News2020 Project

TV may still be king, but the peasants are revolting

As the Presidential campaign heats up to a white-hot glow, it's becoming more and more clear that things are fundamentally different this time around. Polls, as we saw in New Hampshire, have become nearly irrelevant. Constituency groups whose loyalties were once thought to be unshakeable seem to be shifting with the winds. Old-guard reliable candidates have spent most of the cycle on the sidelines as fresh new faces have dominated the spotlight.

The public’s shift can also be seen in the way campaign news is consumed. According to a study released Friday by the Pew Research Center, the number of people using the Internet as a regular source of news of the campaigns has nearly doubled since 2004. Twenty-four percent of those surveyed by Pew said that the Internet was a primary part of their campaign news diet. Online news is the only part of the mediascape to see an increase in readership/viewership between 2004 and '08 - in fact, many more traditional outlets actually saw a decrease over the same period.

Those who said they got their news from the Web said they go to a number of sources, unlike those who watch TV news and generally stick with one or two anchors. And here we find the reason the Internet will be the number one news source in the near future: TV just can't compete. Once news consumers have immersed themselves in the seemingly endless ocean of information that is the World Wide Web, there's no way traditional news sources will be able to lure them back. Traditional news is by its nature finite; TV shows have sign-offs and magazines have back pages.

We've already seen how the Internet can fundamentally change news coverage of elections. It won't be long before the readers catch on and leave the traditional outlets with all of their weaknesses in the dust.

This is not to say that traditional journalism is dead -- the Internet needs good reporters. In fact, the free-form nature of the Web gives journalists the chance to cover things with a depth that traditional outlets could never offer.

So it's bad news for mainstream media, according to the Pew study. Unless it's breaking-news video, (which many TV outlets are already getting from YouTube), the boob tube just doesn't have the juice to run with the Internet when it comes to delivering objective political information. 

 

CNN beats Yahoo! News with a little help from its friends

CNN Digital reported 32.8 million unique readers in November according to Nielsen Online. That number puts the granddaddy of 24-hour news ahead of 21st century rivals like Yahoo! News and MSNBC.com when it comes to online news dominance. It's a pretty amazing achievement on its face - Yahoo! News has been known as the leader in online news innovation for a while now. And MSNBC, with its roots in Microsoft and the fledgling MSN ISP, has used the advantage of being linked off the number one home page - msn.com - to lead the cable nets in online news since it was founded in 1996.

But CNN, it seems, has a trick up its sleeve. In May, the news channel inked a deal with news syndication company Internet Broadcasting, a firm that specializes in creating news websites for local TV stations nationwide. The deal put CNN content on IB sites and vice-versa, giving CNN a local answer to MSNBC's local news section (which is fueled by NBC's many local affiliates). For IB, the deal offered local stations unique and compelling content from the national stage, including CNN's newsmaking interviews and exclusive programming.

Today, many think the deal has led to CNN's new online news dominance. By multiplying the number of sites that feature its content, CNN has exponentially increased the number of unique viewers of its content. So much so in face that they're now number 1.

Syndicating national and international news to local sites? Gee, I wish I knew an easy way for other companies to do the same thing... ;-)

Free your minds (and the clicks will follow)

A couple of years ago, New York Times number crunchers thought they had a brilliant idea - keep the paper free online, but charge a nominal fee for columnists and archives. Called Times Select, the service was designed to make true Old Gray Lady groupies (e.g. your humble author) pony up for some of the paper's most newsmaking content. When the program was announced, I and others like me found ourselves perplexed: we loved the New York Times and respected the need to make money, but we found it unfair (and maybe a little offensive) that squinting past all those giant banner ads wasn't enough.

