The ever-changing technological world we live in continues to force content creators and distributors to innovate in order to effectively reach media consumers. Pressure comes from many different directions to accelerate the rate of change and adaptation.

Some have said this heralds the end of an old era of one-way communication to a passive audience. For these evangelists of a new way, social media will surpass traditional media and usher in an age of distributed content based on empowering the audience and encouraging conversation. These individuals tend to be less concerned with the business merits of media and frequently trumpet the line “content wants to be free.”

Some traditional media types continue to cling to an old way of doing business, based largely on making minor modifications to existing approaches and sharing information online. They may bemoan the decision by media companies not to charge subscription fees from day one of the World Wide Web, arguing that has ruined the financial prospects for the industry. Meanwhile, they continue to search for a viable revenue stream, largely through advertising.

New media startups often cobble together an approach with elements of both of these philosophies. Many then build upon it by seeking additional revenue from things like sponsorships, events, and partnerships. Often the content itself is something of a hybrid between amateur empowerment and buttoned-down professional journalism.

As the media world continues to be disrupted by these divergent forces (and others), media companies, content creators, and consumers themselves follow the changes with interest. The debate over the “right” approach will continue to rage. Technology will advance and demand further adaptation. Consumers will cast votes with their wallets and clicks. Some media entities will fail, while others thrive.

Ultimately, an “answer” is unlikely. The media industry has profited from more diversity over the past century than many may at first believe. New technology rarely obliterates its predecessors in media, no matter the level of hype. Instead, a process of evolution occurs — even when it feels more like revolution.

Media Disruption will continue to follow the (r)evolution of content creation, distribution, and consumption. These pages will give voice to a variety of perspectives, explore the latest innovations from a technological and business perspective, and seek a better understanding about what the changes mean for media consumers.

Kara Miller, an instructor on media issues at Babson College in Massachusetts, writes in her Culture Club blog at Boston.com about conflicts of interest in the media. Her focus is on the intersection between media coverage and sponsorship of media outlets.

She concludes:

Commercials, certainly, are not new to news shows. But there is something vaguely disturbing about integrating corporate logos into newscasts in 2010. What if Rachel Maddow wanted to report on Cisco? Or CNBC detected corruption within the ranks of Charles Schwab? Would they hesitate to expose those who make their shows possible?

With apologies to Oliver Stone and Michael Douglas: bias, for lack of a better word, is good.

In fact, all media is biased already. We all bring our own personal conflicts — people, products, and points of view which we like or dislike. Virtually all media outlets accept advertising or sponsorship to some degree, and that creates a conflict. Publishers, general managers, and others who control hiring bring on board people with whom they can work well.

These are all conflicts and they no doubt influence the news. These conflicts, however, are not new. Indeed, overt sponsorship of television programming is hardly new — it used to be common for TV shows to include sponsorship announcements as part of their broadcast.

Disclosure of Bias and Conflict

In the examples Miller mentions, it is hardly a secret that those companies sponsor portions of the newscast. Will it cause them to shy away from negative coverage? Perhaps. But it also makes it more likely that competitors will exploit that to their own advantage and drive negative coverage if it exists.

Where these conflicts become problematic is when a news outlet pretends to be impartial. That’s simply not possible. We all have biases and conflicts that we cannot truly bury. Yes, we can — and should — compensate for them where possible.

But ultimately we are only as good at it as the disclosures we make. If a network newscaster came out and admitted to being left of center, it would surprise nobody. If some of the Fox anchors announced they were conservatives, there would be no shock.

What Context Tells Us

These admissions would help. Imagine if the web sites of the various news organizations included information about the biases and conflicts of their reporters, producers, and on-air talent. Start with political bias, but let’s add in other relevant information. Where does a spouse work? Or children if they’re old enough to be employed. What about other experiences that have left an indelible mark?

Some conflicts or bias may only need to be disclosed in narrow circumstances, and that’s fine, too. I’m not looking for the media to turn their lives into a completely open book, but rather to share information that a reader, viewer, or listener would find helpful in establishing context.

Perhaps moderation is on my mind because we just started a “Biggest Loser” contest in my office. Or maybe it is has something to do with hearing this weekend about a great quote attributed to Julia Child (“everything in moderation, including moderation”).

Moderation again came to mind this morning as I work from home before heading down to DC this evening. I have had CNN on in the background, as dull white noise – just as I have for most of the past 19 years of my professional life.

