The Future of News

Topic owners: Dharmishta Rood, Jon Fildes

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Summary

The traditional media industry is in turmoil. Circulation of newspapers is falling. Some, such as the Tribune group, are saddled with huge debts and have filed for bankruptcy. Staff are being laid off, costs are being cut and foreign bureaus are being shut. Audiences are fragmenting, advertising spending is plummeting and the valuations of companies are dropping. TV and radio are experiencing similar problems. Some papers have even begun outsourcing local news reporting to India.

Most of these changes have been blamed on the arrival of the web, which has changed how information is produced and consumed. Now, anyone can be a news gatherer, publisher and distributor. The balance of power has changed. Yet at the same time there is a paradox; the web offers organisations a huge opportunity to reach out to audiences and connect with them in new ways.

This class will seek to explore at least two of the challenges currently facing the media industry:

• What will the business model of the future look like? As Richard Sambrook , Director of the BBC's Global News division, says: “Newspapers and broadcasters have lived for decades by selling audiences to advertisers. Now the number of eyeballs per page or per programme is falling - but we have much greater detail and granularity about where they are going and what they are doing online. Media organisations have to find a way to extract the commercial value from that”. Already, groups such as spot.us and Pro Publica are experimenting with new business models. Others, such as the Christian Science Monitor, have ditched the old way of doing things and have gone entirely online. Other seem to be following a similar strategy. Will these work? Are these the right approach?

• What will the newspapers or media outlets of the future look like? The New York Times is using its website in new and innovative ways. Other experiments have been less successful. So, how should papers engage with their audience? Is news reporting now a collaborative process? How should they respond to citizen journalism? Are they competing or should they - and can they - work together?

This class will explore some of the issues facing the future of the news industry. Could they disappear? Does it matter if they do? What values are at stake beyond what the markets appear to be able to sustain? Should governments intervene to save them in the same way as they have decided to prop up the ailing car manufacturing industry? Is this an appropriate intervention? Should it be left to market forces? Ultimately, what is the future for “old media”?

Question of the week

What values are at stake in the newspaper industry and what could - or should - be done to maintain them?

Contributors

We are aiming for two guests: an editor of a large newspaper, such as Russ Stanton at the LA Times, and an academic such as Jeff Jarvis.

Possible readings

• Write Now. Mark Pinsky of the New Republic on why Barack Obama should resurrect the Federal Writers Project and bail out laid-off journalists.
• Jeff Jarvis on whether the LA Times should switch off its printing presses, and a follow up
• Bad news, good news: the industry in numbers
• Boing Boing post by Clay Shirky: The Newspaper Industry and the Arrival of the Glaciers
• A view from the other side: a newspaper journalist ignores the potential of the web
• Columbia Journalism Review article: Overload!- Journalism’s battle for relevance in an age of too much information
• The AP report (PDF) mentioned in Overload!
• A short introduction to the newspaper crisis on the Daily Show
• Hey let's write some Journalistic Innovation grants... it works for Jeff Jarvis' class...
• Online Pulitzers anyone?
• "It was - and the Times pegs this more recently - a bubble, a false economy. If there was a golden age of newspapers, I say it was probably two to four decades before that, when cities had many papers, many voices, many views, and papers still spoke for and with the people." Sound familiar? That’s where we’re headed again with the internet: many voices, many views, and now it’s the people talking." From Poor Chicago by Jeff Jarvis"
• Times Extra! and some thoughts about it and other things
• An ad-model based off of twitter? How could this be applied to news?
• For those of you who have never read online news: 10 things every newspaper and magazine website must do
• Newspapers outsource newsgathering

Technology

Each class member will need to register for a Seesmic account. Seesmic is a video blogging application which has been called the "Twitter of video". It allows threaded video discussions. You can watch a video explainer here

Task

Clearly, this is a huge area and we are not going to be able to discuss every issues facing the newspaper industy. Instead, we will look to the future. We would also like the discussion to start before the class and continue after it finishes.

Hence, we would like each group to use a webcam or mobile phone to record an elevator pitch to be posted to Seesmic before the day of the class. The pitch should describe a new business model, working practice or technology that the group thinks newspapers should adopt. Alternatively, groups can pitch a policy proposal directed at the newspaper industry. We'd also like you to explain what effect your idea would have.

Each pitch should be short - around 2-3 minutes - and will be played out and discussed in class in the broader context of the "question of the week" above. We will aim to get our guest speakers to record their own thoughts as well.

We will start the video thread with an introductory video. Groups can then post their pitch as a reply. If you're idea overlaps with an already posted video, reply to that video building on the idea. Replies can either be recorded "live" or prerecorded and then uploaded. The location of the video thread will be posted here in advance of the class. Remember, your video can be accessed and replied to by anyone with a Seesmic account.

We will also be sending around a short survey before the class to get a sense of people's news consumption.