This Friday, I’m giving a keynote at the University of Texas International Symposium on Online Journalism. My topic: “The end of the mourning, mewling, and moaning about the future of journalism: Why I’m a cock-eyed optimist about news.” I’d like your help. Tell me why you’re optimistic about news: what we can do now that we couldn’t do before, where you see growth, where you see new opportunities. (I’ll put the spiel up as soon as I figure out how to export Keynote with my notes.)
We’re in dire need of a little optimism. We need to see the opportunities and grab them. And here’s the clearest illustration of that need from Tim O’Reilly’s blog on the San Francisco Chronicle:
Apparently, Phil Bronstein, the editor-in-chief, told staff in a recent “emergency meeting” that the news business “is broken, and no one knows how to fix it.” (“And if any other paper says they do, they’re lying.”)
The response to this in the blog world was inspiring. Tim had his ideas. Dave Winer contributed his. Robert Scoble, like Dave, discusses the new requirements for journalism education. Adrian Monck, like like both of them, had suggestions about journalism education. Monck also sees relevant wisdom in Andy Kessler’s interview with Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg (who said the wisest thing I heard at Davos: that it is now our job in media not to create communities that already exist but to bring them “elegant organization”); ditto Om Malik. Here‘s Doc Searls’ help. Scott Karp suggests a little imagination and treating news like a charity. I disagree with that and much of what is written in these posts and the many times more in the comments under each post. But the moral to the story is that you sure won’t save the news business if you don’t try, Mr. Bronstein. And if you do try, you’ll have plenty of allies who will offer their ideas and lend their support.
Here’s a link to my PowerPoint (actually Keynote) slides. They’re pretty much meaningless without the spiel, but they give you an idea of some of the topics I’ve outlined. Please add yours.
: LATER: Now compare and contrast Bronstein’s alleged defeatism with Alan Rusbridger’s talks with his staff in the editor’s office at the Guardian (repeated disclosure: I write and consult for the Guardian). As reported by former newspaper editor and now Guardian blogger Roy Greenslade:
What really emerged, crystal clear, was Rusbridger’s restatement of the underlying reasons for making this leap into the future, even though the future itself remains unclear. He said: “The print-on-paper model [for newspapers] isn’t making money and isn’t going to make money. It’s no longer sustainable. Though the future is unknowable, we are taking an educated guess about what we should be doing and where we should be going.”
If it’s broke, in short, fix it.
: LATER: Richard Benefits offers some eloquent industrial-age advice:
Here’s what I’d tell the children:
The good news about the news is that there’s no shortage of news. The best experts forecast a nearly boundless supply of news clear into the next century, so the news conservation efforts of the past (recycling, echo-chambering, and other forms of plagiarism) are no longer necessary and will phase out as soon as we have the means to harvest the coming bumper-crop of news.
And things aren’t just rosy on the supply side, they’re looking real good on the demand side. Previous generations of news consumers had to get by on two newsfeeds a day, one before work in the morning and the other after work. Now we can graze and forage on news all day long without becoming over-educated.
The challenge to news harvesters is in the construction of the apparatus that harvests raw news, processes it, and takes it to market. In previous generations, this process was most efficient when centralized in local news factories, but today and tomorrow the process will become more decentralized, sometimes even taking place on consumer premises under the control of news robots which sift, sort, organize, and filter according to consumer preferences. The process of moving these functions from central offices to consumer equipment is just beginning, although we’ve had working prototypes of the news robot for 25 years.
The revenue picture has never been brighter, as each feed is easily supported by multiple sources of ad and subscriber fees.
The key elements are understanding that decentralization is in fact multiple centralization, and that each center of news processing is a potential revenue generator. That’s all I wish to say at the moment, but you can do the math.
And Hook ‘Em.
