News Media In Transition
One of the sessions here at the AFBF Shining at the PR Summit was titled, “News Media in Transition.” I thought I’d hear stories about how tv and newspapers were utilizing new and social media mechanisms to “transition” to how consumers want to get news and information. Instead I would characterize the comments as being very defensive and actually blaming shoddy reporting today on social media and citizen journalism.
We had a tv news reporter on the panel who says that when it comes to blogging, “I won’t do it.” He admits he’s old school and I think overlooks the value of providing his reports in a mechanism that makes it easier for me to get them. He is confusing unbiased reporting (what’s that?) with opinionating. I think you can use a blog to report news without adding personal perspective. However, I think that consumers want to know the opinion of people they respect and admire and that could very well be a tv reporter.
This same reporter called his Facebook friends, “My little Facebook friends.” That sounded kind of demeaning and dismissive to me. I don’t think he meant it that way but when he said “Everyone has a Twitter/Facebook account” as if somehow there’s something wrong with that it really showed a resistance to change and transition which I think clearly shows why traditional media outlets are struggling so much.
It has been a great session here today. We’re about to go on a tour which I’ll be posting about later.
In this week's program Chuck talks with Mike Adams, AgriTalk.
1 Comment
theedcarol
The panel also allowed that newspapers missed the mark several years when they started offering online versions of their publications for free. Howver, they caused an number of incredulous faces to appear among audience members when they suggested that there was still time for newspapers to begin charging for online access. When an audience member reminded them that the NY Times had been there, done that and found it didn’t work, the revelation seemed to go over the panelists’ heads. The panelist seemed oblivious to any kind of advocacy journalism being present in the mainstream media. Interesting panel. And the TV guy looked like Frasier to boot.
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