Providing information that audiences value ahead of fake news
triple challenges facing the industry: growing threats to media freedom, the existential question of media viability and the pressing need for innovation in newsrooms.
All three issues are now inextricably linked, equal sides of a trilemma that have to be tackled together. Without a viable plan to sustain their newsrooms into the future, fervent debates on media freedoms will be academic discussions. And clearly, any plan to ensure the survival and continued growth of the media entails a need for innovation and transformation, both on the editorial and business fronts. These challenges were summed up starkly by Juan Senor, president of Innovation Media Consulting, at a Wan-Ifra conference held in Singapore in May.
He pointed to the phenomenon of newsrooms repenting for the folly of their “original sin” of giving away costly-to-produce content for free, in the vain hope that doing so would draw audiences – and advertisers would follow. New digital revenues might then make up for the decline in print readerships and revenues.
It did not happen – or rather, did not happen fast and far enough. While some news groups – including this newspaper – have seen significant growth in digital readership and revenues, these increases have come off a low base and so are not quite enough to make up for the print shortfall.
Besides, the bulk of digital advertising has been hoovered up by the likes of Facebook and Google, riding on the backs on media groups which produce the content they amalgamate to draw audiences, while insisting they bear no responsibility for the content on their platforms.
Today, just about every media group is dabbling with paywalls and digital subscriptions, moving from “advertising revenue to reader revenue”, notes Mr Senor.
“If you are not producing content you can charge for, you should get out of this business,” he declares, adding “if you have no digital business, you have no future” and “money is made where content is viewed”.
Despite the stark warnings, he insists he is optimistic about the future of journalism. Fake news, he contends, “will save journalism”. Declines in trust amid the welter of fake content will drive audiences to seek credible voices for reliable content and they will pay for quality content they can count on. “Newsrooms will have to move from the idea of being print or digital first, to journalism first,” he concludes, arguing that paying audiences will gravitate to those news organisations that are able to offer engaging, quality and insightful content, as well as value-added services, from events, business intelligence or investment tips, memberships, customised newsletters, books and even customer references and retail services.
A study on media viability published in May by the DW Akademie, a German media-related thinktank, draws a similar conclusion: “Media outlets are confronted with a sobering truth: They can no longer sustain themselves on advertising revenue alone.”
Instead, they will have to have a range of revenues, spread across a variety of sources, to prevent overreliance on any particular source of funds.
“The financial constraints are affecting the overall quality of journalism and the independence of journalists,” the report says.
“In short, independent, high- qual