The Question of the decade: what is news?
“We need to think a lot harder about what constitutes news. News needs to be more tuned to personal priorities and this means journalists moving from “wide audience, low relevance” stories to ones with low audience and greater relevance.” says Jim Chisholm in the latest edition of the international journal Newspapers and Technology.
The consultant adds that "the new News is unlikely to win its creators many Pulitzer prizes. But the new News is what media consumers will pay for.”
For the past five years, everyone in the media business has been asking: how do we get customers to continue to pay for news when so much of it is available for free?
But that is the wrong question, says Jim Chisholm, Director of the "Shaping the Future of the Newspaper" Project for the World Association of Newspapers.
He predicts the most-asked question in the news business in the coming decade will also be the most basic: what is news? “Our challenge is not so much in dealing with the unwillingness to pay, but the declining general interest in what we currently call news, “ says Mr Chisholm, in the latest edition of the international journal Newspapers and Technology.
“News is changing. While we share a common definition and derivation with our readers, the reality is that our respective expectations of what matters, what is significant, important, relevant and compelling, are becoming increasingly polarized,” he says.
“We need to think a lot harder about what constitutes news. News needs to be more tuned to personal priorities and this means journalists moving from “wide audience, low relevance” stories to ones with low audience and greater relevance.”
Mr Chisholm makes a case for “new News”, which consumers find relevant and are willing to pay for. This could be stories about burglaries in their neighborhoods, or an outbreak of meningitis at their local schools. It could relate to a relevant piece of financial information, or something about their hobbies.
“What would be regarded as trivia by most journalists may be life-changing for 10 people,” says Mr Chisholm. “We must learn to serve the groups of 10, or even media markets of one.”
Mobile technology is being use to fulfil this yen for personal information, says Mr Chisholm. “On a train platform? Download a timetable. In a shopping mall? Find the best price. In the pub with your friends? Find out a football score.”
“The new News will not be very glamorous. The new News is unlikely to win its creators many Pulitzer prizes. But the new News is what media consumers will pay for,” he says.
“That doesn’t mean there won’t be room for the big story,” he says. “But big is not necessarily important. During a recent trip to the United States, my European colleagues were, without exception, staggered that while the European news media were concerned with the problems in Iraq, US media were wall to wall with that ultimate determinant of the future of the world, Michael Jackson.
“One has to ask whether the notion of importance has already flown out of the window and whether the people behind the decision to lead on Jackson’s misfortunes have in fact disqualified themselves already from any debate on the causes of the declining interest in news.”
Read the entire column on the Newspapers & Technology website.
Mr Chisholm, who writes a monthly column for Newspapers & Technology, is a Strategy Advisor to the World Association of Newspapers (WAN) and Director of the "Shaping the Future of the Newspaper" (SFN) project, which identifies, analyses and publicises all important breakthroughs and opportunities that can benefit the future of newspapers all over the world.
SFN provides WAN members and subscribers with Strategy Reports on these developments, a library of case studies and business ideas, and a wealth of other information that newspaper executives can use to improve their businesses.
More on the project can be found at the SFN Project website.
