I got an email from a reader today telling me she knew we had certain coverage but was unable to find a specific article. I looked it up and it turned out we hadn’t covered that story. So I gave it to a reporter and he wrote it up. I then wrote back to the reader and told her the article was now available. This was her response:

thank you very much! What a great service from you.

I tend to rant a lot, so I thought I shouldn’t miss this opportunity to brag a little. But also, that whole episode made me once again think about how much closer journalism is to servicing customers (readers) than to creating a product (content). And although writing stories on demand, as it were, may not be the best/the only/the most viable possible future for journalism, I am growing ever more convinced that custom(isable) niche solutions will be an important part of it.

For someone who has never worked in the newspaper industry, I know a fair bit about it. This is largely because I often talk to people from that sector and our talks often focus on the problems they are facing and their hopes for the future.

There are two things on which there seems to be an overwhelming consensus. One is that newspapers are in trouble. The other is that, in order to survive, newspapers must engage with their communities. I have no problem with the first proposition. There is a lot of evidence that it is true. The second one, however, is a bit problematic.

I can’t really imagine how engaging with the community will save a newspaper. More worryingly, I don’t get the feeling that all the advocates of community engagement can.

Don’t get me wrong. If we are talking strictly about journalism, then I cannot imagine a better way for a newspaper to serve its community than by being part of it. But that’s not what we are talking about. We are talking about saving newspapers, not journalism; and their problem is a business problem: they don’t make enough money.

How could engaging with your community bring you more profit? So far I have been offered two very different explanations.

The first one says that the value of engaging with the community is in the increased recognition of your brand. If you specialise in dogs, say, and engage with the dog-loving community and use your resources to help them organise dog shows and are also the company that runs the dog-mating website for the region, then you could also sell collars and offer premium dog-related services to that community. And people will buy your goods and services because they trust you.

So far so good. But once you have established yourself as the top brand for all things dog in your community, what will keep you doing the newspaper bit? Surely, from a business standpoint, it will totally make sense for you to ditch the newspaper and concentrate on events, collars and mating sites. As I said, this is not about saving journalism, it’s about saving the newspaper. Only, this does not seem to do that. Yes, the company behind the newspaper survives; the newspaper itself, however, is gone. Then why not shut it down right now, set up a Facebook group and engage with the community from there. It will be much cheaper and as effective.

The second explanations makes more sense. A niche newspaper, it goes, such as a local publication, runs the risk that as it moves online it faces new competitors and may lose its audience to them. We are talking here about really niche publications (a local paper aimed at the business community in town, say) who typically have a handful of readers and cannot afford to lose any of them. Such companies might want to engage with their community in a bid to keep those readers loyal and make sure they won’t flee to a competitor (and competitors can be anyone from Google to a LinkedIn group).

This theory I like much better. But it is not without its flaws. For one, it only seems to apply for small niche newspapers. If you are the New York Times and have tens of millions of readers on your website, then is it realistic to think those millions can be seen as a community? I think communities are smaller, more intimate affairs. Moreover, even if you can describe your audience as a community and even if you manage to turn them into regular visitors to your website, will that be enough? Online advertising does not bring in as much money per reader as print advertising, so keeping people around won’t save your newspaper. You will have to grow your audience as well; now how do you do that?

Again, these views come from an outsider to the industry and can be perfectly wrong. If you disagree, I’d love to see your comments.

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Image by AlphaTangoBravo / Adam Baker.

There is talk among journalists I know — either in person or via Twitter or their blogs — about what the business model of a successful media company should look like. There are many reasons for having that discussion, but one of the most prominent seems to be the loss of jobs in the industry. (I’m being told that 140 journalists are losing their jobs every week in the UK.)

Some blame the job cuts on the greediness of shareholders and the cold hearts of management. Others say journalists are not fit to meet the challenges of their trade undergoing dramatic changes. Most would probably agree that it is a combination of both. Regardless of which side in the debate one leans towards, the upshot is that the discussion focuses on one central question: What should journalists learn/do/stop doing in order for their company to prosper and their jobs to be safe?

Joanna Geary, the development editor of the Birmingham Post, has wondered whether journalists are not too ignorant of their own business. The commenters seem to agree that understanding the basic economic forces that shape journalism as an industry is essential. Much of the talk revolves around the core capabilities media organisations should have, such as understanding SEO and technology. However, it does not look like those competences are drawn from some value-proposition model that requires them.

So what is the value proposition of media businesses? I am not sure how important this is, but lately I am thinking the answer to this question is so hard because there is no real understanding of what media companies are selling. I may be wrong about this, but I think we must focus on selling services rather than content. I’ll try to explain why.

A traditional business that manufactures a product and sells it usually invests chiefly in production. A master watchmaker, say, invests skills, time and money (in the form of parts) into producing a timepiece good enough for people to want to pay a lot to own it. If a business additionally invests in machinery, it can mass-produce watches good enough for a lot of people to want to pay a small sum to own one. Either way, the important thing is that customers are paying to get something that they cannot get otherwise and cannot produce themselves.

