Our audience: disloyal, overwhelmed, helpful

Posted: March 2nd, 2010 | Author: Tyler Dukes | Filed under: journalism | View Comments

Your news audience isn’t big on commitment — or exclusivity.

That’s the conclusion of the newest Pew Internet and American Life report, which found that a whopping 92 percent of Americans consume the news on multiple platforms. That’s national TV, local TV, the Internet, local newspapers, radio and national newspapers.

But when it comes to the Web — the third most popular platform behind local and national TV — 59 percent of Americans pair it with other sources to catch up on the news.

There is a ton of great information in this report, and it’s important enough for every newsroom to review as they craft their plans for the future. But I think the some of the most salient data deal with the nature of the average news consumer. It’s information that can and should drive coverage decisions today, now.

Our audience is disloyal

Newsrooms need a new mantra. At least that’s what the data show.

When we truly accept that our audience doesn’t see us as their exclusive source for news, complete coverage just doesn’t make sense anymore. Only 7 percent of Americans say they get their news from a single source.

Practically, that means the modern newsroom now fits into a broader news ecosystem. The only way to succeed is through assymetrical warfare, tactics that differ completely from the competition.

That’s far from the standard now. For example, back in August, local news stations covered an admittedly interesting piece about a Durham, N.C., neighborhood fed up with speeders. The neighborhood’s solution: a sign threatening consequences.

The story absolutely had news value. But that day all four news organizations in the Triangle covered it: News 14 Carolina (my employer), WRAL, NBC17 and ABC11.

Four stories, four reporters, utterly undifferentiated.

Every time a coverage decision is made, it comes at the expense of covering something else. If we had thought harder about the fact that our viewers don’t care which station the story is on, what other unreported stories could we have found?

Our audience is overwhelmed

Although a majority of those surveyed (55 percent) say it’s easier to keep up with the news than before, substantially more (70 percent) believe the news is overwhelming. That’s not good — if for no other reason than an economic one.

With conversations raging about the cost and value of news, and the ever present plans to monetize it, news producers have to be worried about an audience perception that they’re awash in our product. No scarcity means no value, and we’ll only be doing ourselves a disservice by continuing to flood the market with something that can’t be differentiated from the competition.

Quite literally, we’re eroding the jobs beneath our feet.

This carries a lot of the same implications as the previous point. We need to make efforts to halt the duplication of information that makes our coverage so mediocre. That means we need to rethink that recap of the Tiger apology and the repeated insistence on covering national stories with our own reporters.

It’s easy to go for the easy turn sometimes. There’s no doubt about that.

One-man-band reporters routinely lug around their cameras, shoot their video, gather their information, edit their tape, write their stories and produce their packages in a day. Why not pitch the, “Let’s get the reaction to Event X,” story every once in a while?

The trouble is that subpar storytelling adds up quickly. If that’s the kind of story you want to tell, just make sure you’re thinking critically about whether it’s adding any value to the conversation.

Our audience is helpful

Our viewers like the news so much, they want to help us make it. About 37 percent of Internet users say they’ve contributed to the creation of news, commentary or dissemination of news through social media.

That’s huge, because as newsrooms continue to shrink, we’ll be challenged to effectively harness the power of our audience, who unlike us can be everywhere at once.

This data should lend a great deal of legitimacy to the efforts of those in the newsroom who embrace social media. This isn’t a fad. It’s not going away.

Our audience wants us to tear down the walls. They want to connect with the people bringing them the news. They want to be a stakeholder in the process.

That means that crafting an effective social media strategy is crucial for the survival and relevancy of any news operation. That means different things to different organizations, and it means more than simply setting up Facebook and Twitter accounts.

A good social media policy can’t just be a document tucked away on the office intranet. Reporters, editors and producers have to exist in the social media sphere. It might not be one of their major functions, or even their favorite thing, but they must add it as a tool to their arsenal. Ignoring it would be akin to refusing to embrace the telephone.

The result will be more incentive for the audience to engage with the newsroom. And that makes sense.

We do work for them after all.

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