Nicholas Lemann, dean of the Columbia Journalism School, told graduates during a commencement speech yesterday to create a new model for journalism rather than improve the old one.
New models I’ve heard proposed:
(1) Unbundle the product. Bob Cauthorn compares traditional journalism to the record industry’s sales of albums with filler songs rather than selling the best hits as singles. With the advent of
iTunes, this environment is changing for music, and the Amazon Kindle represents the beginning of this change for news.
(2) Adopt the newsroom to the 21st century. Online Journalism Blog provides a comprehensive five-part series here.
(3) Pay writers according to ability. Nick Denton pays his Gawker bloggers $7.50 for every 1,000 page views, according to this Guardian article. Keep the ideas coming, Darwin.
New models I haven’t heard proposed:
(1) Customize ads. To some extent, this has occurred, but clearly there is an enormous potential awaiting. Personal information likes purchases, articles read, time spent reading news, and ads clicked are all powerful tools to make niche advertising super niche. Also, where are local advertisers on national online newspapers? Magazines have developed regional editions for advertising, and online accounts allow for personal editions. There’s no reason why my ads for a New York Times article should be the same as any other user.
(2) Customize front pages online. Rather than have a most visited tab or link, automatically update a site’s Web page to reflect traffic stats, building momentum. Bob Cauthorn experimented this with a small sample, but editors specifically tailored pages for each individual manually rather than implementing software. All the data gathered from the previous item applies here, and it’s a shame newspaper sites have lacked the forward thinking of other business implementing this, such as grocery stores, Amazon and Facebook (for ads).
(3) Give articles more options. Release drafts online, adding pages for updates and edits. Let readers choose between a short 500-word Web piece or a more in-depth 3,000-word investigation, using your online traffic stats to show what’s working and what’s not. Personally, a campus magazine at my university refused to run a 1,500-word article I wrote, saying it had to be 500 words max. These online editors cited a handful of professors who told them to do so, and I cited a department chair who said research shows otherwise – that readers go online to get more substance to content.
Obviously I’m just scratching the surface. Add your own ideas and what you’ve learned below.
