The following was originally published on my Posterous blog “Digidave’s Quickies” – where I often collect my brain musings. I thought it was too good to just leave it there and wanted to see if others had thoughts on this conversation.
OJR had an interesting post out today that is making the rounds. But I see a big problem with it.
Their headline: “The pros and cons of newspapers partnering with ‘citizen journalism’ networks.”
The post was an aggregation of quotes from different newspaper people. All the quotes had good points. The basic rundown.
Pro = We can make money off of it.
Con = We still don’t really trust “them.”
And therein lay the problem: This is a one sided (us vs. them) newspaper centric conversation.
The important pros and cons of citizen journalism have much less to do with newspapers and more to do with…. life.
These are the pro/con I see with citizen journalism and the potential partnering with news organizations.
Pro = a healthy and vibrant conversation is good for democracy.
Con = filter failure.
Interesting the role that newspapers play in relation to this broader picture of citizen journalism.
Pro newspaper relation: Newspapers typically played this role and need to continue doing so and newspapers are hurting (although not because of citizen journalism). So the question is if newspapers are losing their prestigious place as the “4th estate” by recognizing that citizens can play that role without “the press” traditionally understood.
Con newspaper relation: newspapers respond to the filter failure by providing an authoritative voice.
Interesting that the relationship of the pro and con that come to my mind are reversed in their relationship to newspapers. The pro of citizen journalism can be interpreted as a con for newspapers and the con of filter failure can be responded to with a strong editorial voice by newspapers.
Just a late night thought.
One of the cultural divides that you point out stems from the fact that these are often mature businesses that have been thrust into a startup environment, often against their will.
If two out of ten startups succeed, things are working normally. If, in a mature industry, a manager suceeds two out of ten of her/his initiatives, she’d better start looking for a new employer.
That leads to a culture where risk taking isn’t a smart move, exactly the recipe for failure on the fast changing web.
But worse than that, it leads to a product development mentality that puts monetary success first and the user second. That may sound sensible but it’s not working at many newspaper companies since the lure of short term revenue promised by the traditionalists trumps the ideas for something like Twitter which initially shows no promise of revenue.
Throw popups at your users and you are guaranteed a short term revenue boost, but is that the sound strategy toward a sustainable business in the future?
I imagine that the founders of newspapers were the types that would succeed on the web. Let’s face it, they need to invest a whole lot of money in building a press and hiring folks and didn’t even know if people would read their product.
That kind of chance taking needs to be present if one wants to succeed these days. Fortunately, it takes much less to try out ideas.
Unfortunately, in a company where revenues are declining and folks are being asked to tighten their belts, no one wants to risk one million dollars on ten ideas, with the hopes that one might work.
But that’s what it takes.
Ask not what we can monetize and then seek users, ask what we can provide our users and then monetize it’s popularity.