Journalists Blaming Facebook For Decline Is Just As Tiresome As When They Blamed Craigslist & Google
from the time-to-innovate dept
The Guardian's Roy Greenslade recently published a column about "why Facebook is public enemy number one for newspapers in journalism." It's a bunch of complete nonsense. I won't go through the whole thing, but here's just a snippet:Facebook’s increasing dominance over advertising is causing the laying off of journalists, the people who produce the news that it transmits to its users.Yeah. Okay. Let's be clear: this is bullshit. As Ben Thompson pointed out, the decline of newspaper revenue predates Facebook, by a lot:
The logical conclusion to that process is not only the destruction of old media, legacy media, mainstream media, whatever you want to call it, but the end of journalism as we know it.
FACT: Journalism's business model was screwed before Facebook earned a single dime pic.twitter.com/OF5nMM3T0u
— Ben Thompson (@benthompson) September 20, 2016
- The Rise of Craigslist and How It's Killing Your Newspaper
- How Craigslist killed the newspapers' golden goose
- Another study shows Craigslist is killing newspapers
- Newspaper Billions Become Craigslist Millions
- Pew Center Illustrates how Craigslist is killing newspapers
- Craigslist Is Killing Newspapers
- Sorry, Craig: Study Finds Craigslist Took $5 Billion from Newspapers
- Bob Woodward accuses Google of killing newspapers
- Google will destroy local newspapers
- Trevor Ncube Says Google Killing News Industry
- Blame Google for news decline
- More on Google, Craigslist, and who's killing newspapers
- Google dubbed internet parasite by WSJ editor
So let's get a few things out of the way here: Newspapers are struggling. They absolutely are. But it's not "because" of Facebook (or Craigslist or Google). Newspapers were going to struggle with the rise of the internet no matter what, because it laid bare the basic coincidence that made newspapers profitable despite themselves. For many, many years, we've been pointing out that the true business of newspapers was a community business, rather than a news business. It's just that in the pre-internet days, newspapers had a bit of a monopoly on being able to build communities -- often local communities -- around the news. But they had very little competition in that business, other than maybe a few other local newspapers (though consolidation took care of that in most markets). The business, then, of newspapers was taking the attention they received from that community, and selling it to advertisers.
The internet structurally changed all of this, by creating all sorts of other areas where people could congregate and build communities. That's kind of what the internet is good at. And suddenly there's a ton of competition in the community space. But newspapers, incorrectly thinking they were in the "news" business, often made decisions that actively harmed the community aspect. They put up paywalls. They took away the ability to comment. They made it harder for local communities of interest to form.
So what happened? The communities and their (valuable) attention went elsewhere. And, these days, much of that "elsewhere" when it comes to communities is Facebook.
And, just like Google before it, Facebook has actually created a pretty valuable channel for sending people to your news website. Many publishers haven't figured this out yet -- or how to harness it. Hell, just a month or so ago, I was talking about how we here at Techdirt haven't figured this out at all (we get depressingly little traffic from Facebook compared to many of our peers). But you won't see us blaming Facebook for this. It's on us. Have our ad rates dropped off a cliff? Yes. Is that Facebook's fault? Hell no. Even if all the advertising money that used to go to newspapers and news sites magically shifted to Facebook (which it hasn't), then it would be because of a failure on the part of those news companies to offer a better overall product for advertisers.
It's time for publications to stop blaming every new technology site that comes along, and to focus on actually adapting, changing and finding new business models that work. It may not be easy. And many will crash and burn completely. But that's not the "fault" of these new companies at all.
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–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: ad rates, blame, journalism, news, social media, technology
Companies: craigslist, facebook, google
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And I just thought I'd leave this here...
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How to Build a Million-Dollar Business
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You certainly are ahead of many larger outfits out there with your shop and many means to be an active part of this community. And you are humble and wise enough to see that you haven't got how to do it totally right yet and this is a long way walked in the path of actually doing it right.
That's the difference between the ones that will fade away and the ones that will keep walking even if struggling and with hardships.
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Newspapers weren't about the community, unless this translated as "captive audience".
