Someone Who's Bullish on the Future of Journalism

"I'm sitting here at LaGuardia feeling absolutely bullish about the state of journalism."

Whoever said that has to be off their rocker, no?

Well, not exactly. David Cohn is an ambitious twenty-something journalist who's been hacking his way toward the future of news future. He's currently leading spot.us, a massive experiment in seeing if crowdfunding* can be used as a model to fund journalism. Previously, he teamed up with new media thought leader (& NYU J-School prof) Jay Rosen on New Assignment.Net, another project to explore potential new models for journalism. And before that, for those looking for traditional journalism cred, he wrote for Wired, SEED, and, yes, even the New York Times.

In a post on his DigiDave blog today, Cohn wrote that the reason he's feeling so bullish is because of the massive number of experiments going on, right now, to invent the future of news. (See his post for some examples.) "The answers are out there," he wrote, "in every startup (journalism focused or otherwise), community, blog, micro-blogging, micro-financing and CMS on the web."

How does that work, you ask? What does it mean that "the answers are out there in every startup?"

This is standard innovation practice. This is how Silicon Valley works. Thousands of players dive in, all with good ideas about how to make a particular industry work. They put their ideas in play, and, out there, in the market, and over time, the ones with legs emerge. But the ones that don't ultimately succeed also contribute. Because others learn from their experiments. They learn what works and what doesn't. They get new ideas for something new to try.

"What we need right now is 10,000 journalism startups," Cohn wrote. "Of these 9,000 will fail, 1,000 will find ways to sustain themselves for a brief period of time, 98 will find mediocre success and financial security and two will come out as new media equivalents to the New York Times."

I agree. This, simply, is how we are going to find the future. And we will find it. Through experimentation and trial & error. Eventually we will find the future. It will look nothing like what we know journalism to be (which is why those startups Cohn mentions can seem so baffling to traditional journalists). But we will get there.

* DEFN: "Crowdfunding": Getting the public to pay for your project.

The blind leading the blind

I just don't get it. One of the biggest news stories of the day is the imminent implosion of GM and other car manufacturers. It's driving everyone crazy that we're thinking of bailing out corporations that willingly refused to read the writing on the wall, rejigger their business models, and position themselves for the future.

And yet.

Today, 50 newspaper CEOs are huddling at the American Press Institute in Reston, VA, to figure out how to salvage their industry.

On the one hand, their own newspapers are reporting on what numbskulls those automotive CEOs are and how they got us into this bind we're all collectively in--and even in some cases, how those recklessly mismanaging bums should be tossed out so that bailout money doesn't go to waste. And on the other hand, they can't seem to realize that, in looking at that story, they're staring into their own.

There isn't a single person out there who believes the car manufacturers will find their way into the future without it being dictated to them from clearer-thinking folks. So why, I ask you, why does the news business think that the executives who exhibited the very same behavior as those car executives--who clung to the old ways of doing things when it was clear those old ways had no future--will be the ones to now figure out the future?

You know who should be in that meeting? The people who've been working on the future, who've figured out how to do journalism in the new world. Why didn't they invite the head honchos from Talking Points Memo, Politico, Nerve & Babble, TechCrunch, GigaOm, Yahoo! News, TreeHugger and Huffington Post? Granted, not all of these are "news" sites in the traditional "newspaper" sense of the word. But they are all sites that report news--and are doing so profitably. So maybe they know a thing or two about how to make things work in this new environment we're in.

Albert Einstein once said something to the effect of: "You can't solve a problem with the same thinking that got you into it." So why, could someone please explain to me, does the news industry think it can?

Note: For a lively conversation on this topic, visit Jeff Jarvis' BuzzMachine.

PS: Upon further research, I think this is worse than I thought. According to a note on the API website itself, this is a meeting about how to "turn around" the news industry, and it's being led by a management professor and turnaround guru. Now, I'm not an expert in these things, but don't turnarounds only work when a company is underperforming within an otherwise healthy industry? I just don't see how they can do much good when it's the industry itself that is problematic. In that situation, you need innovation, not turnarounds, no?

Photo courtesy of clagnut. Creative Commons license.

