Tag Archives: Media

Downhill

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While everyone else is doubling down on “local”, the Washington Post is cutting back.

Time will tell whether this strategy is a good one but it is counter to what is happening in the market.

I will tell you that I am bullish on local and we are hiring and investing as a media company in this space.

Eighty percent of consumer spending is done within 20 miles from home.

The great value creators – Google, eBay, Groupon – are all about local and small business.

Local media companies such as Regional Sports Networks create the value. Comcast basically paid ZERO for NBC. Zero. As in no value.

Cutting back on newsroom staff in Metro opens the door for many new local media companies. This is a sad state of affairs. The Post would rather send people to London and the Olympics than staff reporters in Bethesda, Maryland, or Great Falls, Virginia, or Cleveland Park in DC.

Bad move. Read this article on the Washington Post in the Washington Post. It is all downhill from here.

Hot Spot

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So, what is the hottest spot in business today? The place where the most investment and development and hype and interest has coalesced?

It is the point of intersection where “local meets social and mobile and real time.”

Every big player in commerce – tech – payments – media – and venture capital is exploring this mashed up space.

While I am reading all about the travails of newspapers, from arrests to layoffs, to scandal and contraction, I can’t help think that the noise is getting in the way of the signal.

Aren’t newspaper publishers positioned well into this new space? Isn’t this the space they originally created so many years ago?

Local is all about local merchants and neighborhood relationships; and local commerce and local news and info consumption. Creating marketplaces between merchants and consumers; right on your street! Delivering news that matters as all politics is truly local!

Social is all about community and delivery platforms; and activating conversations and reviews and people to people info exchange and communications; and news feeds! “News feeds” people; news feeds! And publishing platforms; “publishing platforms” people! Who invented these terms? These concepts?

Mobile is all about consuming information on a third screen and being available on computers; on televisions and on devices/phones; accessing and then being able to communicate and activate and consume in a digital manner; being available in your pocket and being one click away from everything!

Real time is all about “NOW”. I want it now-info-deals; news; special offers; what you are thinking and saying; Tweet this- update news feed that; blog away; express away. Be fast-and short and sweet! Subscribe. Subscribe people…subscribe! Who invented that concept?

It seems to me that the newspaper industry invented the space. Invented the vocabulary; perfected the concepts and is well positioned; it just needs a focus and an investment thesis to go after this new large market place; organize around it-go for it-. Stay away from noise and focus on signal. Reinvent. Reorganize. Refresh. Walk away from the past. “Headless Man In Topless Bar”; and go towards the future….Thanks for letting me rant.

Perspective

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This is a sad day for some in media and serves as a proxy for the new interactive world in which we live.

Generating headlines and selling papers and carelessly feeding the monster can come with a price.

A great institution has been shuttered. Talented and loyal and hardworking people have lost their jobs. This is a human drama and is very emotional and sad.

Value has been destroyed. Reputations have been lost. Scandal is now on the other foot.

People are being jailed. There was no shame on the part of this media property when it came to generating first in news; they are now paying a huge price for that ethos.

All because a media property wanted to be “first” with news or wanted to become a part of the story. Someone in the media had a personal agenda against a citizen or a politician or a celebrity. Editors and head line writers are human bloggers. They have agendas too sometimes. Papparazi love to have fun with their subjects. Some blame photographers for the death of a princess in the UK as you all know.

28,200,000 results here. Parse these numbers and interpret them however you want. It isn’t good though, is it? These are the last digital footprints in the sand for this media property which was once the world’s most circulated newspaper. It once had a circulation of 8.5 million!

There is a line that can’t be crossed now in media. It has been established now by the authorities. Upper management will now be vigilant in NOT allowing writers to just make stuff up or do illegal things all in the name of journalism or selling papers or generating pixels.

I think this is a watershed moment in media. I also think it is a sad day indeed all around.

Click here and watch in the future as lawyers clean up all details on the go forward. This story will continue and the monster will feed for quite a while. The monster eats its own now.

RIP News of the World Indeed.

Accountability?

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134,000 results in 0.13 seconds. Type in “Varlamov signs with KHL”.

This is how media works today. Instant- fast – unaccountable.

A Tweet is generated and recycled.

It leaps to become a story. The story is then recirculated.

It goes from online sources to great and established media entities; to newspapers, to cable to local television newscasts. The headlines morph from rumor to fact.

It thus must be true. Just look at the headlines and see how rumor morphs to facts.

The media gets manipulated by an overseas agent; and a freelance media rep. That was too easy wasn’t it?

But news moves so quickly. The media is off to the next story and rumor. So who cares?

Who cares if the old pixels are incorrect? The monster was fed and the stories are disposable. The media awaits the next tasty morsel from the blogger. In the old days the generator of bad news would be put into the penalty box. In the new world there is no accountability and we await the next feeding.

“Ted Leonsis’s deleted blog post”– 30,700 listings in 0.09 seconds.

In the old days an established media journalist would call or email and ask “What is up?” What just happened with the blog post going down? What does this mean?

But not today. There is an algorithm awaiting feeding. Controversy sells and being first to post matters. Being second to recycle is important to listings into Google crawlers. Deleting a blog post is BIG NEWS. We want our links to be linked back from 30,700 sites. Who cares if it was because of a typo and an editing process?

Who cares if what was posted in my blog post turned out to be pretty accurate and transparent. It was more important to be first with the big news of a “deleted blog post”.

And so it goes.

Jagr to DC-2011-71,000 listings; Jagr to Pittsburgh 2011-2,470,000 listings; Jagr to Philadelphia 2011-2,510,000 listings. All in less than a second. Permanently glued into the algorithm.

Media have a big responsibility. A tough job; but a higher standard to execute against I believe.

Being accurate and trusted is important. Providing context is crucial. It is more important than being “first to post”.

Off of my soap box now. Thank you.

Shot Across the Bow

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Wow.

Provocative. Read this one. It is a complicated subject indeed. Analytic and emotional all at the same time.

I empathize greatly with what Mark is saying. We as sports teams are our own media companies now as you know. I blog and I am on Twitter and Facebook. I read and respond to all of my email. I am accessible. I care deeply. We all do in our franchises. In a way, we compete with the bloggers and media that cover our teams now.

There. I said it. We hire journalists on our staff. We want sponsors. We want readers. We want to feed the monster. Mr. /Ms. Blogger. We are in your business. You are in ours. We live in this odd state of “coopetition” with the media that covers us. We must get that out and understand what that means. We don’t get rights fees from these folks. They take our content and brands and access to players and staff that we pay and then try to make a business or a reputation out it for themselves. Good deal, right? Only Comcast pays us fees.

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