.

Imagine sitting in that classroom for years and years on end. With the same confusing lessons being taught and those same questions never resolved. At some point, those third grade hands would start to go up. And that is precisely what is happening within media today.

Instead of waiting for the teacher to call on them, these users have begun answering their own questions, for one another. In doing so they themselves have crafted the new, youthful face of media.

This has lead to the transformation in not just one medium but all forms of media. Billboards are being digitally crafted for video games, television programing is being exclusively aired on the Internet, and there is still so much more to come.

“It’s all about on-demand content. Users are screaming for what they want, and other users are listening. All we have to do, as new media companies, is listen too,” said Chief Financial Officer and Co-Founder of Rico Media, Inc. Steven Gonzalez.

And Gonzalez is right. Companies like Digg and Revision3 are listening to users and giving them exactly what they ask for. 

Digg is a new media news source that is the latest in online publications. Instead of some grey haired editor deciding what people should know, users “Digg” or vote for article either they submit or find on the Internet, and the articles with the leading votes go to the top for all to see. This set up makes users the sole drivers of content.

Revision3, on the other hand, is a new take on the classic television network. Instead of being aired on any given cable provider, subject to the edits of the Federal Communications Commission, these shows solely broadcast on the Internet. While there is some variation of these internet television websites, the main difference being who can post a show, all bend to the viewer’s whim. Watch what you want, when you want to watch it.

There is an added benefit to the new media revolution, and not just centered around content. Revision3’s Chief Executive Officer Jim Louderback has been quoted as saying the production costs for an internet television show is about 10 percent of what it costs to product a traditional network television show. The significance of this is more than it may appear. For the first time in decades, significant cost or substantial monetary investment is not a barrier to entry in this industry.

This new playbook written by media consumers has effectively done away with the old, and has crafted an entirely new game. Before 2008, it would not have been possible to gain A list celebrity status by simply having an internet presence and a strong following. 

But individuals like Gary Vaynerchuk have done just that. Parlaying their niche, in his case a internet television wine tasting show, into all out fame and fortune. And he is not the only one.

In this time of flux, companies emerging in this new media revolution are taking full advantage of the changing state of things, and are trying to take a small part of a market formerly barred by conglomerates.

However, new media is not entirely what its name suggests. It actually is a term that refers to a transition, rather than anything completely new. Shows are still shows, whether on the internet or television, radio is still radio even if it is a podcast, and news stories are still stories even if they are written by a reader. New media is just a way to explain the transformation that happens every so often within the communications industry.