The entire notion of the monopoly should have made this obvious.
The biggest reason why "businesses" haven't figured things out is because they didn't have a clue to begin with, including Techdirt.
News is not a commodity. It's a consumable. Like an apple, the value exists only for moments before it's gone.
What's left after that? Nothing.
It's more apt to compare Techdirt and news sites selling t-shirts, mugs, and subscriptions to a 7-Eleven, where the news is the loss leader trying to shill overpriced products.
At least 7-Eleven knows it's a convenience store. Newspapers can't call themselves anything, really.
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He's not wrong
He's narrow minded in blaming only Facebook, but the internet as a whole is absolutely to blame for killing off "old" media, "legacy" media, "mainstream" media, and "journalism as knows it". And that's totally OK. Journalism isn't disappearing, it's simply re-inventing itself in a digital era. "Old" & "legacy" die off as digital becomes the new "mainstream". The legacy players are just too blinded to see it.
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Now the eyes have left and the advertisers know it. Newspapers double-dipped their salsa, and now no one else wants to eat it.
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Good riddance! The media as I knew it was nothing but a self serving crock anyways, the sooner it dies the better!!!
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NO LINKY
.
Please!... no emails!
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I say good riddance
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Re: I say good riddance
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The world is finished as we know it.
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must be good
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journalists do not produce the news, they report it .. and many comment upon it, but they do not produce it.
Well, they actually have "produced" the news in at least one instance I recall - there was that pickup truck that would not explode by itself for their expose and therefore it needed a little help which resulted in them being sued, I remember them losing that case.
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It is creative destruction. Old business models are fading while new ones are being created. Many times the new ones are more efficient so there may not be a need for 1,000s of newspapers re-printing the same news stories. Maybe a handful can do the job. Maybe the local news could concentrate on say, local news? Maybe they aren't flying high in the prestigious national/international scenes but maybe they can dominate a niche.
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A long time coming
The paper was purchased by the NYT. nuff-said.
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If Facebook is better at news than you....
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why are you complaining guard?
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That's the elephant in the room that everyone ignores in these discussions. Remember a while ago when Techdirt was transparent about running this site based wholly on ad revenue? They couldn't do it and needed additional support.
That's not a business. That's a charity, or if you'd like, a tip jar. There's nothing wrong with it, but it's impossible to sustain on ad revenue alone, especially when only a few of the patrons support it outside the ads (and it sure doesn't help to allow people to block ads).
It's all well and good for Techdirt, but that's why they can't figure it out. And if Techdirt can't figure it out, whose primary business is to get clients to pay for improving their business, what chance does any digital distributor have?
None.
The advertising necessity for an internet "business" is completely foolish because the internet wasn't designed to be a business.
Before anyone screams "Google", best take a look at how they run the company: it has nothing to do with running a business on the internet, but a physical business to puts ads on the internet.
That's a pretty big difference to run a business.
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That is because intelligent people come here.
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Techdirt is a fairly popular website. Being one of the top 10,000 sites in the US (according to Alexa) you would figure that it could easily be profitable. But the marked increase in adverposting and t-shirt campaigns says otherwise. That is with a minimal staff, and with costs shared with a number of different companies and of course the think tank.
The truth is that few mainstream websites on the internet are very profitable. The ones who make big money (say TMZ) do it in no small part by moving to traditional media distribution (the daily TMZ show) to really bring in the income. Online isn't as huge a money maker as all of that.
The newspapers' arguments are valid. Pre-internet, they ruled the roost. If you wanted aggregated eyeballs, and you wanted to get a message out, advertising in your local newspaper was actually a pretty good way to do it. Ditto for local radio and local TV. Those were effectively your three choices.
Now the online world is dominated by Google and Facebook. Between the two, they represent 75% or more of the online ad revenues, and have the majority of the eyeballs. Newspapers have lost their dominant spot, and more over, with hungry online companies willing to sell space for pennies instead of dollars, they have also seen their ad revenue models collapse. They still get lots of eyeballs, but you can get many of the same views much more cheaply online.
