How the Major News Outlets Need to Change in Order to Survive - Coursework Example

How the Major News Outlets Need To Change In Order To Survive How the Major News Outlets Need To Change In Order To Survive Though there are several major news outlets sprawled across the web that are perceived to be dying, to the point that some people have concluded that journalism itself is dying, in reality, it is growing. Social media platforms and technology are giving opportunities to the audience and sources to become the reporters. This essay is an effort at gathering information on how the major news outlets need to change in order to survive. Those who may think that there is a magic word to fix the news outlets are highly mislead. Major news outlets in most cases have multiple avenues of generating money to sustain them. However, this doesn’t mean that the money-making major news outlets should be rigid in not employing different tactics to survive. Major news outlets are struggling financially, but their revenue is estimated to increase considerably. The main problems are not just financial, but also pertain to structure, culture and the industrialized basis of these news outlets (Briggs & Burke, 2010). The content here may not be that comprehensive, but there are some of the things that leaders of these major news outlets should have in mind. Putting the web first while reporting from multiple platforms Although it seems like no-obstacle, this factor is a double-edged sword. Major news outlets especially print; often treat their websites as an extra, since their main revenue is largely not coming from the web. Websites should be the first priority in order to generate a lot of revenue so as to sustain themselves. A renowned journalism professor once noted that one of the problems is that journalists are being given a job description that specializes on a single platform, when really journalists should be all rounded. Reporters need to mainly focus on gathering information and how to present it in a range of formats. The main reason being that technology is changing the way people consume news, and the target audience is always changing and adopting various ways to get their news through various media. Since today’s journalism is amorphous, journalists now have to be at a position to produce journalism on many platforms (Kling, 2006). Go niche More people are finding meaning in the specific subjects they perceive most appealing or that which directly impact them. In society these days, we are witnessing more fragmentation and specialization; it is not possible to find successful bloggers who write about everything. Major news outlets need to find out what they are good at putting their primary attention and focus on. News outlets need to go more niches and perhaps reduce their frequency while increasing their charge. Major news outlets need to focus on higher quality news, incorporating their websites for high turnover news (Potter, 2008). Offering unique content Major news outlets need to be more cautious especially while operating their websites and treat each story independently, carefully selecting the stories better suited depending on the mode of media. This involves focusing on less time-sensitive news and focusing more on analytical stories. The same is applicable to the web, which requires one to offer more than just news, but services and resources for target audience. Journalists should act as curators and contextualizers The harsh fact is that at present, news outlets have very few percentage of audience. Curetting information will not only be helpful to the target audience, but will make major news outlets more visible especially on the web. As journalists, we need to curate social media so as to know what the news is differentiating between what is real and what is not from the circulating information, which in some cases isn’t always reliable. The print edition of major news outlets can be used to contextualize the information which is shared. This can incorporate an organized narrative presentation of disorganized bits that previously circulated around disparate streams and blogs. Journalists need to be contextualizers rather than processors of information. In the old industrialized model, journalists would simply process raw material into a broadcast or an article or a market that they have monopolized, but in today’s networked model, the raw information can easily reach the former audience, taking on the role of the reporter since they themselves are sources (Ramey, 2007). Real-time reporting integration These days, social media is allowing both the audience and the people who were formerly known as sources to report themselves. A case scenario can be the use of live video stream on websites of police or security departments to broadcast their efforts of preventing crime or rescue efforts live from their surveillance cameras, giving visitors to the site an opportunity to comment, for example, through chat next to the feed. This has a great potential in generating more viewers watching and chatting as the news unfold, which in most cases, these viewers might be the ones that had the news first. They would be the primary source, which a lot of the other media outlets will be getting their information from. In this modern day and age, production means are readily available. If sources are able to report news themselves, the bar is elevated for major news outlets organizations to blend in and gather reporting materials. In most cases, breaking news stories are huge traffic generators for any major news outlet, although now, the major obstacle is that when news break, it is already happening on social website sources such as Twitter. Even some TV news outlets have started to incorporate Twitter into their live presentations, and print sources have started to figure out how to integrate Twitter into their news operations and websites. Finding out which is the most efficient option is difficult since each has its faults. If a major news outlet features its Twitter feed on its site, then it will have the likelihood of repeating content which is already in a story. More so, if the site of a major news outlet is using an unfiltered rugged feed, then it will have the challenge of handling poor quality tweets and