sutton049

Central to the angst and concern expressed about the future of news media and journalism is a fundamental conviction that everyone should be regular news consumers and consume similar amounts of news and information. Those of us who are interested in news and its social contributions appear to believe that everyone should be similarly engaged with news and public affairs. When one reads articles and blogs and listens to speakers at industry conferences, one sees that the belief is driven by a number of arguments, fraught with self interest and wishful thinking: News is our business. We want everyone to consume so we can make profit and increase the value of our enterprises. News provides employment for us. We want jobs and the more opportunities. News helps keep us socially, economically, and politically active. Everyone else should be active. Democracy requires an informed public. The public is becoming less informed because of the current conditions in news provision. The first two ...

The cutbacks at The Guardian and the demise Al Jazeera America announced this month provide painful lessons that the news business is not just about providing news, but creating workable business models and gaining audiences who think their content is valuable. The Guardian announced 20% budget  cuts (£50 million; $72 million) and stretched the credibility of corporate public relations by presenting them growth strategy. The news organization has been losing money for years in a digital strategy that can only be described as hoping to buy market share through aggressive international expansion, free content provision, and the belief that digital advertising would replace declining print advertising. The Guardian ’s strategy was closely aligned to the discredited digital startup approach of considering the “burn rate” of its capital as a surrogate for prudent investment. In announcing the changes, David Pemsel, The Guardian ’s new chief executive, used trite popular business ...

Twitter is one of the best known social media services, but it is suffering from its inability to provide sufficient value to consumers, advertisers, and investors. The firm has 316 million users, a respectable figure—but 80% smaller than Facebook. Its share price has dropped below the level set when it became a publicly traded company in 2013. The company has lost about $30 billion in market value in the past two years and is now valued at $15 billion. It continues to experience negative operating and profit margins and negative return on assets, despite about $2 billion in revenue. Twitter is suffering from two fundamental business problems. First, the lack of an effective value proposition that makes it attractive to larger numbers of users. Second, lack of vision and direction. The latter led to the departure of its CEO in June 2015 and he has still not been replaced. A significant value problem for Twitter has been that it is primarily configured for short, one-way communicati...