NYT "If You Were President" game: An assessment

The New York Times has created this cool "If You Were President" tool where you can vote on who you should think Obama should appoint to various cabinet posts.

What's "future of news"-y about it:

-- It's fun. The news doesn't have to be serious. Yes, choosing cabinet secretaries is serious business. And most of the players appear to be making serious choices. (Daffy Duck has yet to make it into the rankings.) But anything a reader can play with is fun. And fun is good--for building brand loyalty and generating return visits.

-- It's putting control in readers' hands. It moves away from the old school "we tell, you listen" mindset and invites readers to participate.

What's "old school" about it:
-- It doesn't go far enough. Why aren't they taking a Fantasy Football approach to this? Why don't they let people create individual accounts, so they can "own" their teams? Why don't they let people debate the pro's and con's of each candidate? Just imagine the discussion it would generate. That's a huge missed opportunity to score return visits -- and multiple ad impressions.

Good on the New York Times for going beyond the text-only mindset. But come on guys. Let go completely. Put it in the readers' hands and let them go wild.

The new Politico 44 site -- An assessment

Politico has a new site up -- "Politico 44," subtitled "A Living Diary of the Obama Presidency."

What's "future of news"-y about it:

-- It's breaking away from the newspaper-y "mental model" of news--everything thrown into the same package. Instead, the editors are thinking about their readers and what their readers want. Is there appetite for Obama news alone? Great, they clearly said, let's create a "product" that delivers just that.

-- The "President Elect's Calendar" feature (right). Sure, it might feel like it's not telling us much (yesterday just had four items: Obama goes to gym, Obama arrives at office, Obama goes to Vets Day memorial, Podesta briefs reporters), but that's OK. It's breaking out of the "everything as text" mindset of traditional journalism. And that's a good thing.

What's "old school" about it:

-- It's lifeless. There's no party going on there. Just a bunch of stuff the Politico staff has thrown up there. No interaction. Nothing dynamic. Nothing in a crowdsourcing direction.

-- When you click through to a story, you lose your location -- you're thrown back into Politico regular. Sure, that might be a good way to drive traffic to Politico. But it won't last. People come to destinations because they want to feel like they're somewhere. Something that's just a wrapping paper over the old stuff won't build loyalty.

Good on Politico for giving this a shot. But like all v1's, it's going to need a few more iterations, many probably, before it finds its groove.

Time to choose: Deck chairs or lifeboats

Cheering the fact that the new design of the physical-paper Boston Herald "looks better" than the old design is like saying the Titanic, as it was going down, looked better with new curtains.

Come on people! You have to stop re-arranging deck chairs and start building lifeboats.

Why passion is key

While flitting around Twitter today, I came across the tweet stream belonging to the CEO of Zappos, the killer online shoe store. In one of his recent tweets, he made the following observation:


What I've learned in life and business: the people that care most always win. I've been on both sides. If you're most passionate, you'll win.


The wisdom seemed apropos to the news business.

I've talked before about how news organizations have to put their futures in the hands of staffers who are most passionate about the places news creation and delivery are going. Not the most senior staff. Not the ones with the greatest experience or most impressive accomplishments according to the traditional, paper-news metrics. But the people who are really jazzed about how we'll be able to generate and deliver news in the brave new digital world. Not only because they are more likely to win, as the quote above says. But also because only they will have the drive to keep on through the tough slog that awaits this business.

Photo courtesy of ms4jah. Creative Commons license.

If at first you don't succeed...

"If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0."

It's an old saying in the tech world. But it reflects the mindset that has enabled Silicon Valley to produce the likes of Apple, eBay, PayPal, and Google. This mindset says: "There's no such thing as failure. There's only version 1.0. And then version 2.0. And then 3.0."

Things aren't expected to work great -- or even work -- the first time around. But that's OK. Things not working right the first time around doesn't constitute failure. It constitutes a necessary step on the way to figuring out what does work.

It's a mindset news organizations simply need to adopt. They need to move away from "We don't release it to the world until it's fully baked" to "Let's throw it up against the wall and see what sticks."

So let's say it again: "If at first you don't succeed, call it version 1.0." (And then go back to the drawing board to start working on version 2.0.)

Photo courtesy of eyesplash Mikul. Creative Commons license.