The Old Journalism is Dead
To reference the words of popstar Taylor Swift: The old journalism can’t come to the phone right now. Why? Because it’s dead.
While the world has evolved with technology, most traditional media has not kept pace. Traditional media has not adapted quickly enough to the digital first landscape of media and the development of new technologies that are crucial for information dissemination and storytelling. The old version of journalism isn’t going to work anymore and if it is going to survive it needs to change. But that change is not going to be a simple solution, as the problem is complicated.
One of the key problems with the current state of traditional media is its focus on the wrong KPIs or metrics. As Raju Narisetti writes in an article for the Nieman Lab, that metrics are critical “to both our journalism and the business model that supports our journalism.” Though, with the onset of the internet journalists have looked for some ways to quantify their success online, many of these so-called “vanity” metrics might not be as meaningful, there is still much to learn from the data media companies can gather. Journalists need to embrace the new age of big data as one component to help fix the current state of media. Narisetti writes, “Big (and little) data, and our emphasis on it, should always be as a complementary, gut-check verification asset, and an opportunity to form deeper relationships with our readers, not a wholesale replacement for sound journalistic practices.”
It seems that many media companies are fixated on the wrong indicators and are missing opportunities to build real audiences for their content. Many believe that journalists should be more focused on audience development. The vast amounts of data media companies have access to about their audiences should be used to assist in developing these audiences and becoming more strategic in reaching different groups.
Chris Moran, an editor of the Guardian, writes, “We should be thinking about who will read something and how.” He says we should be doing this by “Asking pretty simple questions about the audience for a piece and the way it will reach them should be at the heart of every commissioning decision.” So, not only should the audience be at the heart of everything, but journalists need to keep in mind that while traditional ways of reaching past audience segments were more broad, new methods need to keep in mind that all audiences should not be lumped together.
New technologies are part both the problem and the solution to the changing media landscape. They allow journalists to be creative in how they tell stories but also reach different audiences. In the words of Ray Soto, “2018 is the year we all need to stop making excuses and jump head first into the unknown. We must embrace these technologies and understand the future of media will not be driven by what we’re already comfortable with.”
It is crucial that the industry is willing to push boundaries, but also that they are prepared to continue evolving. The New York Times Innovation report talks about the need to be fluid, because, “Transformation can be a dangerous word in our current environment because it suggests a shift from one solid state to another, it implies there is an end point.” The current environment is constantly evolving in that there is a need to be agile and ready to change with each new shift. Even if traditional media companies may make the needed changes now, they will only survive if they continue preparing for the industry to continue evolving in the future.
