20 shocking secrets about the news business (hint: it's all about innovation)

20 Shocking Secrets About the News Business

alexa schirtzinger | july 2014

(apologies to Upworthy)

What’s coming:

● Theory

● Data

● Secrets!

First, a quick intro.

Stanford!

startup:

“a human institution designed to create new products and services under conditions of extreme uncertainty”

Eric Ries

The internet’s “democratizing” effect

● access to information

● communication

● content creation

(here comes the theory)

What is “content”?

If the supposedly self-involved members of the creative class can organize to assert some control over what they make — the magical stuff now routinely referred to as “content” — then maybe other residents of the beleaguered middle might be inspired by their examples.

A.O. Scott

“Ads are just as much content as anything else.”

Dylan Smith, LION

the pipe

(now for some data)

Based on my survey of approximately 40 alt-weekly stakeholders.

Based on my survey of approximately 40 alt-weekly stakeholders.

[T]he trends are clear: people, especially the young, are turning to the Internet for more and more of their news and developing an effective digital strategy is essential for long-term survival.

Paul Grabowicz, UC Berkeley

Independent Media Network

● “We are a social enterprise”● operations:

o tech support/trainingo national/regional saleso eventually, local sales

● revenue from national, regional, local sales

Texas Tribune

● “Relentlessly entrepreneurial”

● Texas-based, politically involved audience

credit: Jake Batsell

credit: Jake Batsell

Berkeleyside

● Small and lean (3 people)● operations:

o daily neighborhood reportingo membershipso one big event: Uncharted: Festival of Ideas

● Revenue from local ad sales, events, memberships

Why should we care?

“In the past decade, what [we] do to engage customers has changed almost beyond recognition. Tools and strategies that were cutting-edge just a few years ago are fast becoming obsolete, and new approaches are appearing every day…

“…yet in most companies, the organizational structure…hasn’t changed [in 40 years].”

Harvard Business Review

Secrets!

1. Know your audience

community

2. Know thyself

3. Know your purpose

credit: Disney

4. Listen

5. Get personal

6. Engage

7. Enlist allies

Wikimedia Commons

8. ...and put them to work!

9. Consider your user...

10. ...the use case...

11. ...and the whole journey.

12. Just do it.try

13. Rough beats ready

>

14. Take time to reflect

15. Be transparent

16. Innovate continuously

17. Get the data

18. Challenge ALL of your assumptions—even the ones you know to be true

19. Tear down your firewall

credit: npr.org

20. Have fun.