More doom and gloom i'm afraid... three big players in American media (the Christian Science Monitor, Time and USA Today) have either stopped publishing their print version, or are cutting down on their workforce dramatically. The New York Times gave my favourite description of the situation, “the sky is falling; the question now is how many people will be left to cover it”.
But just when the newspaper business is 'dying', the face of media is changing and all poor trainee journalists are left with dwindling spirits, Mathew Yeoman burst onto the scene and informed us that we can make money from the internet! Hurrah, at last some good news!
Mathew runs Custom Communication, which in his own words, takes all the best bits of journalism and applies them to the new media world we find ourselves in.
He believes the internet has caused a “storm that has swept through the media landscape” in three ways:
1. The power to publish
2. The power to participate
3. The power to choose
The individual now holds the power and has created a more conversational, transparent and speedy media world.
But, I hear you cry, what does all this have to do with making money?
Well, the most important thing for media to do now is to understand their community. Take a look at the Living insurance website. They have their own journalists who find stories of relevance for their ‘community’, in this instance, topics on ethical living. Mathew himself makes a news email for a bank, with aggregated news of specific interest to the bank employees. And this, he says, is where the money lies.
I think the idea of community specific news is a great one, but the phrase aggregated news doesn’t sit easy with me. Surely, we want to be journalists because we are inquisitive, creative and itching to be the first to get a story, not because we want to sit at a computer, sorting and filtering through other people’s work.
It seems that there is a faint flicker of light at the end of the tunnel, but we are a long way off stepping into broad daylight.
But just when the newspaper business is 'dying', the face of media is changing and all poor trainee journalists are left with dwindling spirits, Mathew Yeoman burst onto the scene and informed us that we can make money from the internet! Hurrah, at last some good news!
Mathew runs Custom Communication, which in his own words, takes all the best bits of journalism and applies them to the new media world we find ourselves in.
He believes the internet has caused a “storm that has swept through the media landscape” in three ways:
1. The power to publish
2. The power to participate
3. The power to choose
The individual now holds the power and has created a more conversational, transparent and speedy media world.
But, I hear you cry, what does all this have to do with making money?
Well, the most important thing for media to do now is to understand their community. Take a look at the Living insurance website. They have their own journalists who find stories of relevance for their ‘community’, in this instance, topics on ethical living. Mathew himself makes a news email for a bank, with aggregated news of specific interest to the bank employees. And this, he says, is where the money lies.
I think the idea of community specific news is a great one, but the phrase aggregated news doesn’t sit easy with me. Surely, we want to be journalists because we are inquisitive, creative and itching to be the first to get a story, not because we want to sit at a computer, sorting and filtering through other people’s work.
It seems that there is a faint flicker of light at the end of the tunnel, but we are a long way off stepping into broad daylight.
Photo courtesy of just.Luc @ flickr.com
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