Some great comments appeared on my post about the changing nature of the news industry. JC Hewitt pointed out that a radical rethinking is called for, and I absolutely agree — provided that there’s still an industry left to rethink.
JC suggested, “look at the news products that people already pay directly for and then determine why they do it.” An excellent idea: trade publications, Consumer Reports, TechCrunch, and GothamList (which is free, but generates money from advertisers) are all worth looking at more closely.
My impression of these enterprises is that they all do something that The News used to do, before it was replaced with a more efficient machine: provide users with THINGS PEOPLE WANT and THINGS THAT AREN’T FREE. Not a bad business model, that.
Trade publications are highly targeted and their content is scarce and expensive. Consumer Reports is highly targeted and a reputation-leader, with scarce and semi-expensive content. TechCrunch is highly targeted and mostly-free, but makes money off of ads and, JC, points out, conferences. GothamList is highly targeted and, like TechCrunch, makes money off of its ads.
There sure is a pattern emerging here. Targeting targeting targeting targeting. Or what Seth Godin calls “permission marketing.”
JC’s suggestions for moving forward touch on both the targeting of ads and on quality of writing. “You can continue with the advertising model,” he commented, “Your stories about the Hot Daughters of Hedge Funders can generate the pageviews that will subsidize an investigative report on the founding of Facebook.” He also pointed out, “It’s tough for amateurs to coordinate the editorial, business, design, and writing parts of a publication. ”
I think these are great points — that there’s a lot of potential in both intelligently-targeted advertising and high-quality writing. Getting that volatile mix just right will be a challenge, but hopefully one that’ll pay off by achieving the stability that everyone in the news industry is scrambling for these days.
Of course, this is getting a bit far from the actual practice of writing here. These business strategies feel completely divorced from shoeleather work like interviewing sources, researching documents, and pecking out 400 words about the Mayor’s latest press conference. Is it the journalist’s job to worry about — and maybe fix — the news industry? Well, if they want to keep their jobs, yeah. It is.
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I'm a writer and photographer in San Francisco, curious about how people can get away with writing all day while also being able to afford to buy groceries. 