Should they have adapted? Well, to what, exactly? Subscription model? Techdirt says no, walled gardens are bad! So where should they do? Sell lots of t-shirts? Put cameras over reporters shoulders and charge people to watch the streaming live video?
it's nonsense in the end. The newspapers aren't wrong but they also need to understand that the proverbial toothpaste is out of the tube, there is no going back.
The real problem is news is replaced by opinion, entertainment, and self-reflecting information sources that are often wrong about everything. It's why we have riots about police shooting armed suspects. It's not about understanding why, it's about a feedback loop of misinformation and twisted stats used to make things matter. It's pretty sad.
As you sow, you shall reap. Read them and weep.
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That's funny, because if the usual critics/copyright fans like you are to be believed, nobody takes Masnick seriously or reads what he posts.
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Plenty of people read the site (duh!) but not everyone takes him seriously. It's like learning politics from Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones. They both are "fairly popular" but only the extremists take them seriously. Everyone else points and laughs.
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...is obviously a tree-hugger conspiracy to destroy the newspaper industry in particular.
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It is because of search engines in general. Services like Google, Yahoo, Alta Vista, hell even AOL, that led to this.
With the advent of the internet and a practical way to search it, we can now find our own preferred news source on a story-by-story basis.
The idiom "if you don't like it go somewhere else" is exactly applicable here.
30 years ago, if you didn't like the news reporting, what were you to do? Depending on the size of the community you lived in, there may only be 2 or 3 easily accessible newspapers, or only a few news shows on TV. Sure, you could always place special order with your newsagent for out-of-town/state/country papers - but that's a hassle, especially if there are only 1 or 2 particular articles or a short period of time you are interested in.
Now, I can "go somewhere else" at the click of a button.
Not to mention, the variety. I mean, how many local news papers and TV shows do you need to actually watch to have the significant local news events - or the ones you are interested in - covered?
Now, now can explore what's happening around the world by viewing THEIR news. Why wait a few days for the news (if it's even regarded as important enough by your local outlets) to worm its way too you when you can go straight to the source country? Something happening in Brazil? Stream a Brazilian TV report, or read about it on a Brazilian website. Something happening in Croatia - go to a Croatian news site. And so on.
If you want to know what's happening with BREXIT, go read some British newspapers, or blogs, or forums, for THEIR view. Want to know the Europeans views on BREXIT? Read some German, French, Italian, Austrian and whoever else's reports you want. You don't have to wait for the editors politically-motivated, filtered and 'spun' view you get in your own local news.
The news industry needs to face the fact that 90% of their revenues was derived from a captive market audience. They need to get over the fact that for most news organisations, that is the only reason they were viable businesses.
We are no longer a captive market.
So they need to get over themselves. While once they were a useful service, many of them are now nothing but parasites with a sense of entitlement. They need to adapt like any other business to change.
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Except that newspapers were failing long before the internet.
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and if it weren't for the Internet none of these top 10K sites could exist and make revenue doing something they perhaps like. They won't have the option at all. Instead they would either have to go through traditional channels, owned by big corporate conglomerates that limit what you can say based on their own self interests and agenda, or they would be out of jobs or find a less worthwhile job because there are fewer jobs available and hence less competition for someone looking for a way to make money.
and with more news sites I am exposed to a wider array of opinions. and I find the mainstream media to be nonsense by comparison. and I don't need you to tell me that I'm somehow wrong because you think you have better intellect than me and everyone else. That's laughable at best.
"Should they have adapted? Well, to what, exactly? Subscription model? Techdirt says no, walled gardens are bad! So where should they do? Sell lots of t-shirts? Put cameras over reporters shoulders and charge people to watch the streaming live video?"
They should work harder. Do multiple things. It's their responsibility to find creative ways to adapt. That it's hard, that there is lots of competition, is not my problem. Why should they get any special privileges? They should have to compete like anyone else, they're not special, and if they want to build their business they need to work harder than everyone else. and, yes, there are many other people willing to work hard as well as you seem to indicate. But that's the whole point, they shouldn't be given an unlevel playing field where they have an unfair advantage that lets them make more money without working as hard (ie: abolish broadcasting and cableco monopolies).
