Journoprenuers took a licking last week from two heavies in the media landscape: the federal government and Apple CEO Steve Jobs. Both made comments that would invest journalism’s future in its past, that is, institutional mainstream media that for years hasn’t been able to find its own ass with both hands and a flashlight.
First, the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) unleashed its draft policy recommendation “to support the reinvention of journalism.” While the document suggests the IRS recognize novel small-business structures for nonprofit tax breaks, it also pitches ideas that would keep small media outlets from doing their thang.
A tax on large broadcasters would relieve them of obligations to provide “public-interest programming,” like the kind a hyperlocalist would produce. A 2-percent tax on advertising sales would add a layer of meshugas to a small content producer’s books, as well as add an extra charge on local advertisers. Increased postal subsidies and a tax on accessing the mobile web would favor large print publications over hyperlocal newspapers and websites.
These proposed taxes would go towards establishing a national local-news fund, doling out university grants for investigative journalism, and tax breaks for hiring salaried journalists. Personally, I oppose government money in the media piggybank, and while a tax credit for hiring journalists is nice, hyperlocalists generally rely on freelance or volunteer contributors. The FTC document doesn’t do enough for small media.
And then there’s what Apple CEO Steve Jobs had to say at The Wall Street Journal’s D8 conference. The appointed messiah of media told conference participants, “I don’t want to see us descend to a nation of bloggers myself. I think we need editorial more than ever right now,” PaidContent.org reported Wednesday.
One might quip that Jobs’ disdain for blogs stems from the Gizmodo iPhone fiasco, but I think there’s another reason. While bloggers (and the online hyperlocalists who have that title hanging over their heads) create oodles of content, they probably don’t have the financial resources or tech savvy to distribute that content through an iPhone or iPad app. That’s money out of Jobs’ pocket and control out of his hands.
According to PaidContent, Jobs followed his swipe at bloggers with: “Anything that we can do to help The New York Times, The Washington Post and other news-gathering organizations find new ways of expression so they can afford to get paid so they can keep their news gathering and editorial operations intact, I’m all for it.”
Sadly, Jobs doesn’t recognize the original news gathering that hyperlocalists and bloggers do, and how some of those large media outlets base their “reporting” on a smaller outlet’s original stories. Again, I suspect this elitism stems from the lost potential of app sales: The iTunes store sells iPhone apps for The Times and The Post, as well as a Times app for the iPad.
Where is the love for hyperlocalists? When did innovation and imagination (the kind that Apple touts in its advertising) fall victim to monopolies? Instead of encouraging new voices and new investment, the FTC stifled them to preserve the industry’s collapsing status quo. And instead of lending Apple’s devices to new experiences with content, Jobs whittled them down to technological troughs for whatever iTunes’ gatekeepers deem worthy of consumption.
My advice to the FTC and Jobs: Beware of false profits.
Images courtesy of Flickr users 1Happysnapper (photography) and reelsinmotion.
Hello, potential investor. Will you be my friend?
I enjoy speaking with fellow hyperlocalists, especially when one has an interesting question to pose. Recently, one hyperlocalist — I’ll call him Buddy for privacy’s sake — said he’d been approached by a large local business that was willing to finance a news network covering nearby neighborhoods, with Buddy at the editorial wheel. In exchange, the business would get discounted advertising space and a regular column about its industry.
My advice to him was this: Make the damn deal, but hammer out every detail first. That includes details in one’s business plan, corporate or nonprofit structure, and newsroom hierarchy (even if it’s a newsroom of one). Getting his house in order allows Buddy to spell out his publication’s financial and philosophical objectives to this investor, and it will help both parties understand where the boardroom ends and the newsroom begins.
Next, I suggested that Buddy and his investor test drive this business arrangement on his existing publication. Instead of launching new franchises from scratch, Buddy can apply the investor’s capital to expanding his current news coverage into adjacent neighborhoods, taking advantage of his existing network of local freelance reporters and bloggers. If the expanded coverage proves to be self-sustaining, he can then launch franchises with the same journalistic clout and financial stamina of his original publication.
Buddy’s one investor can also be his greatest cheerleader, encouraging other businesses to invest in or advertise with his original news outlet and new franchise network. After all, a viable hyperlocal news product reflects a neighborhood worthy of investment, something from which area retailers, restaurateurs, employers, homeowners and municipal agencies benefit.
I hope Buddy keeps me up to date on how this business arrangement progresses and whether he’s taken approaches other than what’s mentioned above. In the meantime, hyperlocalists can get help with the nuts, bolts and numbers of their business plans with the Service Corps of Retired Executives (SCORE), a terrific nonprofit group that advises small business owners.
Good luck, Buddy!
Photo courtesy of Flickr user mtsofan.