NEW YORK- Gone are the days of journalists with privileged information “projecting from the mountaintop” to a mass of eagerly awaiting consumers.
Now, the news business is increasingly about marketing content and vying for attention in an Internet-based landscape, say three news leaders with pivotal roles in today’s industry. Today’s reporting is in part driven by news consumers who are chiming in on discussions and engaging with social media.
Kathleen Carroll, executive editor and senior vice president of the Associated Press, Mark Thompson, president and CEO of The New York Times, Mark Hoffman, president and CEO of CNBC and Matt Winkler, editor-in-chief of Bloomberg News, engaged in a panel discussion on the future of journalism. The panel was moderated by Paul Steiger, executive chairman of ProPublica’s board of directors and the founding editor-in-chief, CEO and president of ProPublica from 2008 through 2012.
The panel, attended by more than 200, kicked off SABEW’s two-day Fall 2013 Conference at City University of New York’s Graduate School of Journalism in New York City.
Like many news organizations, CNBC, the Associated Press, Bloomberg and The New York Times are dealing with a rapidly changing media landscape by focusing on depth pieces, expanding internationally, aggressively producing videos and mulling paywalls and alternative revenue streams.
“We’re becoming more of a two-way service rather than projecting from the mountaintop,” said Caroll of the Associated Press, which has been ramping up video production efforts lately. “CNBC has never been more impactful with a myriad of platforms.”
At CNBC, executives are trying to stay focused on the fundamentals and break as many stories as they can, says Thompson. CNBC, along with the AP, Bloomberg and The New York Times, is still aiming for depth content that moves markets and adopts quickly to the evolving macro environment.
Journalism’s main challenge has shifted from simply covering a story well to marketing and analyzing those marketing results. These major news outlets are focused on precision in their viewer counts to maximize their content’s value. But they are also clinging to a mission of providing outstanding coverage for their readers.
“I’m hoping content will be king again,” Hoffman said.
Inside The New York Times, even the security guards are aware of the newspaper’s mission to provide “the best journalism in the world and journalism of quality and depth and breadth,” Thompson said. “The challenge is to figure out the path to the audience that is hungry for that.”
The newspaper, which has initiated a paywall but offers much of its content for free, is planning to ramp up international revenue. It’s also focused on ensuring online video content builds an expectation among consumers of “brilliant material,” he said.
Finally, Bloomberg, too, is charging ahead with expanding internationally and focusing on the quality of its content by tending to local stories near its foreign bureaus, Winkler said.
“The challenge and opportunity remains in leveraging the international markets and moving markets in the public interest,” Winkler said.
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