I remember feeling really unhappy about Times Select. It just didn't make sense to to charge directly for content instead of relying on the quality the content to drive up eyeball rates and (stay with me here) ad rates, too. After all, it's not like the Times or any other newspaper actually makes money off the sales price of the physical copy in a newsstand or box. I predicted a souring of my relationship with the New York Times. (Fortunately for me, I got to have my cake and eat it too after a certain woman I know took it upon herself to follow up creating me with providing access to Maureen Dowd columns 24 years later. I also rely on her for access to the Wall St. Journal online -these are the kind of maternal instincts all you ladies out there should get behind.)

A little more than two-and-a-half years later, it looks like I was right to doubt the intelligence of the Times Select scheme. In the months since the Times took down the last bricks of the crumbling paywall, web statisics firm comScore has reported a 64 percent jump in the number of readers that visit NYTimes.com. That translates to 7.5 million more users. Something tells me that kind of increase can do a lot for a newspapers advertising rates.

As I see it, there's a two-fold lesson from all this. First, publishers and money guys will always gravitate toward a subscription model (mainly because of the potential for guaranteed revenue). This temptation must not be allowed to move beyond the realm of pure fantasy, lest the lust for cash lead your site down a road that will alienate and disappoint existing readers. Second, ad-supported quality content is the only surefire path to profits. The fact is, the Times went into this Select fiasco with some of the biggest names in editorial journalism already in its stable. To hide them behind some kind of pay wall meant the Times' biggest draws were far away from the average Google searcher, which is where the silly, solid-gold toilet seat money comes from.

Keep your online content good, keep it easy to read and for god's sake keep it free to the reader. A good mind is a terrible thing to waste.

Dan Bartlett and the other side of the coin

Recently departed Bush White House communications director Dan Bartlett sat for a fascinating interview with Evan Smith of Texas Monthly Magazine last month. Some particularly juicy morsels: Bartlett says the supposed liberal bias found in the White House press corps is a myth. In fact, he says Fox News did most of the whining when it comes to questions of access.

But the most important part of the interview comes about halfway through. Asked about the importance of conservative bloggers during his time at the lead of White House communications, Bartlett has a startlingly frank answer:

"I mean, talk about a direct IV into the vein of your support. It’s a very efficient way to communicate. They regurgitate exactly and put up on their blogs what you said to them. It is something that we’ve cultivated and have really tried to put quite a bit of focus on."

Any political junkie knows what Barlett's talking about - regardless of the partisan leaning, at least half of what's out there on the political blogs feels like it came straight off a daily talking points fax (they still use fax machines, right?). And according to Barlett, that's actually true (at least in the case of the conservative blogs he dealt with). There are growing numbers of people who turn to blogs and other so-called "independent" sites to get news they think is clean of the bias and prejudice found in the mainstream media. But Bartlett suggests that when it comes to finding an independent voice, the opposite may be true. No professional journalist worth his or her salt would transcribe White House talking points without any sort of fact-check or opposing view. In fact, that's exactly why Bartlett said he found blogs to be so "efficient" - there was no danger a pesky fact could stand in the way of his office's version of the truth provided they got it in the hands of the right blogger.

I'm not saying that the notion of bloggers as an independent, unfiltered alternative to the MSM is dead. But it's clear that those in the political spin business have found a welcoming home in at least some parts of the blogosphere. And that's dangerous. After all, bloggers have the same obligations as anyone who claims to report the truth - namely, to be reasonably confident what they say is the truth actually is. Regurgitating White House talking points is clearly not living up to those standards. 

Jeff Crigler Radio Theater

Check out Jeff on today's edition of BlogTalkRadio with Lisa Padilla. Jeff and Lisa chatted about Voxant, the news business and grabbing ahold of that ever elusive long tail.

Jeff's a radio natural (and I'm not just saying that because he's my boss) and is better at explaining what Voxant is all about than anyone else I know. So sit back and enjoy the show.

Next Big Thing alert: High school sports

That stalwart of High Tech journalism, The Washington Post, devoted dozens of inches Monday to a growing industry - web publishers that offer extensive coverage of high school and prep sports. These companies hope to give the ESPN treatment to "shirts vs. skins" - and make a lot of money doing it thanks to hyperlocal ad dollars.

