Wireless devices disrupt newspapers

“The faster the disruption of print by tablet happens, the faster newspaper owners can jettison print expenses and get closer to sustainable (but not yet proven) mainly-digital business models.”

-Ken Doctor, newsonomics blog post

Newspaper executives and industry observers are starting to pay attention to two significant developments that are altering their business: disruption and the continued emergence of wireless mobile devices (specifically smartphones and tablet devices).

In a blog post on “the newsonomics of disruption,”  digital news analyst Ken Doctor writes about tablet disruption of tablet, tablet disruption of laptops, tablet disruption of smartphones and most importantly, local news disruption and tablet news disruption.

“Digital disruption is now increasing,” according to Doctor. “Audiences are even more up for grabs than they were a couple of years ago. Advertising and sponsorship dollars, pounds and euros, are also being more greatly swayed by these disruptive winds than they were in 2009.”

In an article first published in Editor & Publisher and republished on his Reflections of a Newsosaur blog, Alan Mutter writes that “publishers have not failed to embrace disruptive experimentation because they are not smart enough to do so. The video embedded below (note: also embedded on this blog) is proof that the folks at Knight Ridder in 1994 had a pretty good idea of what the future might hold. But the newspaper business historically was so successful that publishers didn’t need, or want, to change much about it. Consequently, risk-taking and experimentation took a back seat to business as usual. “

“With print circulation and advertising revenues falling to ever-lower lows for each of the last five years, newspapers now must find new ways to cost-effectively create content; build new web, mobile and social audiences, and monetize their traffic as profitably as Facebook and Google do,” Mutter continues. “To do that, they will have to bring the creative chaos of Silicon Valley into every corner of their businesses. This means launching multiple, carefully planned initiatives across the full array of print and digital media.”

These newspaper disruptions brought on by wireless mobile devices is precisely what I’m looking at for my dissertation.  I’m interested not only in the disruption to newspaper business models, but what publishers are doing about it.  A good headline for an article about my work would be “Wireless devices disrupt newspaper business models, publishers respond.”

Here’s a brief summary of my ongoing dissertation research:

Firms are now operating in hypercompetitive, emergent, dynamic, unstable, highly volatile environments in which a sustained competitive advantage may no longer be possible.  Disruptive innovation (disruption) may alter not only business models, but the strategic processes used to address the disruption.

Disruptive innovation can either disrupt or sustain a firm or industry either through business model innovations or radical product innovations.  There is not one clear definition for business models, but revenue streams and consumer values are vital to most business-model concepts.  Circulation revenue and advertising in print have long made up the traditional newspaper business model now being disrupted by the Internet and mobile devices. Whereas the Internet served as the first wave of disruption to newspaper business models, wireless mobile devices represent a second wave of disruption.

Newspapers are now experimenting with emerging models for online and mobile content, but have a history of failing to act on risk-taking experimentation that brings about change even though companies like Knight Ridder designed a futuristic tablet nearly two decades ago that closely resembles today’s iPad, and other newspaper companies commissioned a group to address disruption.  Wireless mobile devices have emerged as a critical news delivery platform and offer potential to newspapers at the same time as they continue to disrupt existing newspaper business models.

The highly uncertain “emergent” disrupted environment, characterized by evolving business models, unclear industry boundaries, new competitors and consumer preferences that are not well known, can have a dramatic impact on the managerial process of newspaper managers.  Newspaper managers’ decision speed, participation, comprehensiveness, and perceptions of the environment can affect the business model implemented to address business model innovation in order to gain a competitive advantage.  My dissertation explores these internal strategy processes newspaper executives are using to develop strategies and tactics to address mobile disruption.

 

Modified News Micropayment Model In Action

The theoretical idea that I and Jameson Hayes developed, PBS MediaShift wrote about and we presented at Texas is now a fully-vetted, peer-reviewed,  published scholarly journal article.

The Modified News Micropayment Model (for newspapers on the Social Web) is fully outlined in this International Journal on Media Management article (note: you have to pay to access the article- we are paid content advocates afterall!).

Now that our work is published, as we wrote in the piece, “the next logical step would be to test the model in local communities. Implementing the model concurrently with the design of firm-level strategic plans-of-action would make for compelling case studies, as well as test the viability and practicality of the concepts.”

That is our goal.  Of course, we are not developers, which is why it has been rewarding to see our key concepts become reality.  Hong Kong-based CarrotPay has come the closest to providing the technology to enable our model (based off of our work).  Whereas we introduced the theoretical contribution of microearn, they have dubbed this the much more industry marketable term Share-n-Earn.  This video below does an excellent job showcasing how microearn/Share-n-Earn for news can work using the CarrotPay digital purse.

The value of newspapers lost on the public

While the latest study by the Pew centers and Knight Foundation provides a comprehensive look at “how people learn about their local community” , one of the most troubling findings is how little people value a primary provider of that information.