How would this work in a news website. Let’s say the website offers most of its content (the mass product, if you like) cheaply or even free, and charges only for the content that has the best quality. The logic of the product manufacturer dictates that most resources need to be spent on producing the valuable content that will be sold to customers. This is probably why investigative journalism is so often mentioned when journalists are asked to describe the value of what they do.

This is already being done. Why doesn’t it work? Because content is intangible. It can be replicated and distributed by means by which tangible goods cannot. If you want a watch, you have to buy one. If you want news, you can wait until somebody with a subscription “buys” it and posts it on a social network, and then get it free. (The same goes for ALL content: music, video, games.)

Of course, this is illegal. But it is so widespread that protecting the content is becoming a costly effort for companies. So much so, in fact, that some are now giving up their tried business models that have brought them billions. The latest developments in music and video indicate that the time when they will be distributed free for the customer may not be far. Music and video producers may in effect become service providers catering to advertisers. Some MMORPGs let gamers download the software free and charge for the use of their servers.

What works for video, music and games may not necessarily work for news. In fact, no one has yet come up with a model that will allow investigative journalism to be supported by ads. But if journalists are to understand their business, they need to know where the value is. And it increasingly looks like the value is in serving your audience, not in telling your story.

A rather heated discussion on the role of journalism and journalists has graced Joanna Geary’s blog for a few days before surprisingly slowing down almost to a halt just when it seemed to have gained critical speed. In the hope that this may give it a fresh thrust and as a way to clarify the broader premise for the reviews we publish, I’d like to pick it up here.

Joanna, who is development editor at the Birmingham Post, rightly observed that the debate had been blurred by the fact that commenters do not subscribe to a common definition of journalism, nor do they agree on why journalism is important. She tried to introduce some structure to the discussion in her latest post by singling out those two issues and offering her take on them. At the time I posted a detailed but somewhat chaotic comment. But the topic is really crucial for the future of our industry and I would not feel very good about myself if I didn’t try something more elaborate.

So, what is journalism? Most definitions tend to circulate around issues of content, relevance and importance, and communication. But I think those definitions are a bit too narrow for the purpose of the discussion. I therefore propose (and do not claim to be exhaustive) the following four defining characteristics of journalism:

1. Journalism is a service.
2. Journalism is a conversation.
3. Journalism is power.
4. Journalism is what journalists do.

You are a servant

As any service journalism needs someone to provide it and someone to consume it. It needs a business model that can sustain it. That goes for both commercial media and for personal blogs where individuals compete with one another and with media businesses for attention. There is no reason why this service should not be governed by the rule that “the customer is always right”, yet, surprisingly, it too often is not. All too often it is the providers that insist on being right, on the ground of their perceived role as a crucial element in a democratic society.

This is not to say that media outlets should only publish what their audiences ask of them. Editorial judgement is an important piece of their value proposition, since not everybody can have the knowledge and skills to do the job of a journalist. (Again, this goes for both commercial media and “amateur” bloggers alike.)

Joanna suggested that rather than wasting journalistic resources on data processing such as, say, re-writing press releases, it would be better for the generators of original information “to communicate it better and to allow for redress to what they say”, so as to fit onto any specific platform.

I cannot agree with that. As Mik Barton, the head of PR company Actuality Media, pointed out: “Sadly most of the news releases I see when I’m sat at my local editor’s desk do need rewriting so they can be a) understood and b) interesting to local people.”

And Steve Dyson, editor of the Birmingham Mail and the Sunday Mercury, was right to worry about what will happen “if organisations, companies, local government, public authorities, etc, were simply allowed to post/publish their versions of facts with no interpretation and checking by a (…) journalist, or no challenge or probe from a (…) journalist.”

The problem with the originators of information is that they are providing a different service altogether, and thus cannot be trusted to cater to the needs of journalism’s customers. Sam Shepherd, who is in charge of online development at the Daily Echo in Bournemouth, summed it up rather nicely: “I can’t imagine a world where companies who knew their press releases would run unrefined wouldn’t take advantage of that fact.”

But the media should not generalise this to the point where their special expertise makes them the ultimate authority on the issue of what is quality content and what is not. It may take a journalist to create quality content, but anybody can judge what quality is.

Do not build brands, build trust

The best way for media outlets to understand what their audiences want is not just to talk to them but to actually involve them in the journalistic process. Letting people comment on the content is a great starting point. But if people are given the opportunity to participate, they could do so much more than just complain or praise.

Remember it is a service. Compare it with a restaurant: if a customer wishes their steak raw, wouldn’t they be served a raw steak? Surely, Chef knows better, but Chef’s taste buds are not important in this case.

Ideally, says the now seemingly prevalent school of thought, journalism should not be a broadcast but a conversation. Journalists should outreach to their community and try and engage it in creating the journalistic product.

However, fruitful conversations are based on trust and people seem to be growing mistrustful of the media. Steve Dyson may want to believe that “(l)ocal newspaper brands have great reputations for reporting trusted facts”, but they do not. Partly it is because of incidents like the one with Birmingham Mail’s own Adam Smith (thanks to Mark Comerford who found the video):

But such snafus alone cannot explain it. What amplifies their effect and is actually the reason for mistrust is the media’s arrogance. Yes, we are back to journalists thinking they are the only ones who can define quality journalism and going as far as to suggest, as Steve has, that social interaction “should be labelled clearly as just that” and that “fully factual reports must be protected as the domain of trained journalists”. Such stances are clear conversation-killers and anyone who thinks they care about journalism must eschew them. The Guardian’s Technology editor Charles Arthur has got it all wrong by claiming that “(j)ournalism always thrives in conflict.” Conflict is no way to build a community.