The problem is that you're looking for an easy silver bullet. You want life to be easy, where everything is clear cut and you don't have to take any risks at all, you can just do the same thing over and over and keep making tons of money without having to actually think. That's the lazy way out. Real life shouldn't work that way and the government shouldn't help you to that end. You need to figure it out and there are risks and there is no clear cut single path and no single right solution.
"Newspapers have lost their dominant spot, and more over, with hungry online companies willing to sell space for pennies instead of dollars, they have also seen their ad revenue models collapse. They still get lots of eyeballs, but you can get many of the same views much more cheaply online. "
Competition is tough. But that's a good thing. Competition is what keeps businesses honest and ensures that businesses don't feed us garbage. We become the judges of the quality of the content that we consume, not some self monopolized distributor that bought the necessary politicians to gain their market position. and it is better for us to judge what we think is right and wrong than to have some monopolized distributor judge for us.
"The real problem is news is replaced by opinion, entertainment, and self-reflecting information sources that are often wrong about everything."
To be fair I've hardly seen you right about anything. Most of what you say is absolute nonsense often made up as you go so I guess it's your very own comments that proves your point? I see what you did there ....
While you are one of the idiots that are often wrong about everything I think the point is that it's easy for me to tell. Your posts come off as arrogant, putting yourself 'above' anyone as if you somehow have a superior understanding of what's right and wrong than everyone else when clearly that's not the case at all. Even when people point out how wrong you are you absolutely refuse to acknowledge it, ever. But people see right through your nonsense.
"It's like learning politics from Rush Limbaugh and Alex Jones. They both are "fairly popular" but only the extremists take them seriously. Everyone else points and laughs."
I think there are important differences. Firs of all no one is going to hold their opinion entirely but people listen because there may be some things they have to contribute. Everyone has their own different views but at least that's better than traditional media that bases its views on its own self interests.
and often people present extreme views not because they hold them but just to get others to consider various viewpoints as a thought experiment.
But more to the point I think you make an important point. These are good examples of what you get from traditional media, that is, what you get when media is dictated by who holds the monopoly over radio and television and there is little competition. You get fed whatever the monopolists decide to feed you even if it's ridiculous.
Techdirt, OTOH, exists in a much more organic environment where competition thrives and it still retains viewership.
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Thanks to the fact that services like Megaupload and Veoh were wrongfully shut down you are right, they do represent too much of the market. They're the best we got, the alternative is the even much more self serving and corrupt traditional media.
You complain about Facebook's and Google's dominance but the moment a competitor tries to come in and take market share you complain about that too. There is no making you happy, you just want corrupt and self serving traditional entities to monopolize the market entirely.
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Slow clap. You almost had some valid points and then you destroyed it with a massive, hateful personal attack.
"Techdirt, OTOH, exists in a much more organic environment where competition thrives and it still retains viewership."
By telling the read what they want to hear, and not worrying about the fuller truth. Your long rant pretty much missed the point entirely, but hey, after the personal attack, I didn't expect any less.
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If you think you somehow have a better understanding of truth than the rest of us then please share. Because all I see out of you is an arrogant appeal to your own superior authority and your allegations that you are somehow more enlightened on matters of truth than the rest of us.
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masaj eğitimi
this my proje look pls
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It's the reason why people who seem extreme to many (Rush Limbaugh, Alex Jones, or even George Noory) seem perfectly sane and perfect to their believers. Those people want to believe it's the truth, and when they hear it or read it in the media, they feel a solid connection to the "truth".
The problem for mainstream media is that they don't tend to say what people want to hear, and instead just tell them the truth (or the closest thing to it). It's why Foxnews overtook CNN, it's not about the news, they figured out how to present the news in a manner that engaged a certain segment of the population by playing to their fears and desires.
So Techdirt is fairly popular, and in the same manner that Mike has his list of go-to sources for his slant, he is also one of the go-to guys for others looking for the slant. It's natural and normal. Techdirt plays well to the "ain't got nothing to protect" crowd.
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