More than two-thirds of surveyed respondents told pollsters that if their hometown newspaper disappeared, it would not seriously hurt their ability to keep up with the news.  This finding is telling because it demonstrates that first and foremost newspapers have done a poor job of  illustrating the value of their reporting.  As a paid content advocate, I would argue that a decade+ of giving content away for free online has brought newspapers to this point.  To say that putting news content online for free has tremendously devalued that content would be an understatement.  Readers have been conditioned to believe that newspapers’ best content is not worth paying for.   Is worth nothing. Nada. Zip. Zlich. Zero.

“The assumption seems to be that this information is a commodity, that it’s free and it’s omnipresent,” Tom Rosenstiel, principal author of the Project for Excellence in Journalism report told The Los Angeles Times. “That may not be true, particularly with this civic information that newspapers are primary in producing. It’s quite possible, if the newspaper disappeared, that the information would disappear along with it.”

Rosenstiel links what should be contradictory concepts in one sentence.  Even in the most simplest of terms, a commodity is a thing of value.  In economic terms, consumers pay a price for what they value.  A free commodity is an oxymoron.  And yet by failing to charge for online content, newspapers have been peddling a free commodity for years.

The Pew study should serve as the latest warning siren to beleaguered newspaper executives.  As the Los Angeles Times’ James Rainey writes “newspapers could do a lot more to tell their unique stories to the public.”  True.  But they also need to send a message that their content is highly valuable.  That it truly is a commodity.  That the content is worth paying for.  Charging for online content restores the value proposition that has been obliterated by FREE content.

Watch the last 30 seconds of this humorous but biting commentary on student journalists today (you can start around the 2:35 mark).  The fact is that not even journalism students are instinctively willing to pay for news content because of the free online alternatives.

 

 

If newspapers value their content so little that they don’t even ask the reader to pay for it, that they aren’t even willing to put any price tag on the toils of their labor, why should we expect the audience to find value in that work?  Thus, newspapers are faced with an audience who cares so little for their product that they feel they would not be phased without them. Newspapers need to show the public otherwise.  But first newspapers need to value their own product before they expect others to do the same.

Context is king in the social media economy

As one of the leading social media evangelists, Gary Vaynerchuk is outspoken, loud, vibrant, passionate, emphatic and yeah, he likes to cuss a lot. In short, he’s the polar opposite of a scholar. As demonstrative as Vaynerchuk is, he usually has some substance underlying his style.  In fact, I find that I agree with @garyvee more than I disagree with him.  In the video below, Gary is spot on in describing the importance of c-o-n-t-e-x-t in the new social media ecosystem.

This is precisely what Jameson Hayes and I had in mind 2 years ago when we began drafting our “Modified Media Micropayment Model” (we wrote “the social aspect of payment for web content is also vital. In many ways, web users are already dependent upon this socialization aspect as a referent of content we’re willing to click through. As media products are experience goods, opinions of others are often tapped to alleviate  uncertainty prior to consumption. … the modified micropayment system harnesses trusted sources from social networking sites to help consumers determine whether a media good is worth purchasing. This converts online social networks into value creating distribution networks beneficial to all parties.” p. 34 – “Synergizing Traditional Media and The Social Web for Monetization: A Modified Media Micropayment Model, Journal of Media Business Studies, 8(2),)

Gary says this more emphatically than I ever could.  Check out this excellent video below:

Social media, (search) and PR

Below are the slides from my guest lecture on “Social media, (search) and PR.” Enjoy!

Social media, search and PR

View more presentations from Geoffrey Graybeal

A love of Sports (journalism)

Sports journalism will always be special to me.  A love of sports led me into journalism at a young age (I was in middle school when I wrote an award-winning column on how Michael Jordan wasn’t a great baseball player for The News & Observer’s “Sportswriter for a Day” contest; that prompted a part-time job as a stringer for a weekly paper).  I’m in my third decade of involvement of a profession I’m passionate about.  Writing and reporting, editing and design has given way to teaching and studying, research and scholarship.  I now teach and research digital media and journalism innovation,  but my journalistic roots sprouted from sports writing and reporting.

Given my sports journalism background, I was delighted to hear Bob Rathbun speak on the University of Georgia campus last week.  Rathbun, the “Voice of the Atlanta Hawks,”  got his start in journalism in a North Carolina town as a young child. Just as I did.  Rathbun, who also covers college basketball (including calling games of my beloved Tar Heels) for a regional sports network, offered an inspiring, enthusiastic and encouraging message to members of the UGA chapter of the National Association of Black Journalists (which is currently run by one of my former students).  Rathbun encouraged students to seek out opportunities to gain experience and to work their way up the ranks, as he did.

