Brands are a future for journalism. No, really.
“Journalism is doomed! It’s all clickbait, sponsored posts and press releases these days!”
That’s the cry you’ll hear from people who are, rightfully, worried about the future of the media.
There’s plenty to be worried about. Falling ad revenues, coupled with people expecting to get their news and comment for free, is squeezing publishers’ bottom line. Those journalists still in regular work are under pressure to do ‘more with less’, which leads to corners being cut as they pump out ‘content’ to post-per-day quotas rather than spending time out in the field meeting contacts and breaking stories. Meanwhile, the rise of ad-blocking software means what advertising revenue they can pull in is taking a hit.
Depressing, right?
I’m a little more optimistic than many about the future of media because there’s nothing that says we have to rely solely on traditional publishers for our media diet. What about the role that brands and other businesses can play?
I can see you rolling your eyes. “Oh no, he’s not going to say that content marketing is anything like real journalism, is he?” Well, no, it’s not. But stop sarcastically sharing that ‘Mattress Company Hires Journalists’ article for a minute and realize that it doesn’t mean that brands and other businesses can’t offer real journalism.
Consider my former colleague Alex Wilhelm, who after stints at The Next Web and TechCrunch is now Editor-in-Chief at Mattermark.
Mattermark’s whole raison d’être is selling data about the technology business, so it makes sense that they’ve hired someone to head up a blog that offers real analysis of the financial end of tech — something most publications gloss over if they touch it at all.
Another former colleague, Nate Swanner, is about the make a leap from The Next Web to job portal Dice, where he’ll be writing about technology for their blog.
“People visit Dice because they want solid insight, not because they’re casual observers who stumbled upon a catchy post via Facebook or Twitter. Engaging a crowd which has come to learn how tech affects their lives and careers is incredibly attractive to me.”
I firmly believe that talented journalists can thrive away from traditional media companies. Look at the benefits:
- There should be less pressure to follow the crowd by writing trashy clickbait if your employer is trying to position themselves as a ‘quality’ source of knowledge.
- Ad revenue isn’t a concern, so pandering to the clicks of the masses and worrying about ad-blockers can take a back seat.
- These companies often have marketing budgets that mean they can pay better than a traditional journalist’s salary.
Not THE solution —but A solution
That sounds like a utopia, but there are concerns. An employer looking at this the wrong way might want their freshly-hired journalist to drive direct conversions to paying customers. And anyone who’s read Dan Lyons’ book ‘Disrupted’ knows what can happen when a non-traditional media company hires a journalist but doesn’t know what to do with them.
The wise way for an employer to think of it is as raising the value of their brand by publishing unique news and insight. At its best, this ‘content’ (I really hate that word) should match up to the quality of the most respected publishers out there.
Out goes content marketing fluff like ’10 ways website optimization is like Game of Thrones,’ and in comes intelligent insight into the way the website optimization is changing the world, written by journalists who deeply know and care about the topic.
“Oh dear, Martin,” you say. “What’s wrong with you? Do you really think a company producing content as a marketing effort can ever match the values of fairness and neutrality that readers deserve from the best media?”
To you, oh skeptical reader, I ask you ‘why not?’
Guided by respect
The number one value for any publisher of any kind should be respect for the reader. That means not misleading them or taking advantage of them. Any company acting as a publisher can achieve that and produce excellent journalism without turning it into a blatant sales channel.
What about conflicts of interest? Surely writing about the space in which you operate will lead you to inadvertently favor your own products? Not necessarily, if you have a good editor who knows how to work around such conflicts transparently, and an employer who gives them the freedom to do that.
Anyway, doesn’t your favorite newspaper or TV station have conflicts of interest in the stories it covers? As long as they respect the reader and declare any conflicts that arise, people accept that it’s just part of life. With the right team and a strong set of guidelines around what it produces, I see no reason why any company can’t be a respected publisher, too.
Not every publisher needs to break the Watergate scandal, that’s something that other people are tackling. And to be fair, most of these ‘new’ publishers wouldn’t want to get into deep investigative stuff, but that doesn’t mean they can’t produce valuable output that contributes to the national debate in a meaningful way.
That’s certainly what we aim for with our blog output at Tech North, and we’re just getting started. And with that in mind, why don’t you come and work with me? Our colleagues at Tech City UK in London are hiring an Editor right now, and it’s a role that’s totally in line with what I’ve said above.
That paragraph right there above this one? Now that’s content marketing.