I have not kept track minute-by-minute so my impression could be wrong, but it feels as if the vast majority of coverage is currently about Haiti. Now that’s absolutely a big story that deserves significant coverage, but the wall-to-wall nature mirrors the ongoing habit of cable news. It seems that they blanket their airwaves with one story whenever possible – often manufacturing an important local news story into an all-consuming national event.

I suppose it is a commentary on the media business itself – consumers of information must clearly appreciate this approach since it is so often repeated. And the media entrepreneur in me appreciates that and stands by the business decisions made by broadcasters and publishers.

But the news consumer in me would like to see more balance, and not just in the periodic “top story” fly-bys. There’s plenty of interesting and useful news out there that would be great to have at least some national exposure so that it enters the national consciousness (at least among news junkies).

There’s no doubt that Haiti is an important global story and merits more attention than many other stories today. There are bigger – 9/11 comes to mind – but there are plenty of lesser stories that get similar treatment. Missing interns and students are tragic, but not necessarily worthy of 24/7 coverage.

So am I off base? Is there value in moderation? Or am I too much of a news junky to be a reasonable judge?

MG Siegler over at TechCrunch rolls out a litany of claims about the future of news that simply cannot be reconciled with reality. It’s a target-rich environment so I almost don’t know where to begin.

So let’s just dive right in.

First, let’s summarize MG’s case.

MG writes:

“Earthquakes, the massive San Diego fires, the shootings in Mumbai, the situation in Iran, and even Michael Jackson’s death. The realtime web beat the mainstream media easily to each of these stories. And this disparity will only increase going forward.”

By “realtime web” he seems to be implying mostly Twitter. Or at least that’s what the headline of one post suggests: “In The Age Of Realtime, Twitter Is Walter Cronkite.”

He proffers additional proof in the form of the Tiger Woods story appearing on Twitter from BNO News some 45 minutes before CNN went to air with its first report on the accident.

From here he circles back to his original point – that coverage of the JFK assassination would have changed dramatically in the age of Twitter:

“The difference is that had the Kennedy assassination happened today, it would not have taken 38 minutes from the time of President Kennedy being declared dead to the time Cronkite broke the news on the air. Actually, it may have. But it would have been reported on services like Twitter much sooner. Had it played out that way, where do you think people would turn the next time there was an event unfolding in realtime?”

Of course, this all circles back (in a separate post from MG) to the tired old mantra that “Information wants to be free, and the web, with services like Twitter, provides the easiest way for that to happen.”

Now, let’s have a reality check.

I should note at the outset that I get a real kick out of a professional journalist touting the “information wants to be free” line. Just to be clear, TechCrunch is designed to make money by selling information (in exchange for eyeballs that drive advertising dollars – among other revenue sources). MG and others are paid by TechCrunch to discover news – preferably by doing something other than surfing Twitter and regurgitating what others are saying and instead developing their own original reporting.

But for now let’s set that aside and move on to some of the specific examples here.

Let’s start with the recent past. Tiger Woods was in a car accident at 2:30 in the morning near his Florida home. BNO News was right on top of it, by announcing it on Twitter a half day or so later. This despite the number of people in Florida (and elsewhere) who likely already knew what had happened. MG intends to demonstrate that the “real-time web” in the form of Twitter scooped traditional media.

That’s simply wrong. At least one major Florida news outlet (WESH TV) beat BNO News by about a half hour, according to time stamps on their web site. Specifically, WESH shows a story on Tiger Woods appearing on their web site at 1:57 PM on November 27, while Twitter shows the BNO News report being posted at 2:24 PM.

To be clear: the mainstream, professional media beat the “real-time web” to the Tiger Woods news.

But we shouldn’t let the facts get in the way here. If we dial back the clock to the JFK assassination, we can watch the Walter Cronkite video that MG shared that clearly demonstrates the local media in Texas getting the first, unconfirmed report of the President’s death. It is not at all clear that the “real-time web” would have scooped the local media. Unless some doctor in the hospital whipped out his iPhone to tweet the death notice, chances are some local news outlet with local connections would be first with the news still today.

But let’s assume that what MG really meant to argue was not that the “real-time web” would actually report anything, but will instead serve as a megaphone for local or niche news sources. That may be a fair point, but does anyone truly believe that the Twitter megaphone is bigger than the one that CNN or other major professional media outlets possess?

If a national poll was conducted to find out where people first learned about the Tiger Woods accident, I have little doubt that Twitter would not be at the top of the list.

