We’re asking the wrong questions:
How do we fund/save newspapers?
How do we fund/save journalism?
How does journalism evolve?
What is journalism for?
*Updated because of new information brought to my attention.
My critique to the quoted material still stands. However, I have made additions in italics to make record of what is new.
Clary Shirky and I usually don’t agree, such as on micropayments, but last week he posted a mind-clarifying game changing post. Charles Apple juxtaposed links to Shirky and RevenueTwoPointZero in a post, which I thought was an interesting message, so I will re-post to him.
Shirky gets at the heart of our problem and also the mission of FixJournalism.com:
“The curious thing about the various plans hatched in the ’90s is that they were, at base, all the same plan: “Here’s how we’re going to preserve the old forms of organization in a world of cheap perfect copies!” The details differed, but the core assumption behind all imagined outcomes (save the unthinkable one) was that the organizational form of the newspaper, as a general-purpose vehicle for publishing a variety of news and opinion, was basically sound, and only needed a digital facelift.”
At FixJournalism we fundamentally agree with his point and disagree with the premise of the ’90s and 2009.
At RevenueTwoPointZero.com, for example, Matt Mansfield (president of the Society for News Design, for which I am a member) and Alan Jacobson (Best Front Page Design blogger) want to hold a conference in Washington D.C. to find new revenue models to save newspapers.
I find their premise fundamentally flawed and offensive:
“But unlike recent confabs of executives, editors and academics, we are hands-on professionals charged with delivering media solutions every day. And because we’re hands-on, we know how build to prototypes to demonstrate our ideas to the newspaper industry. We aim to do that by the end of the day on March 21st.”
Apparently academics, you know, people who read a lot and spend more time thinking about these problems than anyone, clearly are incapable of doing anything. As I stated in an earlier post, hands-on professionals are perhaps the least likely to succeed, especially in ONE DAY.
Our Future of Journalism think tank led by IDEO, stocked with a more varied group of people only realized the multitude of problems facing journalism, none of which involved advertising (though given another week, would have). And more importantly, they realized that 24 hours is not enough time to remotely broach the topic of journalism’s future.
But this is even worse:
“Instead, we believe the best hope for media companies to make money is the old-fashioned way — by earning it from advertising.”
There are several problems with this statement.
- Media companies DO NOT EARN advertising. They sell it. How is advertising revenue earned? You are earning money on nothing. Advertising is least of all dependent upon the work you do as a journalist.
- Locking yourself into this mode of thought will not yield any new ideas. This is a great way to run around in circles reinventing old ideas.
- Why are we holding on to “old-fashioned way” of thinking? This is the problem right here. You will be illustrating the problem for 12 hours in one day!
And they want to deploy their solution on current technology, which will really just make it obsolete by the end of summer.
Really the problem with their mission statement is not that they are having a conference but that they presuppose they are just so qualified to find the answers that it’s a wonder no one else has – in the last 15 years of trying.
I liken this to a restaurant that claims to have the best burger in the world, despite the millions of preferences and burgers throughout Texas, let alone the remainder of the world. If that restaurant burger doesn’t make your head explode with elation, than it clearly was a crappy burger.
If the RevenueTwoPointZero post had not been written in such a cocky, self-elating manner – before the conference – I wouldn’t be so outraged. I feel like they have not done their homework:
“Round and round this goes, with the people committed to saving newspapers demanding to know “If the old model is broken, what will work in its place?” To which the answer is: Nothing. Nothing will work. There is no general model for newspapers to replace the one the internet just broke.” –Shirky
However, Matt Mansfield wrote a post on SND Update describing the purpose of the conference mentioned below. Here is where I agree with him:
“As we say in the manifesto that kicked off the project: The Society and its members have been at the cutting edge of virtually every newspaper innovation in the past 30 years including pagination, color, digital imaging and multimedia. SND has more direct leadership experience with radical change than any other group in the newspaper industry. And everyone in the industry agrees that radical change is needed.”
SND members are perhaps more qualified than some but not necessarily as qualified as others. Designers are by nature problem solvers more than anything else. Some are simply decorators as goes the usual criticism, but the group chosen has proven to automatically think in different directions.
We (I say we because I am a designer first) are not so preoccupied with the story that we lose site of the purpose of news. Designers must be more in tune with their readers than anyone else, because we are builders who make news products usable. We are first product designers, second visual designers.
In that sense, however, I still feel locking themselves into revenue models based on advertising is a failure in advance. If they are able to leave that train of thought, there is hope (I am attemping to defer judgment). Below I outline why.
Moving on: The Game Changer
Shirky discusses the creative destruction brought forth by the printing press and movable type of the middle ages. That the way to use/monetize movable type took several decades to become realized and how the wake of ruined traditions was left forever behind Gutenberg. Similarly, the Internet has ruined traditions of news people.