The fourth estate

Before the internet, journalism had a mission to give a voice to the voiceless. Now the voiceless can buy a voice from their cable-TV operator, but that does not mean that journalism has lost any of its potency. Rather, journalism has expanded to include not only professional journalists but also members of what had previously been thought of as the public.

The fifth estate is as powerful as the fourth and that is a good thing. Charles tried to make a point saying that independent media are better at exposing the facts that certain individuals or organisations are hiding. And I agree… up to a point. As web publicist Gary Andrews suggested, the media have greater clout and their reporting is usually harder to discredit than that of individual bloggers. But I feel that, as so much else in journalism, that is a legacy from times that are not going to be repeated. Bloggers tend, by and large, to be much less arrogant than commercial media; they stand to gain the publics’ trust, even as legacy businesses stand to lose it.

Video may yet change that (as the Adam Smith example indicates), but at the moment people can be largely anonymous in their web presence. This is a double-edged sword. On the one hand, it raises concerns about reliability; but on the other, it means in less free societies the fifth estate can wield greater power than what old media would have allowed it to.

With power comes responsibility (and accountability). Sam Shepherd argued that “(n)ews organisations should give journalists the chance to do the job they want to do because it’s the point of being a journalist. It IS what people pay for.” I am not sure that that is entirely correct. To me it seems to be the same case as in her earlier point about press releases: give journalists a blank cheque and they will take advantage, just like companies would.

Everyone is a journalist now

I come to the final point in my argument: journalism is what journalists do. For that to make sense, however, we need to clearly define who is a journalist and what is it that journalists do exactly.

In the discussion so far, two figures have taken a somewhat vague shape as being opposed to each other: the one is the “trained journalist” (aka investigative journalist) who has special skills and whose time is too precious to be wasted on menial jobs; the other is the “amateur blogger” (aka man on the street), who by trying their best can just about gain entry to the lower levels of journalistic excellence.

Now, if I have done a decent job by this point it should not be necessary for me to go over all the issues of arrogance, trust, conversation and community again to point out how counterproductive this opposition is. Social-media specialist Nick Booth has summarised it beautifully: “The business of recording and sharing facts is not one that journalists are uniquely qualified to do – neither is it one they do uniquely well.”

If that has not been made entirely clear by now, throughout this article I have used media to mean both commercial outfits and personal undertakings, and journalists to mean both professionals and laymen. In my comment to Joanna’s latest post I argued that the importance of training is overblown by people who want to use it as a shield. Journalism is what people who act as journalists do; training, background and what you call them makes no difference to the output of their work.

Nor is there any work that can be simply dismissed as data processing below a journalist. If it is the best way to serve your community of customers, then it is journalism at its best. Some people want unpleasant things about the powers that be dug out: and that is a journalistic job. Others want company press releases re-written and digested so that they make sense in time for the start of trade on the stock market: and that is a journalistic job. Others still need information aggregated, sifted through and channelled in a manner that meets their specific needs: and that is a journalistic job. To those who suggest “churnalism” and aggregation do not add journalistic value, I will just say: you go and try to re-write all press releases on any day during earnings season before the LSE opens, and see how easy shovelling information is.

Matt Buck, a cartoonist, illustrator and journalist, said he saw “no reason why trusted sources (brands) shouldn’t develop good, economic relationships with bloggers who have expertise in niche areas – and who are able to prove it. In fact, and speaking specifically about newspapers here, we might find this to be an effective way of reversing the lamentable decline in the numbers of specialist reporting positions.”

That has been backed up by several examples, which I’m copying here from Joanna’s post:

- Ahmed Bilal, founder of Soccerlens.com
- Andy Baio, founder of waxy.org (which helped dig out the Miss Alaska video of Sarah Palin)
- Pat Phelan of patphelan.net who looks at the telecommunications industry whilst operating a business in it.
And more locally in Birmingham:
- Pete Ashton, founder of the creative industry news blog createdinbirmingham.com.
- Steve Gerrard, founder of gig review blog brumlive.com.
- Nicky Getgood, who is keeping Digbeth residents in the know about local issues at “Digbeth is Good”.

As Matt concluded: “Independent bloggers and established media outlets do not have to be in competition – I think they are natural allies.”

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This debate is too important to just leave it die away. If you care about journalism, please leave a comment here, or underneath any of those other blog posts, which have also taken up the topic:

Joanna Geary on Why most news doesn’t need journos

Joanna Geary on What is journalism and why is it so essential

Andrew Grant-Adamson on Why news needs reporters

Gary Andrews on Does news need journalists

William Perrin on Traditional press, new business models and processes

Or blog it yourself.

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Images| by Joanna Geary, Resclassic2, | spoon |, cliff1066, Gauravonomics