We've seen the first hyperlocal revolution, in which the CNNing of Town Hall was going to be the path to riches and save journalism to boot, largely crash and burn under the epiphany that no one cares enough about local news to spend time on a site devoted to it. Ask the guy hawking your local daily newspaper on the street how business is these days and you'll get an earful about where local news is headed right now.

So will it be the same story for these new prep sports sites? The Managing Editor for Sports at the Post thinks so - he's quoted in the article (nice get by the way - amazing how easy it is to find sources when all you have to do is walk down the hall, isn't it?) saying that high school sports coverage has always been a loss-leader for newspapers.

But sports are fundamentally different, arent they? And local sports are more different still. People are getting used to grabbing sports highlights and video off the web at a moment's notice - it's compelling content and the kind of thing regular people out there might actually be looking for (unlike, say, the County Commission meetings I used to cover like I was Woodstein back in Tennessee). I'm certainly not convinced that anyone's going to get rich off of hyperlocal advertising anytime soon, but I can see at least the potential for a killer app with the high school sports model.

"Google" vs. "The Google" - a Presidential litmus test

Does it matter if the President has a YouTube login?  Columnist Garrett Graff argued in an op-ed yesterday that it does. Graff decried what he sees as a dismissive attitude on the part of most major Presidential candidates toward all things tech.

"[W]hy is it that we blithely allow our leaders to be ignorant of the force that, probably more than any other, will drive and define the nation's economic success and reshape its society over the next 20 years?" Graff writes. "Is it because we're used to our parents or grandparents struggling to program the VCR (yes, they still use VCRs) so that it doesn't blink "12:00" all the time, or because we think it's cute that they grew up in simpler times?"

Graff may have a point - in a perfect world, the U.S. President should be able to come up with a position on, say, net neutrality right on the spot. The painful explanations of the Internet that come out of leaders today are, as Graff correctly points out, pretty embarrassing.

But Graff had better be careful what he wishes for, too. Don't forget - we've got a pair of oilmen running things now and I don't think that's done much for gas prices. This may be a bit far afield of News2020's stated mission, but I for one think it's more important to have leaders who are good at finding experts rather than leaders who think they're experts already. Something tells me that President Steve Jobs isn't as appealing a concept as Graff suggests. I'm not saying that it's right or smart for our leaders to pretend that all tech issues are the stuff of basement-dwelling LAN partyers, but I'd rather they ask someone else how to install that new Air Traffic Control system rather than showing off with some workaround they found on Techcrunch.

When it comes to CNN-YouTube, the debate is over

Last night brought the second CNN-YouTube debate to TV screens and small, pixelated YouTube boxes everywhere. Like its Democratic counterpart in July, last night's GOP smash-'em-up is likely to be a ratings success for CNN. For voters, the success is already clear. While both YouTube debates have been ridiculous failures when it comes to set design, there's no question that the format is sound journalistically.

It's not like the idea of taking questions from the audience in a televised presidential debate is new, of course. But in the YouTube age, it's often less about what's being said versus who it is who's saying it. And most of the time I'm the last person to say that's a good thing (Perez Hilton is not the model for journalism I'd like to follow into the next generation - there, I said it). But in the case of the YouTube debates, the individual speaking gives a resonance to the question that the candidates have a difficult time ignoring. In the Democratic debate, that moment came when two Brooklyn women asked why the candidates thought they shouldn't be married. The canned, rehearsed responses from the candidates couldn't have sounded stupider in the face of real people living the issue every day of their lives.

At last night's debate, the "let's get real" moment came when a small businessman spoke about how the failure of immigration reform in Congress is affecting his livelihood. Again, the candidates squirmed and gave their canned responses, looking more out of touch with each passing moment.