Shirky’s post is not new in its ideas but shuttering in its moment of clairvoyance. The point, though, is that we are asking the wrong questions.
Journalists, such as those in the RevenueTwoPointZero conference, cling to news as it’s been done. Their entire premise is about preserving what has already fallen. Journalism’s fight can be likened to Terri Schiavo’s case.
The questions we ask:
- How do we save newspapers?
- How do we pay for newspapers?
- Why don’t people read newspapers anymore?
- Why aren’t people engaged with the news?
- How do we mae people read newspapers?
- How do we make people become engaged?
These questions are relevant but I think we need to back up before we try to answer them.
Our problem comes from the fact that we are trying to solve journalism’s problem for journalists. The above questions are really the following questions in disguise:
- How will I stay employed?
- How will my media company make money
- How will what I do remain recognizable through this change?
- How can I do the least amount of change while doing the same thing I’ve always done?
- How do I measure successful journalism in this new world?
Shirky makes it clear that we should be asking different questions. We are the revolutionaries. I posit we should be asking these questions instead:
- What is journalism in 2009 and beyond?
- What is journalism for?
- How do people’s lives intersect journalism?
- How do we build a journalism that intersects peoples lives the way people want it to?
- How does journalism restart; what does it look like, what does it sound like, how does it act, how should it work?
We answer those questions, not by asking a bunch of smart journalists or by sticking them in a room together. We discover these answers by asking people these questions (but more specifically than these, obviously).
When we can answer those questions, we should have a conference to answer “how do we pay for it?” Not before then.
“No one experiment is going to replace what we are now losing with the demise of news on paper, but over time, the collection of new experiments that do work might give us the journalism we need.” –Shirky
Thanks for the comments, Mike.
So, what’s your solution for funding journalism?
Tick, tock, Mike.
“Designers must be more in tune with their readers than anyone else, because we are builders who make news products usable.”
Hmm. Your statement doesn’t seem to be any less cocky than the others you cite.
I am not going to claim I am sitting on some magical solution. I’ll leave that to the designers who have been claiming that for years and have never delivered.
But I will discuss two aspects I’m sure the visual “thinkers” who shun content have not considered:
* Long-form journalism/writing is far less odious than the visual “thinkers” want to believe. Their fear of content clouds their judgment in this area, and that will ultimately doom any effort this group attempts. I’ve known people who have never read a newspaper, but they will spend hours reading a longer piece on the Internet. The visual “thinkers” try to claim these people have short attention spans and have to be lured in by gimmicks. They’re wrong. Always have been, always will be.
* Regardless of whatever myopic model this group rushes to construct, I’m sure it will omit another important component. There has to be some sort of console where people are paying to get content. Not photos. Not visuals. Content.
Now I’m sure people will start screaming about how the paid console method has failed. But let’s put aside the “all or nothing” thinking that has doomed newsrooms and pretty much all logic today. That paid console could be 2 percent of the projected revenue. Or 10 percent. Or 25 percent. But saying that if it’s not 100 percent, then it should be zero is foolish.
Finally, I’ll conclude with a statement that Alan Mutter seems to abhor because he keeps spiking the post. At some point, the publishing/editing industry allowed itself to be overrun with morons. The current model is flawed, but creating a new model with the same failed ideas, such as the quoted sentence that starts this post, is going to solve nothing.
Fix Journalism is important. Rev2oh is important. Collaborative environments with good people to generate good ideas is important. Let’s celebrate small wins and stop beating each other up.
Yuri:
As soon as the people whose ideas have failed repeatedly agree to stop making wild claims and to step away from the table, then I’ll be open to some collaboration.
But I have little interest in collaborating with people who fear content and spend most of their time disparaging it. Or concocting wild claims about how they — and they alone — have the way to “save journalism.”
We shouldn’t be giving credibility to groups that have failed time and again to deliver on their claims. Someday, it’ll be time to wake up and to put the blame where it belongs. There are many important things that have been ignored or destroyed because bands of non-thinkers were allowed to infiltrate newsrooms and to erode their very fabric.
As Ra’s al Ghul might say: The visual charlatans haven’t won. They have sacrificed newspapers’ sure footing for a killing stroke.
Now the ice is cracking beneath them, and they’re looking for something to grab onto.
Robert, I was part of rev2oh and as a former reporter and editor, among many other tasks, don’t fear content and certainly don’t spent time disparaging it; nor do I make claims that I alone have the way to save journalism. Rev2oh is a new group, who in total met for one day. So I’m not sure I understand your complaints.
My complaint, in a nutshell, is that the same people who have destroyed the current model with false promises and concocted details are once again trying to spin the truth into some sort of magic elixir.
