Journalism in the Starbucks Era

Journalism in the Starbucks Era Cynthia A. McCune School of Journalism and Mass Communications, San Jose State

The Starbucks Era
“ We have seen the future, and it is Starbucks.”
~ Steve Sloan, 10/1/08
Audio link: froth.mp3

Why Starbucks? Because we want our news like we want our coffee…
When we want it (now!)
Where we want it
In our e-mailbox, feed reader, twitter stream
How we want it
Reflecting our worldview

Pushing the Starbucks era:
Blogging and microblogging
Mobile devices
YouTube
Social media

Mobile devices
Not just phones and texting
Post to blogs, upload pics
Send/receive tweets
Check email, surf the web
Get directions!

Social media in the palm of your hand!

You Tube vs. TV news
Katie Couric’s interview with VP candidate Sarah Palin
I watched it on YouTube , not on CBS News

The SNL version

Social media
Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Friendfeed, etc.
Flickr, Picasa, Photobucket, SmugMug, etc.
Last.fm, imeem, etc.

Blogs
Free, accessible, easy as email
Now anyone can create a channel!
RSS feeds = makes it simple to subscribe and follow

A blog is just a channel
A blog can be whatever its author(s) want it to be
Personal journal
Industry trend tracker
PR/promotional tool
News source

Microblogging
Twitter , Jaiku , Pownce
Text, links
Shorter, faster (140 characters)
Free!

Say it in 140 characters
Give a heads up!
Provide links/urls ( tinyurl.com )
Quick updates
Queries and requests

Twitter as a news source
“ By ‘following’ Twitter feeds of news organizations, you can even get a pretty good overall view of the big-picture events of the day.”
~ Jeff Jarvis , director, Interactive Journalism Program, City University of New York

21st century police scanner?
Reporters are using Twitter to:
Keep up with their sources
Get quick feedback
Get referrals
Post live updates to sports scores

Twitter testimonial
“ It’s so much easier to ask a question to my locals on Twitter than to call each and every one of them. I just wouldn’t have time to call that many people.”
~ Kate Martin , blogger and education reporter, Skagit Valley (Wash.) Herald

Other uses of Twitter

More uses of Twitter
Alternative to want ads, Craigslist
Highly targeted audience

Experimenting with Twitter
Hack the debate : Current + Twitter = compelling debate coverage

NPR’s Twitter feed

More news options = Less for MSM *
“ The next year to 18 months may be ‘make or break’ for the newspapers.”
~ David T. Clark , Deutsche Bank, NAA Retail Advertising Forum, 9/08
* MSM = mainstream media

Mapping newspaper layoffs

~ Philip Meyer, on his book, The Vanishing Newspaper, in AJR (link to AJR article)

~ Ryan Sholin , Gatehouse Media (posted 9/29/08 on his personal blog, Invisible Inkling )

Can newspapers survive?
Core audience doesn’t want change
Most not investing in R&D, training
Money is still in print ads
Loss of social currency
~ From “ 10 reasons why newspapers won’t reinvent news ,” XARK Blog, 10/10/08

“ Inertia, uncertainty and toxic paralysis rule most newspaper companies.”
~ Daniel Conover , Charleston, SC, in 10 reasons why newspapers won’t reinvent news on XARK Blog

“ The problem with the media industry is that we are stuck on stories, or packages.”
~ Chuck Peters , CEO, The Gazette Company, Cedar Rapids, Iowa, writing in his C3 Blog

“ I want to see current, relevant information, in context, anywhere and anytime.”
First create content as a post or “tweet,” then organize it.
~ Chuck Peters , CEO, The Gazette Company, writing in his C3 Blog

“ Articles perpetuate a Ground Hog Day kind of journalism.”
~ Jeff Jarvis in “ The building block of journalism is no longer the article ,” Buzz Machine blog

The “article/story” no longer works as the basic building block of journalism
We need to focus on topics, not one-time stories
~ Jeff Jarvis , writing in his Buzz Machine blog

“ I want a page, a site…that is created, curated, edited, and discussed.”
~ Jeff Jarvis in his Buzz Machine blog

Topic Focus:
Snapshot of the latest knowledge
Links to source material, perspectives
Collaborative and open, but organized
Ongoing process of learning, digging, correcting, asking, answering
~ Jeff Jarvis in his Buzz Machine blog

Some “old dogs” are learning new tricks

NPR is…
Doubling its digital staffers
Asking its journalists to rethink how they tell stories
Multiplatform, audience interaction
Spending $2.5 million on retraining

"We're going to get our stories and our storytelling and our journalism out to people…wherever they are and in whatever form they want to experience it."
~ Ellen Weiss, News VP, NPR

NPR goes mobile
NPR launched mobile site last year
700,000 to 800,000 visitors per month
Half of visitors use iPhones

Some “new dogs” break in
“ Mahalo = Wikipedia with a small group of paid editors, run by the guy who built Weblogs, Inc.”
~ Ryan Sholin , Gatehouse Media , in “tweet” to McCune

News organizations should:
Become ‘news development shops’
Let readers into the reporting process
Build evergreen content with legs
~ Ryan Sholin in “ Cross-Pollinate or Shrivel ” on his Invisible Inkling blog

News organizations should:
“… Think in terms of permanent information stored online, rather than temporary news, flashing by as a headline on a page or a screen.”

“Cross-pollinate or shrivel”
“ *Every* piece of content…you create should be infected with two-way communication.”

“ Cross-pollinate or shrivel”
Ditto for J-Schools!
Ditto for J-School students!
That’s what it will take for journalism to survive and thrive in the Starbucks era

Resources
For links to the articles/sources cited in this presentation, see my Diigo site:
athttp://www. diigo .com/list/cynmccune/jacc
Links to video clips used:
video clip of Couric/Palin interview
video clip of SNL parody of interview
Hack the Debate on Current TV

My thanks to…
My SJSU colleagues Dona Nichols and Steve Sloan for their inspiration and support.
SJSU grad student Ryan Sholin for thinking deep thoughts on the future of the news media…and sharing them with the rest of us.

This presentation is protected under:
Thanks for watching.
Cynthia A. McCune
[email_address]
mccunications . blogspot .com

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Journalism in the Starbucks Era

by Cynthia Fernald on Oct 12, 2008

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Journalism in the Starbucks Era — Presentation Transcript