How real facts beat alternative facts
Mainstream and stakeholder-driven media¹ (Center for Public Integrity, Greenpeace or Breitbart for instance), have never been more polarised: as the former’s aim at neutrally imparting news to the general public is alienating entire demographics, the latter seems to be thriving with its strong support for smaller pockets of readers to influence the topics they care about. Mark Lee Hunter, Luk N. Van Wassenhove and Maria Besiou expose in the following article, and in their new book, how stakeholder-driven media can remedy to the many issues of the news industry today. This topic will be discussed at the GEN Summit 2017 in Vienna 21–23 June.
Do “alternative facts” count more than straight facts? That’s the narrative of the Trump administration, as it basks in a narrow victory despite the opposition of the near-totality of American mainstream media (MSM). But it would be more accurate to say that fake news beats thin news. Trump targeted an industry that, according to the benchmark Pew Center’s studies, has steadily lost capacity, credibility and audiences over the past two decades. Downsizing left a hole, and Trump drove through it.
Meanwhile, certain parts of the news industry have been growing just as steadily. We call them “stakeholder-driven media” (SDM). They serve communities that want to affect, or are affected by big organisations like firms, industries and governments. They include user and customer forums, niche publications like Responsible-investor.com or High Country News (hcn.org), and websites for people with a cause, like Greenpeace.org or Breitbart.com.
These proliferating media engage viewers who cannot obtain comparable information, in either focus, quantity or quality, from the downsized MSM. SDM also defend the interests of their users and their communities. They go beyond telling their audience what matters; they propose action. They use facts not only to inform, but to build influence.
There are two main ways that SDM achieve influence. One is to stir up the passions of people who can be persuaded by the “alternative”, badly sourced and sharply slanted facts that you find on sites like TheGatewayPundit.com. The other is to supply more critical users with verified, actionable data and insight, the way Politico Pro does for the Beltway community.
Both types of SDM are building their capacities. Breitbart wants to open bureaus in Europe, seeking influence over the populist wave that is cresting in Europe. Greenpeace, which has invested in its proprietary media networks and research capacity since 1995, created an investigative news unit in 2016, and says investigation will be one of the organisation’s three strategic pillars.
In the past decade, MSM allowed SDM investigations onto their platforms. The data — and leaks — filled blockbuster stories resulting from these partnerships, like The Panama Papers, clearly proved that the public misses the watchdog capacity that MSM lost when they downsized.
But the key takeaway is that the most informed and influential members of a media’s audience require a high level of unique content. Beyond civic responsibility, it is a matter of self-interest. Since the beginnings of the news industry in the 17th century, a core paying audience for media has been people whose livelihood depends on the news they buy. They look for media that provide them with the competitive advantage of foresight, whether in business, society or politics. That is what the best SDM do for their communities. They are not mere manipulators; they are also partners of their users, working for their success.
The MSM cannot and will not regain such audiences unless they forge deeper partnerships with SDM. It is not only a matter of publishing occasional blockbusters. The deeper challenge is assuring key audience segments a steady stream of actionable information and insight. At the moment, and no doubt for years to come, MSM lack that capacity. To take an obvious example, there is no MSM organisation in the world today that offers environmental coverage comparable to Greenpeace.org, which is one reason that Greenpeace has 3 million paying members.
The next step in partnering will be for mainstream media, individually or in consortia, to invest in stakeholder-driven mediaSD as business ventures targeted at specific communities. Those partnerships will generate value in two key ways.
- The first is building capacity, and in particular talent. The news industry is losing the fight for talent to other businesses, and it won’t win by offering ambitious youths the opportunity to do “churnalism” for slave wages. A chance to do watchdog reporting for a community that needs it is rather more attractive.
- The second route to value will be monetising under-served communities. For example, George Monbiot recently imagined a BBC program focused on “rural investigative journalism” that could also be a SDM: “It might cover the speculative property boom that has seen the price of farmland rise 12-fold in four years… It might explore the rural housing crisis… It might discuss farm subsidies, which currently represent perhaps the most regressive transfer of tax receipts of the modern age[.]”
We would add: It might thus federate and defend the different constituencies that have skin in the game. And it would have no shortage of potential sponsors.
A key issue in such ventures will be how to reconcile MSM objectivity and the outspokenly partisan stance of SDM, while maintaining high standards for truth. SDM are not trying to be objective or neutral toward the issues they engage. They seek instead to be transparent about what they want and how they will get it. In contrast, for MSM objectivity, not transparency, is the core of credibility: Why would anyone believe us, if we already know what we’d like the facts to show?
The first answer is that objectivity is no longer a convincing value proposition for many users; otherwise MSM credibility would not be falling to historic lows. MSM need to learn more about how transparency can create value, and running a SDM can teach them.
Moreover, there is no absolute reason why credibility must be based on objectivity rather than transparency (or expertise). Objectivity is essentially a promise to tell the unbiased facts. The news industry is unique in its expectation that viewers will accept such a promise at face value. In other industries, managers presume that customers need proof of claims.
That is why procedures like ISO certification exist — to open a window into how a firm does its work. Such standards assure that production and management processes aim to meet certain benchmarks. The processes are documented, then audited by third parties. Programs are put in place to reduce the differences between the benchmarks and the reality. The procedures aren’t perfect, and neither are the people who carry them out (as scandals with certified schools in the US have shown). But they usually pull organisations toward improved outcomes. And they are used by firms for branding, as a sign that a partner is reliable.
We’re not saying that the news industry needs ISO certification. We’re saying that MSM can either go on competing with SDM, or find innovative ways to collaborate and brand with them. Competing with SDM looks like a losing strategy. In contrast, collaboration with SDM shows promise, but no one in the news industry has fully explored its potential. What are we waiting for?
¹ Stakeholder-driven media is defined in as “media created and controlled by communities of practice and interest”, stakeholders are described as “people who affect or are affected by issues and organisations.”
About the authors
Mark Lee Hunter is the author of Story-Based Inquiry: A manual for investigative journalists (UNESCO 2009) and a founding member of the Global Investigative Journalism Network.
Luk N. Van Wassenhove is Henry Ford Chaired Professor of Manufacturing and Director of the Humanitarian Research Group at INSEAD.
Maria Besiou is Professor of Humanitarian Logistics at Kühne Logistics University.
This article is adapted from their new book, Power is Everywhere: How stakeholder-driven media build the future of watchdog media. For a free download, click here.
Michael Jude — Stratecast/Frost & Sullivan
“Journalism as a craft has been significantly devalued by the last election, where major news sources dropped all pretense of objectivity in an effort to influence the election.” (TechNewsWorld, 12 January 2017)
Gerard Baker — The Wall Street Journal
“The world is hungrier than ever for reliable, objective, accurate journalism.” (GlobeNewsWire, 14 November 2016)
David Remnick — The New Yorker
“More real journalism is the answer. If that sounds righteous, so be it. The job, done at its best, has not changed. And when a lie is a lie — when you can discern willful inaccuracy, when you can discern deception and not merely error — we should call it what it is.” (The Times-Picayune, 26 January 2017)
Ricardo Bilton — Nieman Journalism Lab
“Here’s an uncomfortable truth for many: The rise of Breitbart, the alt-right news site that helped propel Donald Trump into the White House, can teach journalists a lot about how to build audiences, affect political change, and build news businesses” (Nieman Journalism Lab, 27 January 2017)