Another encouraging sign is the rise in scholarship dedicated to sports journalism.  Universities are starting to launch new programs aimed at studying sports.  The University of Maryland just launched the Shirley Povich Center for Sports Journalism.  My college has also launched a new sports journalism initiative, which Conrad Fink tells you about in the video embedded below.  As part of the new sports journalism program, we are also hiring a tenure-track sports journalism professor (in addition to the endowed chair position).  I am serving on the search committee for that position (I will post a link once the position is formally advertised).

In many ways, my interests in sports journalism and my interests in media management and economics are blending as television contracts and “big money sports” are driving conference expansion plans.  Anyone who loves sports and high quality journalism should read this exceptional piece in The Atlantic.  With economics and management decisions impacting college athletics, with scandals galore filling the front pages of  daily newspapers and banner headlines in cyberspace, academic programs dedicated to sports journalism are more valuable than ever.

Social media in journalism

Here’s the slides from my presentation on social media in journalism that I delivered this afternoon at the Georgia Scholastic Press Association annual conference. Enjoy!

Stories From and For “Followers” and “Friends”

View more presentations from Geoffrey Graybeal

A moving story about a 9/11 survivor

Devon Smith is one of my dearest friends.  Devon and her family lived in Arlington, Va., a short drive from the Pentagon, so when the terrorist attacks occurred on Sept. 11, 2001, I was naturally worried about their safety.  Remarkably, her father, Joe Lott, was not in the D.C. area on this date, but rather in New York to deliver a business presentation- at the World Trade Center.  His story of survival is compelling.  For the 10th anniversary of 9/11, Kathleen O’Brien of the New Jersey Star-Ledger told Joe Lott’s story … of how a simple gift from a co-worker saved his life.  This is a moving story about a family I care about.  Truly representative of journalism at its finest.  I highly recommend reading this (warning: you may want to have some tissues on hand).

Colbert report on local news

Stephen Colbert came to town recently to poke fun at a story in the local newspaper, the Athens Banner-Herald:

Enjoy!

Covering Tragedy: Remembering 9/11

The newsroom’s  tiny television sat an arm’s length away from my desk in the bureau office of Durham’s (N.C.) daily newspaper.  The TV was rarely on during the week, unless there was breaking news worth monitoring.  Noise was common elsewhere in the office, which had been converted from a fast food restaurant.  As a part time reporter months removed from college, I had become accustomed to working with loud sounds- particularly from the police scanner that stayed on 24/7 – all around me.  But the TV remained silent.

That changed on Sept. 11, 2001 when terrorists attacked America.  As arguably the biggest news story of my career unfolded, as the world as we had known it was coming to an end, the television sprung to life.  Reporters crowded around my desk to watch news updates from the TV, which was suddenly and steadfastly on.  The editor cranked up the volume so she  could hear it through her glass office dubbed the “fish bowl.”  The TV was a constant on this day of covering tragedy.  I’ll  never forget that  television nor what I  wrote on that date.

As I tried to make  sense of the first foreign attack on American soil in my lifetime, to sort through our coverage for the next day’s special edition, and to contact friends in New York and Washington, D.C. to see if they were safe, I wrote.  As the TV so close to me blared reports of some Muslim group called  al-Qaeda  being behind the attacks and replayed those horrific images of the  planes  hitting the Twin Towers, I wrote.  I’ll never  forget the story  I told.  With images of death and destruction all around me, I wrote of …

love.

Yes, love.  The paper had a weekly “Generations” page that primarily catered to senior citizens living in Chapel Hill, N.C., which in addition to being the home of the University of North Carolina is also a popular  destination for retirees with several affluent retirement communities to cater to the elderly from all walks of life.  Deadlines for the page were pushed up earlier than usual to get the routine pages designed and out of the way so we could focus exclusively on our Sept. 11 coverage.

So, as news continued to filter in about the event that  we now simply call “9/11,”  I wrote an evergreen feature about an elderly couple who met at Carol Woods Retirement Center, fell in love and planned to wed one another.  Both had lost previous spouses.  They not only helped each other overcome the loneliness and sorrow at the loss of a longtime spouse, but kindled a romance in the process. The story of a retirement center wedding was certainly a heartwarming one.

And one incredibly difficult to write amid reports of terrorism and American blood spilled.

Now, I would go onto cover many local angles to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks – the safety and whereabouts of UNC students in study abroad programs in Washington and New York, memorials held on the UNC campus, peace rallies from area Muslims, stories on area residents with missing relatives, ways local governments responded to the attacks, how communities rallied to send money and care packages to those in need, how area firemen and police officers aided their New York colleagues- but on September 11, 2001,  unlike most of my colleagues, I wrote a joyous story.

A decade later, journalists are now telling stirring stories of remembrance– whether it be sorrow or  joy, of war or of peace, of loss and maybe even love.  In many ways, a story of love is the perfect antithesis to a terrorist act driven by hate.