Jul 06 2007
Squeezing out the middle man
Two blog posts today draw attention to the fact that newspapers and TV stations are turning from producing news to buying it:
Buzzmachine: “The biggest challenge facing local news organizations today is figuring out how they can gather more and produce less. That is, how can they help other people produce, so the news organizations have something worth gathering?” Increasingly Jarvis argues “Individual bloggers will produce reporting”
Editors Weblog: “One hundred television and radio stations have become new affiliates of The Online Video Network (OVN), hosted by The Associated Press and MSN….AP’s online video network offers a powerful content solution for AP members who are looking to attract more visitors to their site with breaking news, the latest from around the nation and world; and investigations from some of the top journalists in the business”
If news is being produced by citizen journalists and a handful of multinational news agencies, what value will local/regional news outlets provide? Apart from the advertising, of course?
[UPDATE 07/08/07] Terry Heaton takes up the hyperlocal baton:
“I believe strongly that niches are where it’s at downstream and that the long tail is the economic model for tomorrow’s media, so I very much like the “idea” of hyperlocal. But really, folks, Google is the hyperlocal model and their global mission ought to be our local mission — to organize our community’s information and make it universally accessible and useful.”
- pomoblog. An encouraging prescription as long as Google and AP don’t get the idea that they can aggregate content from citizen bloggers without help from regional news organizations.
[UPDATE 07/09/07] Scott Karp points to an active local community site where the news is delivered and discussed on community forums. No advertising revenue or professional journalists in sight.
organization, aggregation and comment/opinion are all valuable contributions that newspapers can bring to the table.
But look at blogs. 90% plus do not create original content of any sort, but they do fine.
Peter, I would say of the two examples you cite, the first is taking the media in the right direction, and the second in the wrong one. By going out into hyperlocal communities, the media are generating original content that is competitively defensible. But, by joining the AP on one more pooled news venture, they are making themselves even more dependent on content that can be found elsewhere (Steve Boriss, TheFutureOfNews.com)
[…] Squeezing out the middle man If news is being produced by citizen journalists and a handful of multinational news agencies, what value will local/regional news outlets provide? Apart from the advertising, of course? (tags: community journalism) […]
Karen, you are correct, but news agencies can organize and aggregate, and columnists no longer require newspapers to disseminate their views.
Steve, I live in a rural mountain community (Colorado ski country) and must admit to serious reservations with regard to hyperlocal news. The main focus of our local papers is hyperlocal news. This focus is second only to their over-riding concern with advertising revenue.
Great quote from Lord Northcliff linked by Mark Hamilton :
“News is something someone wants suppressed. Everything else is just advertising”.
For the most part it is only competition that forces news organizations to cover stories that influential community memebers/advertisers want suppressed. Hyperlocal news is attractive to many news groups precisely because there is no competition.