Crisis in News. KAAAHHHNNNN.
April 28th, 2008 | by Brad King |I’m reading Mark Glaser’s recap of my alma mater’s latest journalism conference, Crisis in News.
Now, I’m not going to bag on Glaser or my school because frankly, I don’t know Glaser and I paid a boatload of money to go to Cal-Berkeley. However, I am going take issue with the conference — at least Glaser’s representation of it, which I will assume is an accurate take on the events.
Berkeley is constantly looking at the troubling spots in journalism, holding symposiums and writing about the future of the industry. Much of what I learned about digital life and the news I learned while I was out there. My mentor Paul Grabowicz runs the new media program and I was in class with the likes of Michael Lewis, Kara Swisher and Katie Hafner (who can wicked smart swing dance).
The problem, though, is they are so steeped in the traditional journalism model that they are unable to wrap their heads around this simple fact: while the tenets of journalism still apply online — we tell truth to power, find out the backroom deals, inform the public — the way in which that is carried out looks quite different online.
Here’s what I mean.
The first question to the Web panel: What can you do that you can’t do online?
The discussion centered on — nothing. Games, experiments and multi-piece stories. That’s the thinking from Frontline, The New York Times and the Washington Post.
And then they wonder, just a few questions later, why it’s hard to make money online. It’s no harder to make money online than it is anywhere else. But you have to approach the medium for what it does, not what the paper does.
There was a few good points, including one by Paul about metrics. Papers need to focus on the right metrics when they are building an audience. It’s not about page views or time on site. It’s about numbers and engagement. Can you get them to interact with your site? Can you get them to buy what you’re selling? Can you get them to connect together? Can you become an advertising network of one?
