The Business Model of News Industry Must be Taught to Our Readers
In 2015, Professor Gabriel Kahn recorded his digital media consumptions and then consulted with a couple of digital advertising executives to find out how much value he might have generated in one morning for content publishers. He turned his findings into an article featured by MediaShift, How Much Is My Browsing Worth to You? A River of Nickels
While I was reading it, a big question hit me. How many people know what Professor Kahn wrote? Well, it’s not a self-evident answer for a journalism professor. MediaShift, a media analysis website, features his findings. As a journalism student, I had no clear idea previously. All I knew was that news companies got money from advertisements without little details and insights. In other words, prior to this class, I had no clue about how advertising companies estimate the value of a news company beyond clicks and views. Moreover, there are also some news media whose main revenues are not even from advertisement. ProPublica, for example, is primarily funded by donations from individuals. I think it’s fair to say the majority of our audience doesn’t know the business model of the news industry.
At the University of Southern California, the Journalism School has only one general education course, JOUR 200 the Power and Responsibility of the Press, which was just added to GE categories in 2017 Fall and not even listed in core GE categories. And JOUR 200 doesn’t teach the business model of the media industry. Although I am from China, I had my high school in Virginia. My high school did not teach me how news companies make money neither. Many of my peers I asked said they never learned that anywhere neither. The business model of news industry is part of media literacy and not common sense. It should be taught.
I came from a China, a place that doesn’t have tipping culture. So I was very confused why I need to give tips to restaurant servers or hotel cleaners when I first came to the United States. Then, I learned that these workers are paid little and they rely on tips for living. After I learned that, I became willing to tip and also be a supporter of the tipping culture, which gives me a chance to judge services. It’s same idea for journalism. People want to help and support journalism. However, there is a large hole in their knowledge about the news industry that prevents them from helping the good journalism.
Paying or subscribing is not the only path to support good journalism, though it’s most conventional and direct way. They can make economic impact on media by just being aware of their digital consumption. But first, they have to know how their behaviors will impact or influence the money going into news companies’ pockets.
An article published by Times What You Think You Know About the Web Is Wrong explains how publishers and news media have done researches and experimentation to improve the business model of news media. The value of websites, for example, is shifting from views or clicks to attention time. If we are working on this, why don’t we invite our audience to join the battle against trashy news media by simply informing them the knowledge, such as those written in this Times article?
I am the WeChat editor of USC Annenberg Media. Our WeChat platform specifically serves news for the USC Chinese community. In the past, we reported one story in each article. One of the experiments I tried this semester is a newsletter format on WeChat, and I asked my audience how they like it. The poll result is here (the translation is made by Chrome browser, and the language is slightly off).
As you can see from the above result, 76 percent of our readers voted they prefer the newsletter format. Nevertheless, these newsletters generally had about half of, or even less, views and shares than our one-story-per-article ones. I had a conversation with my executive editor. We acknowledged that newsletter is not a style that people prefer to share on social. Annenberg Media doesn’t aim for advertisement or investments. But on the WeChat platform, the numbers of followers, views and shares are more important Key Performance Indicators than others, like brand reputation, when trying to attract investment or advertising. I didn’t know that before I dove into the WeChat media platform. Thus, despite the fact that my audience likes the newsletter format, if these newsletters don’t do have higher or at least the same amount of views or shares, many advertisement-driven publishers would be less likely to keep it. Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, push alerts, and other platforms have similar issues.
I wonder if readers know how much their shares and views (tapping into a story instead of just reading its headline) can impact the money go to publishers, whether they will be more likely to tap into or share news articles they think are good. My assumption is yes because these actions are free of costs. They are the easiest and cheapest way to support journalism.
I cannot guarantee that if we inform and educate the audience how news media make money, the audience will shift their news consumption into a way that benefits high-quality journalism. However, I would say teaching the business model of the journalism industry in our education is the first step to make positive changes happen.
