Original News and Quality Reporting Doesn't Come For Free

While the bloggers over at the Huffington Post are still bitching about not getting paid for their opinions, The Washington Post featured a great article last week that shatters myths about the future of journalism and supports why quality news and journalistic content should not be free.

I’ve always been a strong proponent of paid-for content – we pay for everything else that we need, value and want. Quality news and content should be no different.

Case in point? The Daily.

Despite many pooh-poohing The Daily when it first came out on the iPad, it represents – to me at least – the future of news and digital journalism for our always connected and ADD-stricken minds. Engaging, entertaining, easy to digest and instantly-gratifying, The Daily creates an experience while delivering news and information of value easily. The New York Times would be wise to take a lesson or three from The Daily’s playbook.

Back to The Washington Post’s article, Five myths about the future of journalism, Tom Rosenstiel, director of the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism, debunks the following myths:

1. The traditional news media are losing their audience.
2. Online news will be fine as soon as the advertising revenue catches up.
3. Content will always be king
4. Newspapers around the world are on the decline.
5. The solution is to focus on local news.

Other news organizations struggling to define their relevance and revenue models should also take note.

My take is that over the next 18-24 months, we’re going to see a significant shift in attitude when consumers finally recognize that you pay for what you get.

If you want quality news and reporting, not regurgitated word-vomit, you will have to pay for it.

All Thumbs (and No Brains)

I read a great article in AdAge this week entitled RIP, the Press Release (1906-2010) -- and Long Live the Tweet that beautifully (and comically/tragically) demonstrated how corporations and celebrities are increasingly leaving important (and not so important, but somewhat curious) newsflashes to their twitter accounts instead of their press-release wielding PR professionals.

“The long-suffering, much-maligned press release, I'd argue, finally died this summer, thanks particularly to JetBlue and BP, with a little moral support from Kanye West and just about every other celebrity with thumbs,” rants Simon Dumeno.

I’m partially in agreement.

The deafening death rattle of the old press release is, indeed, winding down, and there’s no stopping technology, or fool-hearty and self-absorbed celebrities, but surely no one could hardly argue that tweeting your own 140 character press releases is the way to go?

The press release had a hard enough time being heard before Twitter and other mediums, and the PR industry is, in part responsible for this. It probably lost a goodly portion of its audience to a lack of discretion in determining what was actually newsworthy – or not. Add to that the advent of the internet, and the industry has had to swim even harder upstream as every fool with a keyboard clamors for their 15 minutes.

But from a PR perspective, in the longer term these wanton tweets are most likely going to generate massive amounts of damage control revenue for my industry, after all, someone has to restore their decorum?

Don’t get me wrong, I know that tweeting has its place in our digital society, but with every “advancement,” we are witnessing a decline in the quality of our communications, the beauty of prose and of rhetorical speech.

Almost a year ago to the day, I wrote an article for MediaPost’s Marketing Daily "You Think You Know PR?": my message is just as, if not more so, relevant today.

Good storytelling is an art and the public’s reality is only, for most intents and purposes, as real as how it is perceived. And WE, PR professionals, still mould that perspective more skillfully than anyone, (whether for positive or negative results).

Good storytelling can incite emotions, can make us buy triple-stack hamburgers when we're not hungry or cause our minds to create fantastic what-if scenarios. Good stories can make us cry, laugh or feel sick. Even better, good stories can make journalists pick up the phone or hit the reply button to our emails, saying, "Tell me more, I want to know." They are the reactions that good storytelling can invoke, and I don't think that's something we can do with a micro-tweet or pushing a one-size-fits-all template that's been approved by corporate because it's safe and sounds good to the CEO.

Stories and storytellers have been around for thousands of years, influencing people and their decisions. Media needs good story tellers desperately, and I believe it always will.

The press release is not dead, as reported by AdAge, but it is being "re-tooled." It’s an evolutionary phase and the fittest will survive. A ground-swelling demand for quality content will occur and we’ll be here providing it long after celebs and corporate drones devolve into 10 thumbed quacks.