Home / Press review / Archive / Magazine / Media / European Public / Interview

Media in the transformation from product to service

Only with modern business models and new formats can the present deterioration of the media be counteracted, said Mark Hunter, Journalist and Professor at the Institut Européen d'Administration des Affaires (INSEAD), in his contribution to the workshop "Towards a European Public Sphere". Here, he answers three questions on this theme for euro|topics.

In your speech you mentioned the "crisis of news media". What do you mean by that, and what are the reasons for it?

The news media are facing a triple crisis of content, talent and competition.

Photo:
Christoph Meissen/photocase.de

Content: A growing number of readers finds that the content offered by print media does not justify its price compared to free media and a growing number of viewers of broadcast media are likewise turning away.

Competition: User-generated content, from blogs and forums to SMS , claims a growing share of media user time.

Talent: Wages are lower for journalists than for any other profession that requires equivalent training. Freelance fees have been declining in real terms since the 1970s, making it difficult for non-salaried reporters to exercise their profession. Diversity of the journalism workforce is growing in ethnic and gender terms but declining in professional terms; Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame, a college dropout who began his career at the Washington Post as a copy boy, would not get a job at a newspaper today. Continual training, a standard in the industries journalists cover, is the exception in the media.

These crises are interrelated. Outdated talent policies lead to shrinking capabilities and in turn to lower value in reporting and editing. They also mean that journalists are poorly equipped to cover the elites they are supposed to "watchdog". Competition that delivers content of lesser but sufficient value relative to price (zero) leads viewers and readers to question the value of paid news media.

Which kinds of formats and what content would be able to face the 'crisis of news media'?

Independence is clearly an added value of media: Publications like France's Canard enchained, which thrives entirely on circulation revenues, and the films of Michael Moore are obvious examples. Conversely, a key complaint in surveys of audiences across countries is that the mainstream media are not credible and dependent on established powers.

Information aimed at specific audiences that cannot be found in general interest news media is another added value and a key reason that The Economist Group is profitable. This is not new. The explosion of magazines in the past three decades reflects the same desire of the public for specific value-added content.

Guiding the public through the abundant but largely superficial information available from multiple sources is a possible value-added route for general interest media. It is happening, but primarily via blogs, which have thereby seized a source of value from news media. Critical aggregation of content – grouping of news by theme with added analysis and investigation – is clearly an emergent trend, visible online in the Environmental News Network, Grist, and consumer service sites like lesradins.com, which aims at helping visitors to maximize the buying power.

In general, media must recognize that they are not providing a product (exclusive news) as much as a service (access to information and personalities). This is not an easy shift to recognize or navigate, but it is well under way and it is irresistible.

The Internet dislocates language borders and facilitates the access to information. Will transnational journalism benefit from this, and if so, how?

Yes, and examples are beginning to emerge. Through a print medium, France's Courrier International aggregates international news by theme, offering access to novel talents and perspectives. It has dethroned the International Herald Tribune as Paris's window on the world. It thereby illustrates a key process element of the emerging media landscape: translation of offshore content.

The key issue is not whether the content is available but how value is added to it and what value is derived for media creators. We need to consider non-revenue sources of value, on the model of the open source movement in software, or lifestyle value, which is the key benefit for forum contributors, among others. Historically, media has served as a generator of political or social influence; this too is a major value.

We may need to consider how media can align themselves with specific international communities or networks without losing their independence (as opposed to their objectivity, which is another issue). The history of journalism is dominated by partisan or communitarian media; the notion of apartisan, "objective" mass media dates from the latter half of the 19th century and became an ideal only after the First World War. If journalism is a service, the question arises: Whom does it serve? The answer will increasingly be, international networks or communities of interest and practice. The current media landscape is,however,dominated by logic of territorial exclusivity. In other words, a shift is on the way from territory to community as the basis of media franchises.

Interview by Julia Rosch

Further articles on the subject » Media policy, » Europe
More from the press review on the subject » Media policy, » Europe