An insanely busy weekend means I've probably missed the boat on this month's Carnival of Journalism, but I thought I'd get my post written anyway. Host Ryan Sholin asked us a question, based on an event he attended:
What should news organizations stop doing, today, immediately, to make more time for innovation?
And I knew what my response was, as soon as I read the question:
Stop thinking of paper as a news delivery medium.
Some people might say I'm cheating, because I'm not actually suggesting an action people should stop. But then, I don't believe that creating "innovation time" will create any innovation at all. Innovation comes from mindset changes, not time-tabling. And news organisations which aren't adopting this mindset shift are on life support already, even if they're not aware of it.
If your business is predicated on breaking news on paper, give it up now. That's a doomed effort. It ain't going to work. If you don't have competitors now who are breaking news on the web, you will do soon. And that news spreads fast; e-mail, IM, Twitter and even good ol' word of mouth will have your whole target audience aware of the story before the presses roll. And that's a slippery slope you don't want to be on. The moment your reader - your customer - starts thinking "I know most of this already" when your newspaper or magazine lands on their desk, is the moment your fate is sealed.
You are going to deliver news to your readers via the internet. You break it on the web, you break it as soon as you have it, and you develop it online. And then, and only then, do you analyse, contextualise and develop it on paper. And you hope and pray that you've done a good enough job developing it on the web that your readers will trust you enough, and value your judgement enough, to shell out for a paper product to enjoy at their leisure. Paper is a vehicle for analysis, for depth, for a sit-back-and-think experience. The internet is for news.
Your recalcitrant reporters are going to have to ask themselves this question: what's more important to you: breaking stories or making a paper widget? If their instinct is serving readers, then they'll find the time to go web first. If their instinct is generating a print product, you might want to point them in the direction of a career change advisor.
Journalism is a process, not a result. We find stuff out, and we get it to people in as timely a fashion as possible. And the internet is the most efficient news delivery device we have. If you're not interested in delivering news to your readers quickly, you're not a journalist, you're just pretending to be one so you can feel good about yourself.
Say it with me again: paper doesn't deliver news; the internet does.
May 26, 2008 11:23 PM | Reply
"If your business is predicated on breaking news on paper, give it up now"
So so true, print is too slow, way too slow. Newspapers shouldn't fear outscooping their own stories. They, should fight to get a web audience.