The Engagement Manifesto: Part II
On January 29th, 2016 a group of journalists, entrepreneurs, newsroom leaders and students gathered in Macon, Georgia for a summit sponsored by the Center for Collaborative Journalism and GroundSource focused on reimagining the relationships between news organizations and the communities they serve. The catalyst for the summit was twofold: The emergence of a community of practitioners within newsrooms advocating for deeper and more inclusive community engagement, and a growing recognition on their part of the entrenched cultures and habits within the news profession that are blocking meaningful change.
The product of this summit was a manifesto in three parts each of which shines a light on the dissatisfaction with the current culture of journalism, articulates a vision for more genuine engagement, and suggests some concrete, simple first steps that can help break down resistance to change.
Part I: The audience’s perspective and Part III: The newsroom’s perspective.
Part II: Management’s perspective (This was written by a group of journalists and managers, adopting the role of the publisher of a large news organization.)
There is no question about it: We in the publishing world should have seen this coming. We knew classifieds were going to collapse, years before they did.
Still: No one could have predicted how quickly it would come, or how devastating it would be, when the bottom (helped along by the economy) simply fell out of the economic model.
Now, our loyal customers are growing older, the advertisers are turning elsewhere, and the speed of the change is ferocious. Many of us have debt burdens. The public doesn’t expect to have to pay for news. And no one really knows what the new business model will be. Plus, let’s face it: It’s harder to stay nimble as we get older. And those of us in power tend to be older.
It’s harder to stay nimble as we get older. And those of us in power tend to be older.
The frustrations are enormous: We’re not making much money off our new initiatives in digital and mobile. (We used to worry about print dollars and digital dimes, but now it’s more like digital pennies.) We are sorely lacking in diversity, and it’s impossible to keep our bright young hires from bailing for more forward-looking organizations.
Our most loyal customers (the ones whose eyeballs the advertisers are primarily paying for) are dying. New subscriptions are a dream of the past. The newsroom is hanging on by its fingernails, trying desperately to protect itself from change — and the news staff STILL feels it’s a sin to work with the sales staff.
We are determined to do the best we can to protect this organization’s responsibility to provide the public with reliable information. To do that, we know we must keep afloat financially. We understand that we need to make investments in the future, but we can barely afford simply to keep the operation going, and still the layoffs come, wave after wave.
We get no support from corporate for meaningful innovation or entrepreneurial thinking, given the risk inevitably involved.
In the meantime, we’re all too aware that we have lost standing in the community, lost authority, lost trust, lost cachet and lost brand value. We used to matter, and now we don’t.
In the meantime, we’re all too aware that we have lost standing in the community, lost authority, lost trust, lost cachet and lost brand value. We used to matter, and now we don’t.
We are absolutely determined not to end our careers on this miserable note. We have to find a way to move forward, however formidable the unknowns.
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Our vision: What’s clear from these decades of turmoil is that our role as publishers is absolutely critical in whether or not journalism collapses or sustainably evolves.
We need to pave a path forward with the communities we serve from a stance of service, stewardship, and as collaborators. For too long we’ve assumed the position of experts, as knowing what’s best, and exerting our power rather than sharing it with those we serve. Clearly, we no longer live in a world where our brand’s megaphones trump the power of individuals.
We need to pave a path forward with the communities we serve from a stance of service, stewardship, and as collaborators.
Our success will rest on separating from our fear of disappointing shareholders, stakeholders and advertisers. We are ready to recognize that we are in charge of redefining and realigning our business goals with metrics and meaning.
The writing is on the wall: engaging audiences is no longer a nice thing to do, but essential for our survival. It is our job to prove to our communities that what we do is of value. Working with our communities, while being transparent about our process and our struggles, is the most direct way to show them our value.
We are ready to recognize that we are in charge of redefining and realigning our business goals with metrics and meaning.
Our success will also depend on whether or not we can overcome our fear of competition and look instead toward partnership in service to the greater public good. We know it’s possible to create a world in which formerly competitive newsrooms rise above the egos, and instead pool our resources toward creating more powerful, broader and a deeper diversity of stories.
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We need to have a transition plan for where we want to be.
Just as we can’t leap to all digital without destroying our business model, we also can’t pretend that what we’ve traditionally done is going continue to bring in the same amount of money in two years’ time.
We need to form our vision within the newsroom, working with our journalists to establish this — modeling how we want external communities to work with us by starting inside our own house.
And then we need to work on a new contract with our communities — both existing audiences, and those we haven’t reached yet, by approaching them and better understanding their needs, and our place in fulfilling them.
As part of our contract, we also need to be clear to ourselves and to everyone else where the line between marketing and journalism lies — and what we will never do with people’s data.
We need to work on a new contract with our communities — both existing audiences, and those we haven’t reached yet, by approaching them and better understanding their needs, and our place in fulfilling them.
This phase will be painful. Not all journalists will want to be part of the new vision.
Revenues will likely fall, in the short and possibly the medium term. We need to remember the importance and value of good journalism. We have to maintain a minimal level of quality in our print product — the golden goose may be dying, but she is still laying occasional eggs.
We recognize that growth on this path will be slow, at least at first. Until we can model a deep and lasting commitment to being within, and listening to, communities, we won’t be able to reap the benefits of our new approach.
We recognize that growth on this path will be slow, at least at first. Until we can model a deep and lasting commitment to being within, and listening to, communities, we won’t be able to reap the benefits of our new approach.
New opportunities, both journalistic and financial, will emerge — we need to be flexible and imaginative enough from the start to make sure that we are able to recognize and capitalize on them. Our newsroom will also reflect the diversity of voices we are hearing.
Our new approach will present new opportunities to train and hire people from within these communities.
We recognize the need for new business and distribution models. It’s time for us to re-evaluate our shareholders and advertisers to find out what’s the most valuable.
Here’s the bottom line: the public is accustomed to getting news and information for free. But truly engaged audiences will pay for certain things. People will pay for aspects of our work if we do it well enough, we make it easy enough, and we deliver what no one else can, either online or in person.
Here are some concrete steps we can take toward this vision:
Create unique products: Create content and experiences that people can only get from us. This includes non-news experiences. Creating these exclusive products will increase our value.
Regain platform control: We don’t have control over several of the platforms that we use. We realize that in order to move forward, we need to be able to take more ownership over our work and be able to reap some financial benefits from these platforms.
Learn from other paid platforms: What are paid platforms like Netflix/Hulu getting right when it comes to engaging an audience to the point that they’re motivated to pay?
Prioritize partnerships: Collaboration and partnership will bring in new audiences and more opportunities for ad revenue.
Empower our newsrooms: Give our best, brightest and most eager staff whatever resources and time we can to experiment and, yes, fail. While of course we can’t know if our experiments will work, we do know that not making this space seals the fate we’re hoping to escape.
Acknowledge our community members:
- Reward community members who participate, acknowledge their help and their value.
- Create audience engagement models that enable real revenue, without a ton of overhead costs. Community events are an example.
Reimagine how our journalism operates in a community-centered age: We need to let go of the broadcast model.
We need to move to being a high-value member of different communities, one who has the time and resources to focus on this work — as a fact checker, a researcher, a listener, an aggregator, an expert — while also empowering other community members to adopt these roles themselves to improve our work.
We can no longer stand at the top of the hill, yelling through a megaphone at everyone below. They’re now all wearing headphones, talking to each other. We need to move ourselves to be in those conversations.
Now read the Engagement Manifesto, Part III: The newsroom’s perspective.
