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The problem with “takes” is the business model of mass media

A very good take on why all news organizations think they “need a take on that” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, being followed by another take and then another take on the Awl’s take on takes. Shoot us all now. No, shoot the business model and the presumptions of mass media economics. That is what is […]

A very good take on why all news organizations think they “need a take on that” becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, being followed by another take and then another take on the Awl’s take on takes. Shoot us all now.

No, shoot the business model and the presumptions of mass media economics. That is what is causing this ridiculous treadmill of making content for content’s sake to get audience for audience’s sake with any original reporting or original thinking being copied and copied again and again until it looks like a the fuzzy, unreadable, 87th Xerox copy of a bad carbon copy. That is what makes media companies think the answer to any business problem is to make more content because that’s what we content makers do.

The problem is that the old business model of mass media rewards volume not value. The problem is also that we mistake our job as content makers rather than as service providers.

Advertising is bought on eyeballs by the ton — that is, every 1,000 set of eyeballs a media site can deliver. Advertisers then deliver their messages to said eyeballs. That’s because that’s the way old, one-way, mass media had to work. That’s all that print and broadcast allowed. And we are still, two decades after the introduction of commercial web, trying to copy our old business models in a new media reality. Spoiler: It won’t work.

Why do you think, as illustrated in this handy chart provided by First Monday, that Google’s value has soared 1,000 percent in that time while news media companies’ value has swirled down the toilet bowl?

monday note chart

Easy: Google sells value. To users, it provides relevance. To advertisers, it promises performance. Meanwhile, media still sell mass. They deliver one-size-fits-all products (“come see our home page, all of you; we’ll bet one of the hundred or so headlines there will grab you!”) to users. They deliver mere impressions to advertisers. Shouldn’t we be asking [cough] what would Google do?

There’s another reason that journalists like to issue their own takes on takes: ego. Back in the day, reporters were assigned to “match” other publications’ reporting not because they were scientists replicating others’ research and adding value to it but mostly because they wanted their own bylines and their on brands over their own stories in their own pages. And that made a modicum of sense in paper economics. But it doesn’t make sense anymore. Indeed, we cannot afford to use precious journalistic resources parroting what others have already done, reporting what our readers already know. The net — as distinct from mass media — rewards specialization and quality, the thing people link to because it’s good. Quality. Value. As a dividend, the link also brings news organizations the opportunity to recognize efficiencies by not trying to do everything for everyone. Dare I repeat this, too: Do what you do best and link to the rest.

The lessons of this story are painfully obvious: Stop making content. Start delivering service and value. Stop copying others’ work. Link to it. And to advertisers: Stop buying impressions. Buy performance. And to all: Challenge old assumptions. Innovation over inertia. Value over volume.

So was this just another take on the takes on takes? So shoot me.

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