The Complete Miss on The Battle For Media Relevance
The battle for future of media and journalism’s relevance isn’t a battle of learning new tools of new platforms at all. Industry organizations and scene-y startups have it all wrong. The battle of media relevance is only one battle: do you have the chops to cover a sector or a subject, every which way, with impact & value?
Everything else you hear today — say out of journalists conferences like ONA16 — is noise. Always, always, play the long game.
Probably the biggest lesson in media startup world: one step removed from original content creation is one step too many removed from success. The biggest disservice media ecosystem has done to smart media entrepreneurs is to push them into starting tools and services companies.
Reportedly’s shutdown is a prime example. Transcendental media talent assuming they were creating a service. Same with Circa, Beacon Reader, and many other: fabulous talent was burned & probably won’t get back into real media creation ever.
