Epic 2014: a futurist projection for media/news convergence

A very interesting link was posted to the NAA listserv. This eight minute video clip spinning out a hypothetical projection of news convergence in 2014, was created by Robin Sloan and Matt Thompson, both who write for Poynter.org, a journalism research and development organization.The Poynter link in the previous sentence is a description by Robin of the reaction to the clip.

I must have been hiding in a cave to have missed this one when it came out in November. Better late than never, however, and I'm glad Bill Blevins posted it to the NAA listserv.

In Robin's Poynter post, he mentions that for all the linking and traffic his piece generated, not a lot of discussion occured. I'm game to engage in one, unless everyone feels its old news.

It certainly created a stir - indeed, struck fear - on the NAA; Bill titled his post with the link, "Do you like scary movies?"

Scary?

I think its exhilarating!

Its very interesting indeed, and probably not too far off the mark... My two cents on what its impact is for for the local papers in the short term:

Im not sure newspapers as a news gathering organization would have to vanish entirely, however, but that role is going to face increasingly stiff competition. People will still want valuable, relevant content, especially at the local level.

But the technology exists now - and the clip draws this out to some interesting endpoints - for someone, anyone, everyone - to potentially do it better.

The question becomes: is there room for a traditional news organisation in an increasingly wide and customizable ocean of information?

Yes, but each news organization is going to have to ask themselves these kinds of questions, and ask them now:

1)What are your strengths?

2)are those strengths still meaningful and relevant, given the other kinds of sources of news and media people are turning to? ( i.e., for starters: who are your heavy local bloggers, and are they connecting with an audience in a way that youre not? any strong local community forum sites talking about local issues?)


3) will you invest in the technology necessary to make your strengths accesible across new and developing platforms?

4) If you don't feel your strengths are as meaningful and relevant as they could or should be, then begin thinking of ways in which they could be more connected to your readership in both content and delivery method (this begs a whole separate set of hard self-examining questions for your organization).

There is a lot of discussion on the net lately re the journalistic merits of bloggers and what they bring to the table, and what each camp might learn from the other. I envision traditional newsroom functions shifting slightly (and I find myself thinking through a very detailed model for this), marrying the insight, freshness, immediacy and connectivity offerings of the best blogging with the rigorous verifcation and fact finding techniques of traditional journalism.

Traditional newsrooms will have to swallow the seemingly bitter pill of the whole ethics/bias/transparency issue, but once they do, they can begin to hold their own and offer some of their unique resources to the information mix.

The clip should be a strong wakeup call for news organizations and professionals to look at these trends head on - and one can either be inspired and challenged by it and join the mix, or else cower in fear and feel defeated by it, clinging to a way of thinking about news that is rapidly changing.

I'm so inspired by what's ahead it makes me dizzy!