Brand suicide in the media industry

Just two days after my last post on the mainstream media rushing to publish articles and ignoring content quality, here came this example from two publications that I'd say are fairly respectable.

Two news reports, on the same day, on the same topic, but in direct contradiction of each other. Very obviously, one of them is wrong. Now my intent is not to compare these two publications, but to show that even respectable publications are not beyond putting 'time to market' over 'content quality'.

Here's publication #1: This headline states that a certain set of 189 documents are not available, as per the Centre.

Note the date: August 27, 2013

Here's publication #2: This headline states that 189 documents are available, as per the Centre.

Note the date: August 27, 2013

Advertising Income: Margins or Volumes?

I know from anecdotal evidence that regular readers are worth more (on a per reader basis) to a media brand since publishers can command higher advertising rates because their advertisers know precisely who'll view their ads. One-time visitors redirected to the news-site from Google or Twitter might not be the targets their advertisers want, so publishers have to work with significantly lower rates. Put simply, regular readers offer a better margin (but lower volumes) to a publisher, and one-time readers redirected from the internet offer greater volumes (but lower margins).

A different priority

Seeing blatantly incorrect news articles or half-baked op-ed pieces turns me away from a media brand. One can safely assume that most people behave the same way, and regular readers of a publication prefer quality over a rush job that could do with some editorial inputs. But the fact that more and more media houses are playing fast and loose with content quality and gunning for speed implies that they're aiming at a different customer - one driven to the website from the internet, and putting higher readership over higher advertising rates.

Brand suicide 

The problem is, when the speed of publishing is all you have, you don't have much of a brand. And if you don't have a brand, you don't have much of a business.

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When curation and filtering don't work, just step back !

I don't think I'm obsessed with staying current on the news. Not yet. But it is getting increasingly difficult to feed the beast.

A torrent of information, of questionable value
The bulk of the articles, blog posts and  breaking news being churned out every second are pure trash. Breaking news on TV just isn't worth my time. You'd think I'm better off reading about it online or in the newspaper the next morning. But the rot doesn't end with news on TV; the breathless blog posts all over the internet the next day aren't any better. And the line between a blog post and an online news article is already quite blurred. So I'm probably better off reading a weekly.

A degree of separation could be a good thing

Take the flurry on blog posts / (online) news articles that followed Steve Ballmer's decision to resign - beyond the fact that he resigned and wasn't a very successful CEO, they had nothing to offer, not even any speculation worth your while. I'm quite sure I'll read the first thoughtful piece on the topic in about a week.

The more removed you are from the incident, the more clarity you get. And to my delight, there are people out there taking up the challenge - magazines like Tehelka, Caravan have gained a small but clearly defined readership of people fed up with a media environment gone to the dogs.

Step back !

If it's just the headline I want, I'm better off on Twitter. The answer is not tweaking the feeds and filters on Feedly, Flipboard or Currents or whatever you use to 'curate' your news. The answer is to step back.

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Celebrating random thoughts

Bubbling under ...

Sitting with a blank page in front of me, I'm wondering what to write about. You see, at any given time, there are these hundreds of threads running through my mind. Which one should I pen down? Most are half-formed wisps floating across. 

And that is how they stay until I try to pen one down, or one comes to mind while I'm having a pint with old friends, the kinds who know all my stories, everything that is happening at work and with life in general; the ones with whom most talk is unguarded, arbitrary and spontaneous.

Another time that these shadows take some shape is when I'm on a free stretch of the road on my bike - an Enfield's thump is adequately loud and low-tempo that it crowds all thoughts out of my mind. When there's no traffic running across, there is a comfortable space for me and my thoughts. They come, they go. And slowly, with no particular urgency, I putter along slowly, content with my thoughts. 

Usually these things are like my dreams. I remember them for a precious few moments, and then poof! Fortunately, once in a while these thoughts just bubble up and catch me off guard. It happened to me a couple of weeks ago - I got this question, what language do I think in? And what languages do my friends think in? One friend realized that while the regular stuff ran through his mind in his mother-tongue, more analytic stuff came up in English (we're all Macaulay's children, aren't we), and all his cursing came to him in Hindi (Delhi ki tehzeeb!).

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