Channing TurnerMCO 525: Final Proposal PaperNovember 30, 2009

Reimagining Journalism and the ‘Service’ Media BusinessModel

The news media is in crisis. Massive layoffs, budget cutting,newspapers closing and declining audiences have sent the giants of media into a panic, spurring journalists across the country to searchfrantically for solutions. The Internet resides at the core of the problemand salvation for news, providing an explosion of innovation whiledisrupting traditional processes and business models. News media ispresented with a unique challenge and opportunity to reshape theindustry. But this isn’t a choice. News media cannot simply opt out of the future and continue with the old model. Social and market forceshave altered the way people conceive of and consume news regardlessof how editors and media moguls contend they

should

look at news. The current market runs short on patience for idealistic journalists. Yet,optimism abounds. The future of journalism is clutched between theinvisible hand of the market and the unfamiliar hand of innovation. Byunderstanding the causes of the crisis, surveying current trends andreimagining journalism’s role in the market, salvation may be found bycombining new-model approaches with the conceptualization of newsmedia as a purveyor of services.

Rethinking the News: What is quality journalism?

Turner 2Before rethinking the future of news media, entrepreneurs muststart with what future news media should provide. What does journalism seek to accomplish? The Committee of Concerned Journalists sums up the traditionalist conception of journalism in theirstatement of purpose: “The central purpose of journalism is to providecitizens with accurate and reliable information they need to function ina free society.” The Committee further outlines several core principles:truthful information, loyalty to citizens, verification, independence,monitor of power, dedicated public forum, making the significantinteresting and relevant, compressive and proportional coverage, andpersonal conscience. These principles outline a general idea of whatnews organizations and journalists have traditionally sought to provide. Yet, to cling tenaciously to these principles ignores the realopportunity of the entrepreneur: to rethink journalism entirely. Quality journalism need not conform to the expectations of traditional journalism. Many traditionalists view the product of journalism as acommodity — stories and packages written on deadline, delivered to areader on a set time schedule — but newer, more-salient approachesto future journalism see it as a service. What does the reader want outof our service? Equally important, what services will readers pay for? These fundamental questions provide a more open-ended approach tonews content and allow for greater business-model flexibility. Theyalso focus efforts on the crucial question for future news media: What

Turner 3has value? Quality journalism has value. The trick to reimagining themedia business models is to find or create quality journalism, that is, journalism with value.

Abandoned By Ads: Problems with the old model in theInternet age

Traditionally, the content value of news has never paid for itself. The media business model operates around selling readers toadvertisers. Companies sell “reach,” or the ability to access people andhomes. The effectiveness of reach is traditionally measured in CPM, orcustomers per thousand, and thus, mass was key for advertisers — themore eyeballs, the more potential consumers. This formula, however,proved very inefficient for advertisers. Traditional media organizationsboast considerable readerships, but advertisers only care about aselect group of people, namely those interested in buying theirproduct. The rest represents wasted marketing dollars. So, thetraditional mass-advertising model worked gloriously for twentieth-century media companies, while advertisers were stuck with the bestthey could do in a bad situation. The Internet turned this relationship upside down. It eliminatesinefficiency by cutting out uninterested readers. Through key-wordsearches and tracking techniques, it allows advertisers to focus theirmessage on sections of the population more likely to buy their product.However, this boom to advertising disrupts the media’s traditional