RALLYchat — LA Times Chats With RALLY About Future of News

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RALLY
Jul 20, 2017 · 8 min read

Mackenzie Long: Hi all! Welcome to today’s #RALLYchat, the latest in our semi-regular series of discussions among RALLY experts. Today is the first RALLYchat of its kind in which we are hosting an invited guest and friend of RALLY to participate in the discussion. Los Angeles Times Assistant Managing Politics Editor, Christina Bellantoni, joins us today to talk about the future of news. From RALLY, we have President Felix Schein, Principal Shayna Englin, and Senior Account Executive Rachel Horning also joining.

I want to kick things off with a simple — or maybe not so simple — question… How does each of you define “the news”?

Felix: It seems like there is some kind of distinction between information, opinion and reporting these days. I have way more access to information and opinion, but maybe less reporting?

Shayna: Felix is channeling Caleb Carr: It’s the truth of our age that information is not knowledge… News is that which is “new” — on it’s own or relevant to context — and somehow sheds light on the workings of our world.

Christina: There are a few things at play here. 1) In any new administration, anything is news. First foreign trip, first press conference, first public showing of your new dog, what you ate at Thanksgiving, which world leaders you called and who you give interviews to. 2) The world has become a smaller place post-Iraq and Afghanistan wars, and foreign news has found dramatically larger American audiences. You also have so many more sources in all shapes, sizes and flavors. Long way of saying that as a consumer my definition of news hasn’t changed. As a practitioner of journalism, I think our standards for news have dropped, especially in the Twitter presidency era. But that’s in response to what people want.

Shayna: I’m not sure I buy that it’s what people want, or that it’s the role of news organizations to respond to what people want in that way. Nobody needs our news sources to tell us what DT tweeted. He’s tweeting. On Twitter. Where we can see it.

Christina: Does everyone here follow @realdonaldtrump?

Shayna: We need our news sources to add information. The tweeting is new in this way. It’s causing these consequences. It’s challenging these norms. etc. I don’t follow him but I have it open in my browser almost all day. (I use Twitter strangely. I’m weird about my follow lists.)

Even if we grant an equal amount of excellent reporting across sources, it matters that the trust and reputation is so disparate.

Rachel: The definition of “news” is so contextual. Depending on your internet practices (and dare I say age), news can be seeing a snap from your friend, or celebrity crush at a music festival. You may pay that story just as much credence as others would Donald Trump tweets, or CNN, or LA Times reports.

Christina: Here’s what’s not news: pundit panels on cable networks. Even though I sometimes play one on TV!

Felix: Agree, and that distinction seems important. It also seems like non-news — the cable panels and tweets — is rapidly expanding, while reporting is still shrinking. Is that true? The latter gives me pause because it suggests eventually the vast amount of what we consume will just be information — devoid of context, fact checking, balance, etc. And that paints a bleak picture for the future of news.

Shayna: I don’t think it’s eventually, I think it’s now. Most of what we consume is context-less information; most of it just ditto-ing someone else’s context-less information.

Rachel: Felix, when following the money, yes, news is shrinking: “News websites consistently rank as the worst (or second, to blogs) for user retention; per Google Analytics benchmark data, an average of 40–60% of visitors on news websites bounce (meaning they leave without scrolling or reading at all).” That’s at least according the Forbes, if you’d consider that news :)

Christina: I’ve always been pretty data driven and at LAT we’ve seen a 27% jump in audience to our politics content this year … people are hungry for all sorts of information. Lists/tweets/analysis/data/charts/photo essays/beautiful long narratives about coal country, etc.

Felix: Do you think that jump is reflective of a more interesting news environment — more tension, new players, etc. — or are people opting back in for different reasons?

Christina: To take a term from the kids, I think people are woke. They didn’t used to want to know, and now they do.

Shayna: They didn’t used to want to know what? And what do they want to know now?

Christina: They want to know who the players are, they want to know details of legislation. They want to know how they can act. However, I think that might be an LA-specific thing because other colleagues in DC aren’t seeing the same types of information search traffic.

Felix: Along those lines, I am curious whether you think the talking head era has been good/bad for news overall — the situation where you have a Democrat and a Republican spew talking points that are mostly bull and nobody moderating?

Christina: Definitely bad.

Felix: So how does “news” bounce back from that? It seems like the “serious” outlets are finding tons of traction with so much of what they killed off years ago — in depth investigative reporting, foreign correspondents in the field, etc. That can only be a good thing, no?

Christina: I think news already is being rehabilitated. You’re seeing subscriptions up, traffic up, warm and fuzzies up. The Washington Post had 1 BILLION page views last month. (Where’s the Dr. Evil emoji?) And the reporting on what’s happening within the Trump administration is not only good, but in most cases, it is rock solid — I think because it is so threatened.

