News as it exists right now is largely a business. It is actually called the news business. That term is quite disheartening. The above reproach fourth estate is actually under the control of capitalism. It must succumb to economic pressures in order to function. Under capitalism something is only useful if it is seen to have value. It must be productive (Graham, 2000). News content gets its value from its ability to deliver eyeballs to advertisers or from an audience’s willingness or ability to pay for access. This, of course, assumes that an audience has the means to access or pay for the content. Content for marginalized groups such as the homeless would not have value under this model. The homeless would not provide the right audience for an advertiser and they do not have the ability to pay. In looking at new media, the homeless generally do not have access. Nothing has intrinsic value in capitalism. Something must be perceived to have value.
The value of content is a huge problem for journalists especially in new media. Pay to play news content has largely failed in the new media environment. And advertising streams are very dependent on eyeballs. If the content doesn’t get enough eyeballs then it is not valuable. Crick (2009) studied the Dewey/Lippmann debate over the creation of content to propose more publicly funded content. The idea is to take capitalism out of the equation. Unfortunately, the news organizations would likely still have to pander to politicians. We are seeing this play-out right now in NPR’s firing of Juan Williams. There are now those on the right calling for NPR to be defunded (FoxNews.com, 2010).
If the advertising model is going to be the only solution new media journalists must find a way to add more value to the product. This is difficult in an arena where information is disseminated by a variety of sources. Information is taken from the original website and distributed all over the web. Moore (2010) proposes that metadata should be added to news stories to allow content creators to track and cash in on their material. Some news organizations are already experimenting with this approach (Moore, 2010). Gahran (2010) argues that information should be structured to provide better links for the audience. These links will drive the audience to the news organizations web site (Gahran, 2010). These solutions still view information as deriving its value extrinsically.
If these efforts to make the information more accessible and better audience drivers are to work then newsroom management must change the way it operates. These new approaches require journalists to be receive new training and have the ability to experiment. Converged newsrooms are currently a work in progress and there aren’t any foolproof methods to make this work. What is known is that business as usual in newsrooms will not work in this new media environment (Fisher, 2009).
References
Crick, N. (2009). The search for a purveyor of news: The Dewey/Lippmann debate in an Internet Age. Critical Studies in Media Communication, 26(5), 480-497. doi: 10.1080/15295030903325321
Fisher, H. A. (2009). Developing media managers for convergence: A study of management theory and practice for managers of converged newsrooms. In A. E. Grant & J. Wilkinson (Eds.), Understanding media convergence : the state of the field (pp. 135-150). New York: Oxford University Press.
FoxNews.com. (2010). NPR Fires Juan Williams; Fox News Expands His Role Retrieved October 29, 2010, from http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/10/21/npr-fires-juan-williams-oreilly-appearance/
Gahran, A. (2010). Structured news: Make useful connections to build your news business Retrieved October 29, 2010, from http://www.knightdigitalmediacenter.org/leadership_blog/comments/20100819_structured_news_make_useful_connections_to_build_your_news_busines/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+KnightDigitalMediaCenter+Knight+Digital+Media+Center&utm_content=Google+Reader#When:22:32:34Z
Graham, P. (2000). Hypercapitalism: A political economy of informational idealism. New Media & Society, 2(2), 131-156.
Moore, M. (2010). How metadata can eliminate the need for pay walls Retrieved October 29, 2010, from http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2010/08/how-metadata-can-eliminate-the-need-for-pay-walls230.html?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+pbs%2Fmediashift-blog+%28mediashift-blog%29&utm_content=Google+Reader
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I agree that the business of news is business. With convergence in the mix and already causing tension how will the industry focus on the best way to advertise on these new digital devices? Can the media conglomerates work to the best of their ability and not just constantly focus on self promotion within their news group? I watched a small bit of The Rally to Restore Sanity and/or Fear this weekend and the song played talked about all of the screaming on both sides. This screaming is an example of where if find failure in the business of news.
When you spoke about the homeless, it made me think. Do the homeless actually get news or are they aimlessly wondering about without access to information. I never really thought about it like that before. It makes me wonder if the commodification of “news” affects them in any way since they would be considered not adding value?
I tried to leave a comment before. For some reason, I don’t think it went through. So if I have two comments that show up and are the same in nature, I do apologize.
You brought up an interesting point about the homeless. I had never really thought about it that way. Are the homeless just aimlessly wondering about without information? Does the commodification of news affect them being that they are considered to not add value? It would be interesting to learn how they collected their information on current events or if they even do.
To deliver eyeballs to advertisers, your news content has to be popular. That makes it akin to entertainment. News content that failed to draw many eyeballs would be devalued and, most likely, either disappear or at least be hard to find. Yet it could be important news, news that people need to know, or at least have the opportunity to know.
It seems like a conundrum to me: We live in a society where what is important is the economic worth of an item. If something lacks much monetary value, then it’s by definition not important. If journalism is done primarily by nonprofits, the news items they produce will be prima facie worth less than items produced by for-profit companies.
How do you add value to a news article or “product”? By compelling writing or riveting videography? By giving people information that they must have to survive and thrive? Or by producing provocative statements or titillating gossip? That seems to be the modus operandi of Gawker Media, profiled in the Oct. 18 New Yorker along with its founder, Nick Denton. It began as a media gossip site and expanded from there. Gawker sells “gossip for smart people — discerning people,” according to the New Yorker. Even better: gossip that shows how trendy and with it you are because you read it on a Gawker site.