journalism

Journalism has been thoroughly disrupted over the past decade. News organizations, especially newspapers, have come under heavy financial pressure, news bureaus have been closed or consolidated and journalists have had to rethink their profession.

"We have met the enemy and he is us."

~Pogo

The headline in today's FT says "Rift grows between old and young - Chancellor continues to shelter older people from austerity measures."

What follows is a pathetic attempt to construct an argument to justify the headline claim. It is worth marketers understanding the technique the FT attempts to employ. When done well it can be very effective - when done like this it is beyond contempt.

Guest Post by: Richard Dalke

Sky and the BBC have recently been in the news for restricting their journalists’ use of social media. The BBC released guidelines encouraging employees not to break news stories on Twitter while Sky’s new social media guidelines advise against sharing stories from anyone other than their own employees.

Guest Post by: Jo Stratmann

In a recent article titled “The people formerly known as the audience”, The Economist looked at how social media technologies have changed how we gather, filter and distribute news.

When accusations of illegal mobile phone hacking and arrests first came to the newspaper News of the World a few years ago, the paper responded in the typically guarded, less-said-the-better dance advised by most lawyers and crisis communications experts. For all the talk of bold answers and transparency, the resulting strategy out of brands getting challenged by challenging crises is to stretch out the pain as long as possible with the least amount of comment or operational effort...thereby betting on everyone losing interest, which is normally what happens.

Let’s just get a few things straight, there are a lot of doomsayers out there. Those that say Rupert Murdoch is an idiot for implementing a paywall on his most prized content. If you talk to Journalists, however, they tell a different story. Although most call it bold, most also say they support it. Protecting their skills seems the right way to go.

I get contacted by lots of journalists and have developed a sixth sense for spotting the variety that know what they want to hear and if you aint saying it, will keep searching until they find somebody who does. This happened to me a few weeks ago.

I had an inane exchange with a social media consultant on his blog last week that reminded me of a truism: just as the rule for understanding politics is to follow the money, an important quality of social media experience is revealed when you consider the role of the megaphone owner...or, in this case, the guy who operates the guillotine.

   "Society doesn't need newspapers. What we need is journalism." Clay Shirky