THE SITUATION:
Print versions of newspapers & magazines are being read less & less.
Print format, content, layout & writing styles do not seem to have changed.
Result is funding & contenting Fourth Estate is increasingly challenging.
Readers, viewers, & listeners to media are muting, deleting, & ignoring content.
Need to counter misinformation with algorithm that measures & rates credibility.
Web access, advertising, corporate ownership, social media, & print in decline.
ITS SIGNIFICANCE:
New Content Format needed-–Tell Me What, Why Significant, & What to do about it
Readers need to be not just informed but educated, briefed, & positioned.
Pandemic is likely to finish off many titles & local newspapers.
Newspapers suffer from broad trend toward “fragmentation” of all media
Are abundance of smaller, specialized publications targeting specific interest groups.
Narrowcasting has splintered audiences into smaller and smaller audience slivers.
Second wave of editorial & advertising disruption’ has hit news organizations already.
Publishers still employ large social media teams to optimize posts & traffic.
SOME SOLUTIONS:
A complete change to new multi-media, multi-platform, & content presentation.
Seek to create new digital business model that includes all media platforms.
Use format that adds more sidebars, quotes, charts, graphs, visuals, & links.
Subheads that capture core content in short sentences and paragraphs.
Provide Fact checking of all content subjects in multi-media platforms- algorithms could do.
Readers adopt subscription model for new comprehensive content presentation.
Use of social media, machine intelligence/smart algorithms and big data.
Portfolio of industry-sector focused verticals would deliver personalized content
Audiences wants distilled or digested news & information for quick read & access.
The Scope, Organization & Media Platforms for the New Coverage: (12 on List]
- Print in magazine, newspapers & collateral materials
- Internet News & Information Websites
- Multiple Social Media Platforms
- Podcasts – Audio & On line
- E-newsletters – Supplementary Subscription
- Texting
- Streaming Video
- Infomercials
- Advertorials
- Linkage to Social Media Platforms
- AI Assistants
- Traditional print and media advertising
What does it mean?
Companies to offer total Integrated marketing of product & service companies.
Use of every available MarComm Resource including advertorial content .
STATS:
Newspapers’ weekday circulation fell 7% and Sunday circulation fell 4%.
Overall, the industry continues to shrink-126 fewer daily papers in 2014 vs 2004.
SEZ:
“Newspapers are doing the reporting in this country,”
“Google and Yahoo! aren’t those people putting reporters on the street in any number.
“Blogs cannot afford it.” –John S. Carroll, editor,Los Angeles Times
SOURCES:
CONTENT, INC- https://www.joepulizzi.com/books/content-inc
“Why our newspapers might not survive the contagion of coronavirus”- https://www.theguardian.com/media/commentisfree/2020/apr/12/newsprint-coronavirus-newspapers
“The Decline in Newspapers: A Closer Look” – https://clubs.waketech.edu/wake-review/magazine/creative-writing/non-fiction/the-decline-in-newspapers-a-closer-look-joseph-ahrens/
