The News Ecosystem, and the Future of the Industry

Joshua Benton, Director of the Nieman Journalism Lab at Harvard University explains the future of journalism, and offers in-depth analysis of the news ecosystem.

Future of Journalism: "Wisdom Journalism"?

NYU professor, Mitchell Stevens argue that if current journalism created more value, then perhaps more people will be willing to pay for premium content. He calls this kind of journalism, "wisdom journalism."

"I think the mere transcription of facts, of quotations, which has been a lot of journalism during this century-and-a-half period, is just not enough...But I also sense that we need now is for journalists to explain significance and what we can learn from events, not just what someone said today or this morning." - Mitchell Stevens

Stevens argue that journalism should do less spoon-feeding of background on story, and more insights than explanations. He said with plethora of information on the web, people are now better at teaching themselves, therefore the basic information and explanations journalists have always provided will no longer suffice and no longer considered truly valuable.

I agree with Stevens points to some extent, however, I do believe that this "spoon-feeding" that he interprets as condescension is also important in helping readers understand the context of the stories, therefore necessary. Perhaps not all journlists need to write with the basic format, and some can have more freedom to be more esoteric with their stories, but I don't think it calls for an elimination of explanations in stories.

Can Paywalls Save the Industry?

An op-ed by Don Irvine that highlights the success of business and financial publications in paywalls but argues that the reason these publications succeeded in making the contents a premium is that the majority of their subscribers are corporations that don't mind shelling out the money for their content.

So as Irvine posed, non-financial publication will have no such luck with creating paywalls, and that "paywalls are just a temporary solution to generate incremental revenue."

I say, if all news publications enacted paywalls, then people will more likely to start paying for the content if they have no where else to find free online news.

Innovative App That Aims to Save the News Industry

Blendle, a new app and start-up company that is the "iTunes" for the news industry, is going through its beta testing phase, and already has more than 40,000 users in the Netherlands.

How Google Can Help Save the News Industry

An old op-ed by Eric Schmidt, the CEO of Google, reflects the current panic in the news industry and offers some reasonable insight as to why Google is not to blame for the crisis in the news industry.

Eric Schmidt, CEO of Google

"It's understandable to look to find someone else to blame. But as Rupert Murdoch has said, it is complacency caused by past monopolies, not technology, that has been the real threat to the news industry."- Eric Schmidt

Contrary to what many news executives believe, that Google benefits more in this business relationship without giving much in return, Schmidt said Google News and Search has been a great promotional tool for news websites. And the ad revenue generated from the news search queries is in fact a " tiny fraction of our search revenue."

Schmidt offers some comfort by saying Google is invested to help the news industry tackle their problem by "using technology to develop new ways to reach readers and keep them engaged for longer, as well as new ways to raise revenue combining free and paid access"