March 13 sxsw news entrepreneurs vs trad journalists

News Entrepreneurs vs. Tradi2onal Journalism Are we there yet? Susan Mernit Oakland Local SXSW 2012

Tuesday March 13, 2012 2

EDITOR ENTREPRENEURCharles Waldo Bailey III, former Tavi Gevinson, founderEditor, Minneapolis Star Tribune Rookie MagEntrepreneurship is being baked into the DNA of media crea8ves; Legacy media, not so much 3

We’re still in a transition 4

Back in the day: 2002 “Bloggers vs. journalists isover. I don’t think anyone willmourn its passing. There wereplenty who hated the debatein the first place, and openlyridiculed its pretensions andterms.”--Jay Rosen, Press Think, 2002 5

But partnerships can be challenging withlegacy media—not everyone agrees on thevalue exchangeHyperlocal news non-‐proﬁt Oakland Local has strong partnerships with KQED, New America Media, Yahoo! News, The Bay Ci8zen, California Watch, The Inves8ga8ve News Network, The Media Consor8um and local blogs-‐-‐but not with the local newspaper (yet). 6

Home page: oaklandlocal.com 7

March 2012 discussion at Journalism Accelerator “We were approached by DigitalFirst to partner with them at theOakland Tribune. They offeredus– traffic.After we stopped laughing, weasked if they wanted to buy ourreported content and/or sell adsor us. Answer: No. Legacy: FAIL”--Susan Mernit, Oakland Local,2012 8

Note the emo8onal language of the response from Digital First EIC, March 2012 “Ah, the reliably lazy “Legacy Fail”argument. A more mature way of looking at itwould be this: We offered traffic, and youweren’t interested. You asked for money, weweren’t interested. No hard feelings orreasons for bitterness. We just couldn’tcome to an agreement.I missed the rule that says that anytime astart up asks a legacy media company formoney, we are required to cough it up.”--Jim Brady, EIC, Digital First/ANG, 2012 (excerptfrom longer post) 9

Is there a connection between legacy media’sattitude & the sense new media entrepreneursare profiting in ways traditional media are not? 10

Note the shifting revenue streams•  Oakland Local •  Tradi8onal revenue streams journalism revenue • Adver2sing streams • Sponsorships • Adver2sing • Events • Events • Training & • Sponsored Consul2ng content • Grants 11

Tradi2onal media wants to become more entrepreneurial But it takes learning new skills-‐-‐ change management, ability to collaborate, partner, be win/win— 12

What’s the win? The future of news could look like this: • Regional and local sites • Collaborative partnerships • Ad networks • Share the revenue • Share the audience But we all need to grow to get there 13

Share your views Susan Mernit susan@oaklandlocal.com @susanmernit @oaklandlocal hVp://susanmernit.com hVp://oaklandlocal.com hVp://susanmernit.tumblr.com What do you think? 14

APPENDIX: ABOUT OAKLAND LOCAL 15

News: Mission-‐driven and Not For Proﬁt What is Oakland Local? •  Web-‐based, local daily news & repor8ng: original repor2ng & community voices, 3-‐6 stories day •  Local Community ar8cles: 4-‐20 week •  On-‐going, web-‐based training programs: serve non-‐proﬁts, community orgs, small business •  Events & meet-‐ups: Code for Oakland, In Oak Lunch series, Oakland News Café 16

Our Audience is Large, Dynamic & Engaged •  100,000 visitors to web site every month •  2,500 newsleVer subscribers •  5,000+ TwiVer followers •  6,600+ Facebook followers •  700 registered contributors •  45+ community contributor pieces per month • More 2me spent on site per visit than Bay Ci2zen or Oakland Tribune* * Knight report, Quantcast 17

JOIN LOCAL COMMUNITY GETTING RESULTS 18

= IMPACT Oakland Local web traﬃc: 150,000 page views, 72,000 visitors, February 2012 (Compare: Alexa.com reports monthly visitors to Inside Bay Area/Oakland Tribune at 35,485 per month) Distribu8on through: • KQED • SFGate.com • Yahoo! News • Google News • The Media Consor2um • New America Media • Reuters • Byliner AWARDS Society of Professional Journalists, California Grand Jurors, East Bay Press Club 19

http://lanyrd.com	25
http://storify.com	16
http://www.twylah.com	7

March 13 sxsw news entrepreneurs vs trad journalists

by Susan Mernit

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