"Good journalism creates value"

  (Left) Nic Newman, author of "Journalism Media and Technology Predictions 2014". Photo courtesy of Nic Newman.

In Nic Newman’s "Journalism Media and Technology Predictions 2014" (LINK) he made it very clear: good journalism creates value – and therefore has a future. Newman refers to Annalee Newitz, editor of the io9blog, who observed that users today like to share content that is unambiguous and straightforward. This content is perceived as valuable. When it comes to the time users spend with media content, professional quality journalism competes with social sharing websites, such as Buzzfeed (100 million visitors per month, of which 50% come from mobile), Snapchat (more than 400 million snaps sent every day), Instagram and Facebook.

The good news is: Nic observes a taste for long-form story-telling and for substance as a reaction to the “collapse of the narrative” and the “always-on” world. The audience has an increasing appetite for deep, trusted quality content. 2014 innovations in this field will be inspired by the recent successes of such platforms and projects as “Narratively” run by former New York Times journalist Noha Rosenberg, “First Look Media” venture started by ebay founder Pierre Omidyar and “Medium” founded by Twitter founder Evan Williams. “Medium” bought “Matter”, a long-form scientific story telling magazine, started by Bobbie Johnsonwho spoke at the Future Media Lab. conference in November 2012.

Value is driven by the audience consuming this content. Advertising remains a significant revenue stream in this field and Newman points out that mobile video and interactive video become interesting for advertisers these days. He also expects a significant increase of native advertising. In his view sponsored content formats will raise a dilemma for traditional media companies and pure players in 2014. So reaching out to innovative funding of journalism remains a task for the near future.

Already from these few observations – and there are many more in Newman’s predictions – my conclusion is that the future of media will look very different: (a)the relationship between content creators, media brands and audiences is changing fundamentally, (b) funding of media content diversifies beyond advertising and paid content and will include crowdfunding and philanthropic funding, and finally (c) consumers are changing their media consumption patterns to mobile consumption, are willing to share content instantly and are using several devices at the same time (multitasking).

Still it seems that some core values of today’s journalism will survive and even drive developments: there is an increasing demand for good journalism, and innovation in creating and disseminating this journalistic content is out there.

I warmly recommend to read Nic’s predictions. Don’t hesitate to use his paper to inspire yourself for the next Future Media Lab. conference on 21 January 2014 in Brussels, when we will discuss these questions in more detail.