This hasn’t worked in the current newsrooms. I don’t see it working in the future.
As much as you might want to close your eyes and cover your ears, the credibility of your group is nil. Has it ever done anything to provide sustained growth at any credible newspaper? (This means papers other than tiny ones in Wyoming or other isolated outposts.)
Saying: “Prove that it hasn’t” is not an acceptable response. Taking credit for one-day circulation gains and blaming editorial for sustained circulation losses is not an acceptable response. Anything other than provable, tangible numbers is not an acceptable response. Redefining terms such as circulation or content is not an acceptable response.
Let us know if you have anything that does not fall into those categories. It’d be the first time ever.
Robert, this conversation (not the comments above but the “future of journalism” one) is not a battle between designers, editors and writers. In fact, it’s not a battle at all. (Yuri, I see your point that this post comes off as such, so I’m taking a step back and agree that our groups should be more collaborative).
Pitting visual against words is an old game and a tired one. We need both, obviously, in order to make any head way at all. We shouldn’t even separate words from design, we are all journalists of a different skills set.
My point that you quoted was merely an observation that designers think differently. I think that much is evident by the fact that designers design and writers write PRIMARILY. That is not to say that people can’t do both competently or even excel at both. We know from experience that you do both competently and I would venture to guess that many on the R2.0 are the same way.
When I talk about design, though, and it’s possible Mansfield means it the same way, I am not talking about visuals at all. I am talking about product design. Designers make a newspaper usable by giving it order and function, at the least. Art, PFADs and etc. is another topic all together.
What Jacobson’s and Mansfield’s group was trying to do (correct me if I’m wrong, anyone) is approach the idea of journalism’s future from a different perspective. Now whether or not you think that perspective is valid, is of course an opinion anyone is entitled to.
As for, “what have designers done?” I don’t think they were saying they’ve improved credibility or circulation because clearly that is a case by case basis and always up for debate. There is no way to measure who or what elements increase or decrease circulation. We just don’t have the metrics for that. But I do think designers have played an important role in changing the culture of newsrooms by emphasizing multimedia content, web existence and design importance.
Again, you might think those are bad things, but I think those are more measurable outcomes of design thought.
“I don’t think they were saying they’ve improved credibility or circulation because clearly that is a case by case basis and always up for debate.”
How can it be up for debate when you guys can’t ever provide evidence from your side? You designers and your spinning …
“We just don’t have the metrics for that.”
Then how were you ever making claims? Wishes? Dreams? Vivid imaginations?
“We know from experience that you do both competently”
You could well be the first person I haven’t worked with who has ever said that.
I argue against this group reluctantly because I think there needs to be a new model. But there is no way on God’s green earth I will ever give credibility to a group of people who have never moved any newspaper forward in a significant fashion.
The only way I can ever see that changing is for some of the people to admit their ideas have been long-standing failures at their papers. No finger-pointing and blaming — a simple admission that “good design” hasn’t attracted readers and that “bad design” hasn’t sent them running for cover. Today’s underperforming journalists pant for apologies all the time. I’m not asking for an apology; I’m asking for an admission of guilt.
“I am talking about product design. Designers make a newspaper usable by giving it order and function, at the least.”
Fair enough, although I think you napalm your credibility when you claim that designers — people who NEVER leave the newsroom — understand readers better than anyone.
“But I do think designers have played an important role in changing the culture of newsrooms by emphasizing multimedia content, web existence and design importance.”
I think they’ve destroyed the culture of newsrooms. They have dumbed them down and wrecked the chance of proper priorities being put back into place. News meetings are a circus where the only objective is the creation of Picassos For A Day, even though no copy has been read and no photos have been viewed.
They emphasize only what they feel to be important. Many of them are totally unqualified even to be in a newsroom. They have never covered a beat, never edited an article, never coordinated a desk shift. But they think newsrooms should continue to shelter them and their art degrees, even as qualified people who can read, write, edit, and think are dumped.
Anyway, you didn’t answer the question: Has the group ever done anything to provide sustained growth at any credible newspaper? The same stipulations apply — calling for proof it hasn’t is illogical in a non-time-specific situation. Citing tiny papers and their one year of circulation growth is not an example. Anything other than provable, tangible numbers is not an acceptable response. Redefining terms such as circulation or content is not an acceptable response.
Let me know if you can salvage your credibility by providing a single example that falls within those parameters. Otherwise, it’s time to admit the design-based approach has helped lead newspapers to the bleak situation they face. Either you have proof of success, or you have a pattern of failed philosophies that you refuse to abandon. But please don’t waste our time saying you want a new, futuristic model when you are dragging a Conestoga wagon of designer-concocted manure behind you.