Perhaps we can dial back the rhetoric a bit and recognize that Twitter has value, but so do traditional news outlets. One does not replace the other. They serve different functions, each of which has merit.

Here’s a good one. Wendy Davis of MediaPost says that Rupert Murdoch is “clueless” for wanting the names of Wall Street Journal subscribers on the Kindle. She rolls out the phrase “tone deaf to the privacy concerns” as it regards the News Corp leader.

As a reader aptly points out in the comments on the piece, these are subscribers not single copy newsstand purchasers, as Davis attempts to insinuate in the post. Traditionally, periodicals know the names of their subscribers.

Now, that’s not to say that Amazon is obligated to give the Journal this information. Rather, I’m simply saying it is fair game to negotiate it — including using the threat of pulling the newspaper off of the Kindle service.

To think that there’s some obligation to hide subscriber names from the Wall Street Journal for its own product — especially considering it some sort of a “privacy right” — is simply ludicrous.

A
clear and present danger exists to the advances brought on in recent years
through the development of social media. The coarsening conversation
apparent throughout the online media environment threatens to stall or even
reverse important recent advances. 

The
ability of those outside of traditional media to speak directly to the public
while enabling a constructive dialogue and audience conversation revolutionizes
communications. Companies and individuals now have the ability to become
publishers and broadcasters with very little skill or investment. In turn,
readers, viewers, and listeners can interact with the content creators and even
each other. 

Ultimately,
these advances provide an opportunity for more valuable content to be available
online. Previously overlooked niches now receive abundant coverage from amateur
media. Small and medium-sized businesses have a new outlet for reaching
potential customers. Massive corporations can humanize themselves through
effective social media outreach. Even old-fashioned media outlets now face
viable competition in some categories from these amateur upstarts. 

Anecdotal
evidence suggests that social media has been achieving increased acceptance in
corporate executive suites and with media editors and producers. This trend
will abate, however, if the coarsening conversation continues to dominate large
swaths of the online communications arena.

Comments
on blogs and other media sites have always been opinionated. However, the level
of personal invective seems to be on the rise. Recent articles online about the
tragic death of former White House spokesman Tony Snow and the illnesses of
Sen. Ted Kennedy and Robert Novak have brought out a bevy of online commenters
who have reveled in the news. One anonymous blogger at DailyKos even
manipulated and fabricated facts to allege that GOP VP nominee Sarah Palin’s
newborn son was not her own, leading to countless blog posts and comments that
can only be described as despicable. 

The political
universe does not stand alone in its coarseness, however. Check out sports
blogs, for instance, and you will find rampant obscenities and a rash of
juvenile blog posts and comments. 

The
world of technology itself produces more than its fair share of coarse
conversation. The recent salvos between advocates of the DEMO and TechCrunch
conferences did little to advance constructive dialogue, opting instead for the
apparently preferred approach of finger-pointing and vitriolic rhetoric. 

At
this point, I would advise most major media outlets and larger companies that
do anything even remotely controversial to forego comments entirely — either
initially or at the first sign of trouble. At a minimum, it would be wise to
restrict anonymous comments. Regardless of what my fellow social media
evangelists may say, trash-talking, personal invective, obscenities, and rude
behavior in comments do indeed reflect upon the brand or publication. Comments
may still fill a role for smaller, niche publications, but they appear doomed
to failure on a larger scale.

For
years now, the stereotype of bloggers has been crazy young people living in
their mom’s dark basement posting in their pajamas. That’s unfortunate as there
are countless quality bloggers and social media creators producing useful
material. But the increasingly rancorous nature of social media threatens to
reinforce the stereotype and scare away newcomers — both in terms of
participants and audience. 

Those
who decry traditional media as stiff and rigid and who praise social media as
more flexible and responsive may be correct. Yet so long as social media
participants continue to behave more like spoiled kids than polished
communicators, traditional media will retain an edge with the broader public.
The line between “authenticity” and coarseness can be quite fine
indeed. 

It
is vital to remember that there’s a clear difference between
“amateur” and “amateurish.” Finding high-quality content from
new media sources while discarding the noise and vitriol has become
increasingly difficult. Andrew Keen suggests this “Cult of the
Amateur” threatens our society and economy. That’s not likely, as it will
likely sink social media before it can accomplish that great feat.

This essay was originally published by Media Bullseye.

You know I’m a big believer that online pairs nicely with print. You won’t hear me saying that books, newspapers, magazines, and the like are dead. In fact, my own Eaglon publishes online and offline in tandem for Media Bullseye and Cork & Knife.

