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The End of Journalism as Usual
‘To maximize a news organization’s social capital and marketability, its
journalism today must be transparent, authentic and collaborative.’
BY MARK BRIGGS
There’s the philosophical riddle
about the tree falling in a forest
when no one is around. Does it
make a sound? Now try this twist: If
a journalist has a story, but there is
no market for the news, is it worth
doing?
The business model for journalism
is crumbling. So an informed discussion
of journalism today must include
an awareness of new business models
and marketability.
Can marketing save journalism?
It’s a heretical question for some
to consider, I’m sure, since journalists
have long valued their practice
as more “pure” than marketing and
public relations. But these seemingly
disparate forms of communication are
melding together, and journalism can
benefit from integrating new marketing
strategies and tactics.
This type of marketing is not advertising,
or slogans, or logos. As it
has evolved in the digital age, it has
become more transparent, authentic
and collaborative, which I will argue
are all traits that describe good
journalism today, too. “The Cluetrain
Manifesto” outlined this shift nearly 10
years ago with 95 theses on “the end
of business as usual.” The first line on
its original cover read, “Markets are
conversations.”
A few years later, the concept that
“news is a conversation” invaded
mainstream journalism and is now
universally embraced, at least in
concept. So it stands to reason that if
both markets and news are conversations,
the practice of journalism today
requires an awareness and capacity for
the marketability of that journalism.
What follows is one thesis from
Cluetrain. In reading it, see if you
can identify the mainstream news
industry in it:
40 Nieman Reports | Winter 2008
Corporations do not speak in
the same voice as these new
networked conversations. To
their intended online audiences,
companies sound hollow, flat,
literally unhuman.
Match that assessment with the
most recent Pew research on the
public’s perception of journalism, in
which credibility has hit an all-time
low. See how journalism’s disconnect
with its community is helping play out
the dire predictions from Cluetrain,
including:
The community of discourse is
the market. Companies that do
not belong to a community of
discourse will die.
Think Social Capital
Ironically, this situation cannot be
addressed by the marketing department
at a news organization. Instead,
it’s about creating “social capital” by
becoming the “trusted center” within
a structure of relationships through
digital communication. French sociologist
Pierre Bourdieu suggested social
capital can be developed through purposeful
actions and then transformed
into conventional economic gains.
This concept very closely aligns to the
traditional business model for news of
generating revenue based largely on a
public service.
For several years now, journalists
have taken positive steps into the digital
age by adding blogs and multimedia
to their craft while increasing interactivity
and immediacy. Simultaneously,
news organizations have shed jobs, and
their stocks have taken a pounding on
Wall Street.
So why isn’t this strategy work-
ing? Because journalism’s brand is
broken.
News organizations struggle not
only with public perception of journalism
but also with brand value in
their local community. As I travel and
talk with news professionals looking
for ways to add Web 2.0 elements—
comments, forums and user-generated
content—to their online operations,
I’m no longer surprised to hear an
editor or reporter say, “Readers won’t
do that on a news site.”
But this type of response is an admission
of failure, especially when we
find start-up companies like Flickr and
Craigslist gaining more brand cache
in a local community than a business
that has been serving a community for
decades. Even worse is when a local,
independent blog generates relevant
and constructive discussion based to
a large extent on the news reported
by the local news organization and the
original news Web site’s conversation
is either dormant or misguided and
destructive.
Building targeted communities of
discourse with a layer of journalism
on top can help. The Bakersfield
Californian, for example, has been
a leader in creating and cultivating
such communities with projects like
Bakotopia. And the beat blogging
movement started by Jay Rosen’s
NewAssignment.net is about doing
this kind of journalism by convening
a community of discourse in the form
of an online social network.
To maximize a news organization’s
social capital and marketability, its
journalism today must be transparent,
authentic and collaborative. This
is why blogs and Twitter work for
news organizations. Neither will replace
traditional journalism, and that
shouldn’t be the objective. These new