A company producing an incredibly important product charges its users for that product? What?! Blasphemy!

Sure, the Internet is full of information. Most of it is free. Some of it is worthwhile. A very small fraction of it is of professional quality and full of intellectual insights. So while it’s easy to condemn the New York Times for instituting a pay wall, it’s important to put the situation in the right perspective: The NYT is a company producing a product to sell to consumers, and this product is essential for people to make decisions and be informed. Information is a product. In every other industry, you have to pay for products; heck, a lot of us will pay more for better products. So, why all the brouhaha about a [hopefully] small fee for a quality product? Are we entitled to information?

The concept of free flowing information is Google’s idea of a utopia; the search behemoth promotes the content, yet Google is raking in the profits while newspapers aren’t able to keep up with it. It isn’t Google’s fault that the newspapers aren’t able to make money from this, but it leaves newspapers with tough decisions. How can they make money from their product that, compared to the rest of the market, is worth nothing? So, insert the New York Times in 2011…

There has been a lot of mixed opinions on this decision to institute a metered model. It’s not a revolutionary answer to problems with monetizing their Web site, but I think it’s a step in the right direction for the newspaper. After all, it’s the largest newspaper Web site out there with more than 18 million different people visiting the site in a month. I’m sure the pay wall will have a negative impact on these numbers, but as other newspaper Web sites begin charging for content (and they will), people will see the value of the product. The company still has a long way to go in order to create a sustainable business model in this digital era, but I’m with them for now.

News is all over the place, but relevant, balanced and intelligent news reporting is hard to come by these days. Newsrooms are shrinking and along with it, the quality of journalism is, too. I’m willing to spare a few extra dollars to support quality journalism. In a democratic country, we should be jumping at the chance to support those who fuel democracy.

Will you pay for the New York Times? How about other online content? Why or why not?

Photo by paalia on Flickr.

Let me introduce myself. I’m a twenty-something college student at Michigan State University. I don’t have cable in my room and I only subscribe to several print magazines, but I read my college paper every day because it’s free and accessible on campus (and I work there, too). I don’t visit newspaper’s Web sites often for fear of obnoxious pop-up ads or ads that play ridiculous music. I read a lot on my phone. I catch up on my favorite TV shows with Hulu because I’m always behind and usual miss when they show on the air. What’s the radio? I’m rarely driving and when I am, I listen to music or Podcasts from my iPod which can connect to my car’s radio.

As if it hasn’t been said before, the media climate is changing. Dramatically. And it’s people like me that are killing it. Or are we?

I don’t think I’m unique at all when it comes to my media consumption. My generation does not subscribe to print newspapers, and I don’t believe we will any time soon. We love what’s free and don’t like to be annoyed with meaningless ads. I don’t go out to find news. The news is finding me. Here’s how:

• My Google Reader is king. I subscribe to a lot of different things and the information comes to me, without ads.
• My Twitter network is pretty awesome, too. They send me things I should be reading and also offer their opinion.
• I rely on my Facebook friends to post the ridiculous and crazy for the day. They never let me down.
• My LinkedIn groups share news about the companies I work for now and in the past. How cool is that?
• Sharing in general has never been easier. I can check out Digg and Delicious to see what other people think is newsworthy.
• My select Podcasts are easy to download to my iPod and even easier to refresh for new content.

Here are some things that I don’t like about newspapers:

• I hate it when a newspaper doesn’t have a good mobile site. I have a Blackberry and I really enjoy catching up on the news if I’m on a bus, waiting for class to start or anywhere else. A great version of this is the New York Times‘ mobile site. My employer, The State News, recently rolled out a mobile version of their new site and it beats the heck out of scrolling through ads and categories to get to the content.
• It’s frustrating when a newspaper’s Twitter account simply is an RSS feed of their content. I won’t follow anything or anyone that does this.
• I think local is what newspapers are totally missing out on. I really don’t care what the Freep has to say about Obama’s latest speech, but I do care about what’s going on in my hometown.

Newspapers need to adjust their mindset. No longer are people going to find the news; the [relevant] news is finding them. Here’s the challenge for newspapers: How do they get to me?

Photo by Wayan Vota on Flickr.

Last week, Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism published its annual “State of the News Media” report. The title gives a good description of what the report is about, but this year’s report is particularly interesting. I’ll be honest, I work at a newspaper and times really are tough. Walking in downtown East Lansing you’ll find shops that have been there for years are being shut down, and I know this is the case across the country. This is the sixth report, but according to the introduction, it is the “bleakest.” Consider these facts:

• Newspaper ad revenues have fallen 23 percent over the past year
• One out of every five journalists working for newspapers in 2001 is now gone
• Local television revenues fell 7 percent in an election year
• The number of Americans going online for news jumped 19 percent during the past two years
• Traffic online for the top 50 news outlets increased 28 percent

So, what do the statistics mean? It means a lot, but here are the six major trends described in the report:

1. How to finance the newspaper industry is becoming more and more important, yet the solutions are not coming to fruition. The report suggests that the industry is not looking in the right places. In a recent AdAge editorial, the author said media executives are holding on to the idea that the news is a thing – but it really isn’t.
2. The power is shifting from media institutions to the individual journalist – AKA the mommy blogger next door.
3. News organizations are not focusing on their audience, they are focused on pushing content to the rest of the Web. Between Twitter, Facebook and other outlets, the media think it’s best to push their content in as many medium as possible. Is it working? I don’t think so.
4. More media outlets are sharing because they have to – financially, at least. Will there be multiple television outlets in Lansing? Will there be two newspapers in Detroit? How many radio stations are left in Mid-Michigan? These are all things to consider.
5. Political journalism is on the rise. The 2008 Presidential Election was a time for the media to cover everything related to the election – and beyond. I think we’re still in the honeymoon phase of the election in which everything the new president does is historic. The report discusses how America has become fascinated with “minute-by-minute” updates with politics – cabinet appointments, new bills and updates to the economic situation.
6. The press was less of an “enterprising investigator” and more reactive and passive. Of course, the Freep reporting on Kwame Kilpatrick is an exception to that, but there is less and less investigative journalism going on. This is mainly because reporters don’t have time – after all, deadline was yesterday.

The full report can be viewed here.

There’s no way to put it softly – traditional journalism is not doing so well. I’m not going to write about the state of the media industry right now, but I think it’s an especially important time for public relations practitioners. Students are taught the media is one of the most important parts of the job, but because this industry is shrinking, PR practitioners need to get creative and innovative. Online media rooms are one alternative to lack of traditional media coverage, and David Meerman Scott suggests that PR people should recognize all kinds of people, not just the media, visit an online media room.

Our PRSSA Faculty Advisor, Russ White (the man behind the MSUPRSSA YouTube channel) and a University Relations employee, says people are coming to them for stories about MSU – he doesn’t have to pitch. Check out the MSU news site here; I also took a screenshot. It has stories, people, multimedia, podcasts and subscription capabilities. Their news site is just like a newspaper’s Web site. I don’t want to speak for them, but I think this is directly responsible for the shrinking media. MSU will always have a story to tell, no matter if the media will be there to cover it. These online media rooms make the PR job a lot easier if you take out the pitching component.

Because public relations practitioners have an increasing level of power when it comes to shaping messages, we need to remember to be honest and transparent. While I might be biased to PRSA, I like the WOMMA code of ethics, too. No matter what code of ethics you adhere to, PR practitioners must recognize they are content providers and need to tread cautiously when creating messages.

What do you think about the state of the media? How is it affecting PR? If this a good or bad thing?