That’s why I was not surprised, but definitely pleased, to see the news that the German version of Wikipedia will be published in book form. Read more here.

If you think the media is slow to understand the dramatic changes taking place in their own industry, you may not be surprised to know that Congress is even more in the dark. Recent reports suggest that some politicians would seek to handcuff the American media at a crucial juncture in the industry’s history.

Read my commentary on this subject here.

It’s not just about time. That’s the point that Dave Winer and Scott Karp are missing. Nor does every – or for that matter probably many – readers visit news sites repeatedly throughout the day. Once again, this seems like it might be a case of those of us in the echo chamber believing we are the norm.

Scott and Dave both basically argue that news sources should provide a chronological view of their news. They both frame it as an option, but clearly press for it to be the default view.

But this overlooks the fact that not all news sites are like the AP news wire providing breaking news. In fact, for many years I had access to the raw AP feed for my job and I found it to be a sometimes interesting, but often frustrating, way to view the news. It was chronological – which was great when it was a hot story I was following, but not so useful for the vast majority of news stories.

Good reporting does more than simply regurgitate the facts as quickly as possible. A powerful news article will actually have a shelf-life of more than a few minutes until the next story is published.

When the New York Giants won the Super Bowl, was that any less newsworthy at 3 pm than it was at 11 am the day after? Of course not. Did the facts change at all to merit a new story being written in the meantime? Nope. So shouldn’t it still play high up on a sports web site or a New York newspaper web page? I think so.

Certainly a chronological feed would have value to true newshounds – and as Dave points out for editors themselves. But given that most readers don’t spend all day reloading the New York Times, CNET, or BusinessWeek, let’s not get too carried away.

Chris Brogan graciously agreed to speak with Disruptive Dialogue about his advice to “media makers” who want to make a living off of creating media.  This is a topic he has written about on a number of occasions, but perhaps most comprehensively in a blog post over the summer.

(Click here to listen to the 15 minute interview.)

In the interview, he stressed that his advice applies primarily to those who want to make money directly from their media content, as opposed to people who create media for their friends and family or even professionals who simply aim to raise their profile and build their reputation.  This is, in his words, for “someone looking to pay their way.”

At first, many successful podcasters or video bloggers “lived by their show name.”  Chris wanted to make sure that people understood that what they ought to be creating instead is a production company brand rather than simply a show brand. In so doing, it becomes easier to create spin-off enterprises, to sell a particular effort to another company, or fold a failure without taking the brand down with it.

In addition, Chris talked about how he has a less than 2 minute segment in each Marketing Over Coffee podcast to help build his own brand (“Social Business Class”).  This represents an example of what he describes as designing content that can be “slotted in” to a larger content production.  He notes that sometimes larger media enterprises may be looking for chunks of content to incorporate into their efforts, and if a media maker creates his material in such a way that it can be easily adopted, it may be able to expand its reach through partnerships.

The comments on Chris’ original post were echoed in this interview in which he discussed the fact that a successful media enterprise will often create a community which will enable revenue opportunities beyond advertising.  But fundamentally, media creators must be sure to understand the needs of advertisers and ensure that they are collecting the appropriate traffic and demographic data that potential sponsors will want to know. He laments that many content builders don’t have the “business sense” that they need to make a living at what they do and urges them to gain that knowledge.

The interview then turned to a discussion of the merits of audio versus video as a business model, including a brief look at Shel Holtz’s post on that very topic today. Chris noted that his original post has frequently been misconstrued to be making a case against audio in favor of video.  In fact, he notes that he loves audio-based media and that a lot of video actually works better as audio because the video doesn’t add value.  In particular, we talked about the Scoble Show which we both often listen to rather than watch, although we agreed that Robert does some of his shows where the visible content adds significantly to the understanding and impact.

“I don’t think people who are investing money are right now very interested in audio overall,” Chris warns. He senses more innovation in the video space which excites investors, and he recalled a recent conversation where he noted how hard it is for consumers to record and post audio online as opposed to video which has a lot of consumer-friendly solutions available.

Chris notes that the Student Loan Network not only has the Financial Aid Podcast, but they also have begun to dip into video in order to do things like show how to make a perfect cup of coffee (to save money by not going to Starbucks).  It underscores his point that the future will be made up of “media makers,” not single silo audio, video, or text creators.  Blended, or multimedia, offerings will be the ones that succeed.

(Click here to listen to the 15 minute interview.)