spam (Smith, 2011). Internal culture: Startup vs. corporate These days, many major news outlets are built around a very corporate and bureaucratic structure. Basically, what I am doing is pointing out that there is a major problem with corporate environments because they are starting to act as barriers, since you will find that 80 % of the time is spent on planning, while only 20% is spent doing. Rather than current corporate bureaucracies, major news outlets should structure themselves around a startup model. We can compare the organizations dealing with major news outlets to the Titanic, heading straight for an iceberg and doesn’t seem to be able to turn fast due to bureaucracy layers and opinions which usually stop the progress of change. Even though completely restructuring a major news outlet organization may not be possible overnight, coming up with a startup-like environment that inspires innovation in the newsroom can be a major step forward (Splichal, 2006). Encourage innovation An environment that encourages innovation could be part of having a startup culture. An example of such an environment situation is Google’s “20 percent time” rule which gives engineers room to work on their passion. This brought about such Google products like Ad Sense, Orkut and more. If these major news outlets had aggressively embarked on an ambitious journey of innovation in the early days, who knows how the news industry would have evolved. Maybe, the major news outlets would have been responsible for recreating the online classifieds system. Avoid charging for quotes since it is not the answer It has been cited that an Associated Press or major news outlet signed a deal with copyright that will aid in tracking and charging unauthorized use of its content. This has not pleased the audiences and in recent history, it has gained much criticism from members of the journalism industry, especially those of major news outlets, since it would greatly threaten their survival. Whenever someone links, this should be viewed as an opportunity to gain another loyal audience. It also increases the value to the news story, thus strengthening the relationship which people have with the involved major news outlet. Some kind of meta-tagging technology that allows somebody to charge people for quoting their material is simply outrageous contrary to the spirit and foundation of good journalism. Communicating with the audience It makes no sense for readers, listeners or viewers to be unable to comment on news stories of the major news outlet, and yet many of these major news outlets still lack the feature on their site, don’t incorporate it, or have a large number of rules to which stories allow comments. It however makes sense that in some scenarios, it is because some of the comments are either vulgar or of poor quality, but a clear distinction and description of comments pertaining stories are yet to be drawn (Wilke, 2011). For a long time, people have been commenting online and these major news outlets should keep on doing that. After all, comments do lead to increased attention and more page views. It is not just the comments, but a lot of the major news outlet’s accounts are being used like RSS feeds devoid of interaction with the audience. However, these major news outlets can be an exceptional tool for earning trust with your audience. It is individuals not institutions that most effectively use these major news outlets (Wilke, 2011). Eventually, these journalists will be required to involve their target audience through avenues such as comments, blogs, Twitter and many others, and there is still the option of it being done by dedicated community managers. The main thing which is most likely to greatly increase the level of survival of major news outlets is to make the public value major news outlets. In general, journalists of these major news outlets should be doing more interacting with the public so as to build trust, thus helping them do their jobs (Wilke, 2011). Conclusion Major news outlets which have long been surviving are now increasingly likely to stick around, since they have a foundation of some loyal audience. However, with the advent of interactive communication and information systems, the survival rate of these outlets has become increasingly difficult to estimate. Moreover, people who have experienced the structural individuation of globalization are exposed to new ways of receiving first hand news as mentioned earlier in this article. As experiments with global citizenship go forward, the empowerment offered by distributed networked digital communications has become widely shared. This warrants an important adjustment for the major news outlets to maintain or increase their chances of survival. This theoretical adjustment should not be seen to be contradicting with perspectives that view globalization and deregulation of major news outlets content as direct threats to communicating diverse political messages to large audiences. The notion of media democracy is an increasingly important theme, which is the pillar of survival of major news outlets. Throughout this essay, the news media has comprised a large part, but the importance of these news media in survival involves much more than just their sheer existence as a major news outlet. The political impacts of emerging technologies have a great impact on the evolving social, psychological and economic conditions which the target audience experience, thus a major factor for their survival (Wilke, 2011). References Briggs, A., & Burke, P. (2010). Social History of the Media: From Gutenberg to the Internet. London: Polity Press. Kling, A. (2006). The Future of Mass Media.  Indianapolis: Liberty Fund, Inc. Potter, W. J. (2008). Arguing for a general framework for mass media scholarship. London: SAGE. Ramey, C. R. (2007). Mass media unleashed: how Washington policymakers shortchanged the American public. New York: Rowman & Littlefield. Smith, S. E. (2011). What is Mass Media?. Retrieved from http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is- mass-media.htm. Splichal, S. (2006). In Pursuit of Socialized Press. Retrieved from http://books.google.co.ke/books?id=IKXZ2MEb66EC&pg=PA41&redir_esc=y Wilke, J. (2011). Media Genres. London: Institute of European History. Read More