Felix: Is that just DJT refreshing the WaPo page every two seconds?

Shayna: The real challenge is the balkanization of news. Something like half of Republicans, and more than half of Trump voters, believe only two sources of news: Fox, and anyone with the last name of Trump. Meanwhile, the “mainstream” news — those sources that are going back to investigative reporting, etc. — are seeing the uptick in attention and reputation among the other half-ish of the news-seeking population. So the question about whether “news” needs to be rehabilitated or is having reputational challenges isn’t straightforward.,

Felix: I would love to blame Rs for being selective, but I wake up to the NYT, jam to NPR, and then go to bed with a quick skim of the LAT…is that as bad? Scratch that, as biased?

Christina: It really is a story-by-story basis. There are good and true stories being done by the right-wing media. There also are very misleading stories and downright false stuff too, and it’s a joke how certain networks will ignore any other reporting not favorable to Trump.

Shayna: Even if we grant an equal amount of excellent reporting across sources, it matters that the trust and reputation is so disparate. We don’t have to go down the rabbit hole of defining bias or fake news to note that a massive set of the US population thinks Fox tells the truth and CNN doesn’t — and vice versa. And that has implications.

Felix: Headed in a somewhat different direction, and since you all love data, how do you measure the impact of a CNN or FOX or MSNBC given that on any night they talk to less than 2% of the population?

Christina: It’s the only time I scold my Facebook friends, when they obviously share something without reading past the headline. It happens all the time, and among smart people!

Shayna: WORD, Christina. Felix, something like 30% of Trump voters say the Russia collusion story is “fake news” made up by the media.

Felix: Yea, I get that, but is that because they are Rs and love him, or because of something really related to news?

Shayna: I think it’s evidence that when a narrative is relentlessly pushed on a news source — and again, I’m including the Trump family twitter feeds as a news source here, because they are for many people — it sticks. And that in turns has really serious implications. I don’t think it’s hard to see how a Congressional investigation might get scuttled if a massive part of a party’s base thinks it’s BS. And to be clear, I don’t think this is just about Rs. It happens to be most relevant to Rs right now, but I think the risks are real if/when Ds claw back power, too.

Christina: I haven’t seen those man on the street quizzes in a while, but I am curious how many people in America know about the Russia investigation vs. the health care bill vs. North Korea etc. to Felix’s question.

Shayna: Maybe unpopular proposition: It doesn’t matter how many Americans. It matters how many engaged Americans. How many voting Americans. How many Americans that donate to political campaigns. And I think the evidence is strong that lots know about Russia, lots know that there’s a healthcare situation, and not all that many know about North Korea.

I would really like to think that consumers can drive the cable outlets and others to be better at demanding a foundation of facts.

Mackenzie: So how do we break that down and get back to a place where facts and reporting actually do matter? And is that the true goal for the future of news?

Shayna: My RALLY fam is almost certainly expecting this: Facts and reporting don’t matter if the goal is a populace that makes informed decisions/opinions.

Felix: So, in the spirit of this conversation, what does matter to the populace making informed decisions?

Shayna: Identity. Belief. Context. Social norms. Everybody — including everybody on this chat, assuming we’re humans — consumes our “facts” in light of how we see ourselves, our families, our communities, etc.

Rachel: As far as I know, people just want the truth.

Felix: Uhm gonna go with “no” Rachel. They can’t handle the truth — great movie that one.

Rachel: Perhaps I should clarify then. People want to “feel” as though they’re getting the truth and not “lies”.

Shayna: People want truths that verify their opinions, feelings, etc. Other truths, not so much.

Rachel: I totally agree. And it goes deep. It’s a feeling, and a sense of catharsis that they’re after.

Mackenzie: So where does the future of news fit into this conception of “truth”?

Felix: I would like to think that there is a real appetite for quality content — content that can openly point to its bias (it all has it) and flaws — but still be worth consuming and still be informative. And I would really like to think that consumers can drive the cable outlets and others to be better at demanding a foundation of facts.

Christina: I think journalists need to understand their audiences. Here at the LAT, we know people disproportionately care about immigration policy, climate change, identity, wealth disparity. And so we try to help them understand what is happening in California and in the nation on those issues. And sometimes we can leave the rest to the Associated Press

Mackenzie: Well with that, I think we’ve come to the end of our time together! Many thanks to you all for participating, and a special thank you to Christina for being part of this conversation. We hope you’ll join us again soon!

Shayna: Thank you, Christina!

Christina: My pleasure!

Felix: Good night, and good luck team.

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RALLY is an issue-driven communications firm that takes on sticky issues & finds a way to push them forward.

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