The YouTube debate concept still has a lot of flaws. But I think we've turned a corner when it comes to covering presidential races. I'm not saying that snowman needs a seat on the press bus just yet, but I'm glad he's there.

Facebook-ABC: News from the people you trust

Ever since that $15 billion valuation came through, media companies everywhere have been singing a new tune. "Someday we'll find it," the song goes, "the Facebook Connection - the entrepreneurs, the venture capitalists and me."

There have been many noble efforts to get news to Facebook users in a way that embraces how Facebook works, but ABC News may have finally cracked the code with their new partnership deal that puts ABC reporters at the center of Facebook's new homegrown Politics application.

According to veteran politico and Political Communications professor Leroy Towns over at UNC's Talk Politics, the Facebook deal is only a "short step" away from "turning political reporters into media rock stars, complete with their own fan clubs". I'm not sure we need Facebook to see that happen (just look at this), but Towns raises an interesting point. Facebook is about the person, the "friend" you add to your list. But good reporting is about the subject - I want to know about Ron Paul, not what it's like to cover him. It's still unclear whether this Facebook deal will be about the reporting or the reporter.

What does it mean for reporters to be more important than the stories they cover? (other than that they work for Fox News...just kidding). With blogging and other "new media" enterprises, the byline is more important than ever. Maybe this Facebook deal is the next step - befriend the journalists you like and then let the news come to you from the people you expressly want to hear it from.

Whatever happens, it's a good score for ABC News. You can bet this won't be the last time Big Media tries to find a pot of gold at the end of the Facebook rainbow.

Amazon Kindle? Yes, please.

Though I spent most of last week in a tryptophan coma, even my turkey-altered mind couldn't escape the incessant chatter about the Kindle, Amazon.com's attempt to "iPod" book sales.

In the days since Amazon founder Jeff Bezos announced the release of the device, the blogosphere and techosphere and every other 'osphere you can think of has weighed in on whether the Kindle has what it takes to be The Next Big Thing.

The verdict? Mixed. Everyone loves the Kindle's cellular wireless capability, and everyone thinks E Ink is pretty cool. But when it comes to everything else, the chattering class is decidedly reserved. Content costs too much, they say. It's not in color, others say. This guy doesn't like that the Kindle won't sell him paper versions of books when he wants them. (Also, it appears he needs to get out of his mother's basement).

I haven't gotten my hands on a Kindle yet, so I won't comment on the klugeness or the design. But I have found some of the content-based criticism surprisingly short-sighted. With Kindle's unqiue cellular network system, the real dream of the Internet and digital age has finally arrived: the entirety of the world's knowledge available anywhere anytime in the palm of your hand. Sure it's not there yet, but the Kindle means it's only a few software revisions away.

The Kindle puts a bookstore where you want it - namely, the moment you want to read about something. Even the smartest phone on the market only serves as a reading device in a pinch - no one wants to read a full-length New York Times article on an iPhone, much less a book. The Kindle is different in that it makes print media available it the most convenient way possible and in its most attractive form (words printed on paper) at the same time. Part of the problem with reading today (and make no mistake, there is a problem with reading today) is that it's limited to the analog world of, you know, time away from the office. In theory, Kindle frees reading from that making book browsing and reading as easy as a long-distance phone call is today.

As far as I can see it, this is the first time old-school print media has really had a 21st century innovation to call their own. Previous e-Readers have required computer connections; this one stands on its own like, well, a bound book versus an RSS feed.

Again, I'm not shilling for Amazon, nor extolling the specifics of a product I've never seen or used. But I'm going to get me one of these things - if only because will allow me to actually read The Atlantic Monthly instead of just letting it sit on my coffee table, far away from me every time I actually have a moment to look at it.  As far as I'm concerned, it's about damned time books got their shot at a 2.0 - everything else has, from music to movies to America's Funniest Home Videos. 

I just hope the revolution hasn't come too late to save print journalism from itself.