Media management: a clear set values with a strong business focus

In an article called The Web: Alarming, Appealing and a Challenge to Journalistic Values we find a study made with a survey and an analysis.

The financial crisis facing news organizations is so grave that it is now overshadowing
concerns about the quality of news coverage, the flagging credibility of the news media, and
other problems that have been very much on the minds of journalists over the past decade.

In other words, journalism sustainability is a key issue between jouranlists community.

Overall, 16% of national journalists – including 26% of those working
in print – cite the current business model for journalism, or the specific challenge of making a
profit from web journalism, as the most important problem facing journalism.

Despite of Internet being a “threat” to media status quo, journalist recognize how positve it is for communication. Jouranlists now embrace new technologies, they have no choice. They are able to work in multiple platforms and they recognize new information technologies as a chance to build more complete stories. BUT losing control in final product is a challenge for both: journalists in one side and media companies in the other. So, we are in front of a wonderful communcation tool that is a threat to today’s status quo.

Journalists tend to call control “quality”, because they join quality to control even they do not intend to do so. For them, seeing how so many people come to publish content online is a loss of quality (i. e. control). It is hard to accept and so, there is a conservative barrier that is difficult to jump for many. Here it comes where a media company should make a clear definition on what is business and where our newsroom begin. We cannot build up sustainable communication enterprises purely based in “quality” (in control), and, in fact, journalists are so scared with new realities that they know it. But, in the other hand, journalists do not accept easily allowing business people to get into what they consider their territory. At least, we cannot build up media business based in hard control, we have to move on clearly to soft control, soft power. (An this is something that other online business like eBay, which I knew from inside did from the begining).

A holistic approach to media management, in fact, has to approach media independence as a consequence and a reason (at the same time) to generating healthy revenues. What is at the service of what? Is revenue generation serving independent business, or is an independent business serving a considerable revenue stream? For sure, it is imposible to know what comes first. If there is something we know is that without final customers -both, readers and advertisers- private media are simply not sustainable.

Talking on united or separated newsrooms online/offline is a very hot topic among journalists these days. Not so much has been written on how revenue generation and newsroom should be related in a modern media business. Newsroom should concentrate in “soft power”, in values, leaving for revenue generators organizational and product management. Journalists concentrate in building and keeping long term credibility and business developers should concentrate in building financial sustainability.

I do not like to read dark statements when I go to personal blogs, and so, I am not going to be unclear: media business can only be sustainable if cost structure is decided AFTER we know how, and how many revenues we are going to generate. Demmand, i.e. audience and advertisers have to drive content creation and aggregation; it is not possible any more to drive content generation based in purely editorial criteria (top-down). At least, in the short term. In the long term, sustainability is based in a trustable, easy to recognize and solid editorial and credibility. It takes years to build credibility and it is impossible to do so by just a business sustainability focus.

A modern media business need to be based in long term editorial core values that cannot be changed and must be decided by journalists and editorial top management in an independent way. Those values have to be powerful and they have to move all the company. After those values are clearly settled and directed, everything else have to be decided with a business perspective by business managers who decide with a view in roi maximization but always taking values as their axis in decision making. As long as there is a clear core of values understood and judged with editorioal criteria, everything else is business.

This suggested division is what can allow us to be fast moving while capitalizing credibility. We have to move fast on managing our business this way or we will be soon eaten by those who are already doing it, and they are not exactly media (or content) business in a traditional way.