Finding a future business model

I just finished a paper on the future business model of journalism. My first reflection? Finding new sources of money is hard work.

It's difficult to distill all the industry's problems into a coherent blog post. So, I'm going to put one of the lessons we learned in class this semester to good use and link to what I'm just too lazy to explain myself.

In the old, proverbial nutshell, journalism is struggling because the Internet has disrupted the old mass-advertising business model. Journalists never sold their content; they sold their readers — to advertisers. In fact, subscribers to the daily newspaper pay a pittance of the costs that go into producing the paper. The actual cost is heavily subsidized by ad revenue. Accordingly, most people believe pay-walls and subscription content simply won't work as a viable business model. Variations on the pay-wall model could provide some options, but this still lies well within the realm of traditionalist thinking. Some politicians have proposed government plans to save journalists, but most journalists despise the idea of being beholden to the government and doubt public support would allow such a plan to proceed.

But, journalists being journalists, there is an abundance of ideas to reshape the industry. Most seem to be evolved content models, focusing on new ways to gathering and producing news that would add inherent value to the product, and thus, attract more readers and hopefully make it worth forking over some money. Others have approached new revenue models such as low- and non-profits ventures. Still others advocate enhanced services for advertisers to reclaim some of the lost ad revenue.

Frankly, it's not surprising that journalists would write about and post their ideas for the future of journalism — it's what we do. It really opens up the different thought processes to a level of transparency I doubt many other industries experience. I don't doubt, however, that these blogs contain the seeds of journalism's future.

Regardless, having combed the blogs of countless journalists all searching for an answer, it seems a shame not to add my voice as well. Below, I've posted the paper submitted to my graduate business-of-journalism class. I'll admit, much of the paper is set up and explanation (per the professor's request), but I believe in my conclusion. Through synthesizing what many of the more radical voices are saying, I believe journalism must evolve in order to stay relevant on the Internet, and the best way to do this is to offer a unique information service — not too great a stretch for journalists, but enough to jostle the entrenched, corporate side.

Reimagining Journalism and the ‘Service’ Media Business Model

the individualist

For my grad communications class I've been reading The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman, and while I'm reluctant to jump on the number-one-best-selling bandwagon — either from lingering post-pubescent nonconformism or my own, individual brand of neurosis (did you catch the irony?) — I have to admit its insight.

The crux, so far as I can discern about half way through, is that technological changes and standardization have broken down the "practical constraints" that once held people back from engaging in more efficient practices, i.e. collaboration, outsourcing, content production, etc. More importantly from my perspective, it provides a pretty comprehensive explanation of how the world is changing re: empowering individuals.

Friedman breaks it down like this: The human world has gone through stages in which various entities maintain control. So far as modern history is concerned, up until about the 1800s, countries held the reigns. After, industrialization gave corporations the power, which grew quite powerful thanks to burgeoning globalization. According to Friedman, the turn of the century represents the end of the corporate epoch and the beginning of individual empowerment, in which individuals have control and leverage over globalization, production tools, and vast resources. As an individual myself, this sounds pretty good to me.

And it answers the question journalists have been asking since 2000 rolled around: Where did all these citizen journalists come from? Well, they came from the advent of the PC, standardized word processing software, and a series of fiber optic wires promulgated during the dot-com boom. QED.

I'm sure Friedman would appreciate the illustrative elements of my even posting this. It shows how publishing has become decentralized, no longer relying on journalistic institutions or "the media" for its distribution. None of this is particularly tragic for me in light of my communications career choice; it simply means I must approach it from a different angle. Soon, no doubt, no one will need the media. That doesn't mean it will disappear. It does, however, mean the media will lose the substantial power its enjoyed as the only distributor of content. In my future, I see no free lunches on the corporate tab. But then, as a free-minded, decentralized individual, maybe I should never have wanted them anyway.

finals week -> fabrication week

As predicted, finals have been relatively easy. Yet, I still find myself completely busy—how does this happen?

Websites. That's how this happens. I've been spending great amounts of time designing my two websites from scratch for my Online Media class, which apparently takes TONS of time. It would also help if my design ideas were more straightforward and easy, but these are the tribulations of aesthetic perfectionists.

I'm rather impressed by how our group site is developing—which is good, considering it's due Tuesday. I'll link to it as soon as it's complete and online.I also updated my personal site. I only tweaked it a bit, but it's a bit better looking and more functional now. I think the next step is buying a more SEO friendly domain name, but who wants to fork over 4 bucks a year plus hosting, right?

live on the Web

My personal website went online yesterday!


I've been working on it for a while and think it turned out pretty nicely, considering it's the first time I've ever worked on web-page design. The learning curve wasn't that bad; it just took a lot of time to assemble all the pieces. It also helped that my roommate is a computer wizard, able to swiftly conjure answers to all my problems.

Now I'm just working on my project website, which is a collaboration between myself and three other journalists from the Cronkite School. It's coming together nicely, but I just couldn't muster the will to work on it today—too much web design lately. Luckily, it's not due until next week, so we have plenty of time. It's pretty incredibly what you can create with the right software and an eye for creativity. Our site may be entered into some journalism contests, so we're giving it our all.