Following up on August 14's "Postjournalism and the death of newspapers" + "Factoids and Fake News":
Andrey Mir's book "Postjournalism and the Death of Newspapers. The Media after Trump: Manufacturing Anger and Polarization" is a very thoughtful overview of the transformation of the news media over the last twenty years or so. The essence is a fight for survival in a media ecology that changed incredibly fast and faster than those in the middle of the change ever imagined.
The change can be reduced to a financial factoid:In 1993 The New York Times Company bought the Boston Globe for $1.1 billion.In 2013 The Times sold the Globe to commodities hedgefunder John Henry for $70 million, realizing a 93.6% loss on the investment.The second rule of ecology—the first rule being "EVERYTHING IS CONNECTED"—the second rule is "Life will attempt to adapt to changed circumstances". This is true of everything from slime molds to the New York Times.....MORE
And today's installment, Andrey Mir at Medium:
Journalism in search of a cute little monkey
Having lost their traditional business to the internet, the news media are forced to sell ‘something else’. But selling something else, not content or ads, makes them sellers of something else, not the news media. A chapter from “Postjournalism and the death of newspapers” (2020).
Years ago, resort photographers had a good business, making beach pictures with the vignette “Greetings from Acapulco 1982”. Now, everyone has their own camera on their smartphone. The quality might be lower than a professional photographer would offer, but it is satisfactory. Or you can check the picture and try again. Besides, it’s always at your disposal and free.
What should resort photographers do? They have found an answer: a cute little monkey (a cute little crocodile or parrot work just as fine). You can pose for a picture with an adorable pet or take a picture on your own device for a fee. No tourist would bring a cute monkey with them to the resort, so this is a unique and monopolistic offer that can potentially induce an impulse to purchase. It might not work as well as photography 30 years ago, but still, it is at least something.
The fun part is that the photographer sells not photography but rather a monkey. So, forced by the technological emancipation of photo-authorship, the resort photographer has departed from the art of (resort) photography to the craft of village-fair entertainment and zookeeping.
This is what has happened to journalism, without being noticed and due to the same reasons. Having lost to former customers the monopoly over ‘photography supply’, journalism is desperately searching for a cute monkey to sell instead.
***
The business model with two main sources of revenue (ads and readers) is not able to support journalism as it once did, so the media are forced to sell something else.
A side business related to content production — a media-allied business — would be the best solution.
Having highly professional writers, many newsrooms launched content studios that produce content for external clients to be published somewhere else.[1] For example, the New York Times Company established T Brand Studio, a sort of content bureau. As its statement claims, “Through T Brand Studio, our branded content studio, we offer our brand partners access to The New York Times’s proven recipe for storytelling and work with them to develop industry-leading strategy, creative and distribution.”[2]
The small local news site Richland Source in Ohio turned photo reporting about homecomings into profitable celebrity-style photo galleries. They do the same with proms and Christmas concerts. This provides a kind of professionally facilitated collective selfies for the local community. As students and families want to see themselves as socialites, these photo galleries are the most visited pages on the Richland Source website (10 times more visitors than their average[3]). Sponsor spots in those public photo albums are sold out in advance.
In 2017, Charlotte Agenda in North Carolina created a print newcomer’s guide that brought in more than $100,000 and provided an unusual case of a purely digital media outlet moving against the grain — into print.[4] However, in spite of some experts seeing this case as proof of print’s survivability, it was not about print or mass media at all; it was rather an attempt to find a new venture under the brand of the media.
The other moves by Charlotte Agenda prove that. It tried to expand its news business with a sister news site, Raleigh Agenda, but it failed to find a sustainable business model and closed it in 2016[5]. Instead, Charlotte Agenda experimented (successfully) with a print guide in 2017 and planned a move toward business event organizing in 2019.[6]
***
Event organizing is one of the most logical allied businesses for the media, as forums and conferences produce content, too, though in a different form. Thereafter, this content can be used or reprocessed in media outlets in classical media form. Moreover, event advertising, as with the promotion of any information, is a specialty of the media (by which faculty they endanger original event-organizing companies that do not have their own media channels).
The records testify that some media orgs expand to the event-organizing market. In 2018, Vice Media bought an events production company in Brooklyn with a staff of twelve and 300 events per year in its portfolio.[7] The purpose was to promote editorial ventures and provide new services for advertising clients (such as hosting events sponsored by brands).
The Texas Tribune is the most recognized event producer among the American and, most likely, world media. The publication earned as much as one-fifth to one-fourth of its revenue on events. A significant part of its event revenue came from The Texas Tribune Festival, “a three-day extravaganza of education, health care, transportation, energy, and other topics that click with the Tribune’s audience.”[8] This annual event gathered thousands of attendees, hundreds of speakers and profits from sponsorships and ticket sales.[9] The idea mirrored The New Yorker Festival that started in 2000 as a seventy-fifth anniversary event and became an example for festivals organized by the media.[10] In 2018, the Texas Tribune’s events attendance reached 14,382.[11] In addition to the festival, the Texas Tribune produces about 60 sponsored and free-for-the-public events per year.
***
Event production is particularly fruitful for industrial and professional b2b publications. Russian publishing house Glavbukh (“Chief Accountant”) started with a print magazine but eventually turned it into an online consulting system and a nationwide network of conferences and workshops. New industrial and professional standards and practices are always in high demand, and the media format is not the only way to sell such content. Conferences and workshops are a popular vehicle for this content, too.
Along with conferences, Glavbukh established The Glavbukh Higher School[12], an educational institution combining offline and online courses for accountants. Graduates gain officially recognized diplomas and increase their professional value on the job market. Thus, media business became diversified by an educational business, which, for Glavbukh, long ago surpassed the print magazine in terms of revenue. Of course, the question may arise of what this has to do with media and its original social function, but, frankly, no one cares, particularly in the b2b media market, where the information service of the media prevails over their public function. And particularly when there are no other ways to survive.
Education as a form of content production and communication is an allied business for the media, too. The media can both produce educational content and promote their educational programs, in this way gaining some advantage over original educational companies.....
....MUCH MORE
However:
Possibly the Funniest (profitable) Thing We Saw In 2015: FT Alphaville's Founder/Editor Channels Mr. Subliminal
