Journalism is community-as-a-service
We spend a lot of effort on building trust, authentic local engagement, and ultimately a strong community through stories and experiences at WhereBy.Us. After a rough election season in which media were battered and “fake news” became a buzzword, I think what we’re working on matters now more than ever. So I wrote a little thing for Nieman Lab’s annual predictions on it. Here’s a meaty bit:
These decisions have resulted in a proliferation of content from journalism brands that many people could easily confuse with or purposefully substitute with “fake news.” Sure, Facebook’s standardized display and positioning of content doesn’t help users make informed choices, but journalism can’t shirk responsibility for cheapening the product offering.
Journalism businesses must shift away from thinking that our solution is to build more, cheaper content to create more, cheaper ad inventory. Media’s own measures of business value reflect how wrong this idea is. One-off anonymous views are far cheaper than the sustained attention of those whom we understand and who trust us. And as CPMs shrink in the age of “peak content,” media businesses are cultivating revenue streams beyond display ads — including premium subscriptions, membership models, newsletters, and events — all of which rely on the value proposition of access to and meaningful information for specific, engaged communities.
Media have advantages in this effort. Journalists are pretty damn good at making authentic, impactful, and important stories. They’ve always built products that help people create, share, and unite around ideas. Some companies even have significant scale. It’s time to leverage these tools and recenter around the highest value proposition we have: engaged communities.
