Dow Jones boss slams digital players for serving up ‘junk food masquerading as journalism’
The boss of News Corp’s Wall Street Journal owner Dow Jones has attacked digital-only media firms, accusing outlets such as Buzzfeed of churning out “made-up lists masquerading as journalism”.
Will Lewis, speaking today the NewsMediaWorks Future Forum in Sydney, launched a robust defence of traditional media companies, insisting the “trust and quality” they deliver in their journalism will prevail.
“When it comes to consuming the content that matters, people will choose healthy eating over digital junk food,” he said. “Trust and confidence in our journalism, I think, is now winning.”
Lewis told delegates that print remained critical and warned media firms contemplating ditching their flagship titles that it would be a grave mistake.
He cited the demise of The Independent in the UK as an example of the flawed strategy, arguing the publication now merely has a “pitiful graveyard of a website”.
Lewis pulled no punches in a withering assessment of digital players.
“The appetite for quality journalism is as keen as ever,” he said. “It is perhaps even keener as audiences find that the fare slopped out by the new entrants and aggregators pumped up on steroid-like venture capital funding isn’t quite to their taste.”
People remain highly engaged with news brands they trust for their quality reach and honesty, he said.
Lewis: “Advertisers want to be associated with facts and stimulating opinion, not made up lists masquerading as journalism”
Turning to Buzzfeed, Lewis noted that it “seems to be splitting in two” and mocked its mantra to become a leading news provider.
“It wants to house all its lists and infotainment in one department, allowing Buzzfeed news to focus on becoming – and I quote: “the number one global news brand for the new generation”.
“Good luck under that harsh spotlight, folks, because the evidence is clear. Readers want to read, and advertisers want to be associated with, facts and stimulating opinion not made up lists masquerading as journalism.”
Lewis said consumers are increasingly prepared to pay for quality content and said those who “sniggered” at paywalls, and who thought they could build a business model based on “eyeballs”, are now “blubbing into their organically brewed beer”.
“They once boasted of their global reach and they bathed in a sense of their own worthiness, all catastrophically unprofitable and catastrophically unsustainable,” he said.
“Complacently, they waited for the digital ad dollars to roll in – they didn’t – guilty, I am afraid, of a gross dereliction of duty when it comes to protecting the future of journalists and journalism.
“Journalist freedom, rather than journalism for free is what we should all be about.”
Those who thought a business model could be built simply through “eyeballs” are being proved wrong, he said, and argued it was now “almost too late” for some.
“You cannot wish yourselves into a profitable business model to pay for journalism,” he told the conference. “You have to earn it through constant change and close attention to the customer.”
Lewis said Dow Jones was becoming a membership organisation in a move to grow subscriptions, to get closer to its readers and to reward loyalty.
“Rather like prevention is better that cure, we believe retention is better than costly reacquisition,” he said.
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What’s the difference between selling advertising in print to fund investigative journalism and creating listicles that draw views/clicks and including advertising on that particular page to fund investigative journalism that is only digital? Two different styles with the same outcome. Railing at buzzfeed (who’s recent long form investigative work has been on par with anything news or fairfax has created) is pointless, and entrenches the same old tired digital bad, print good argument.
Surely the way forward is a combination of the two, with active work on getting readers when they’re young to entrench the trust mentioned in the speech. And seeing how a lot of young people don’t read newspapers, digital is the only way you’ll get them.
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Online advertising is cheaper and so requires much more content to make up for the decline revenue from the more lucrative print sphere.
To keep up with the amount of content needed, digital publishers create ‘infotainment’ and clickbait.
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I’m presume Steve Jones is sharing this story because it is deeply ironic?
News Corp, who’s tabloids have been accused for years of providing ‘junk food masquerading as journalism’ are now upset that other companies are copying their formula. They started journalisms ‘arms race to the bottom of the barrel’ and are witnessing its natural progression. Is this company, that long ago began substituting Facts with Fish Stories, expecting us to believe that “trust and quality” are what they are know for? It’s as though The News Of The World scandal never happened.
More than anything News Corp has lost public trust though it’s continued political bias and its politicisation of anything that does not fit with the Big bosses financial and political agenda. The overt partiality and the blatant propaganda has resulted in a reduction in trust across all its publications, especially online, and has dislocated them from a very large percentage of readers.
News Corp now faces an awkward decision, either keep on going to the bottom of the barrel or pivot towards reporting the facts in an unbiased way. It will be interesting to see how that turns out.
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A big factor at play is that print advertising isn’t the only source of revenue for newspapers. They also had their subscription fees, daily copy sales and classified ads that funded their journalism. Classified ad revenue was a huge contributor to newspaper coffers that has been substantially eroded.
There was an argument that digital news sources could rely entirely on digital ad sales thanks to higher viewer numbers and lower distribution costs, but time has pretty much shown that digital ads are unlikely to entirely fund any substantial online operation.
Which is where paywalls raise their head, but it’s difficult to shift an audience into paying for something they are used to getting for free (and can get for free elsewhere thanks to copy pasta writers).
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“who’s”? “It’s”? “journalisms'”? Your incorrect use of apostrophes is making me apoplectic. Otherwise, your right.
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A newspaper reader is worth much more to a news organisation than someone who reads online
A Print Reader Is Worth 228X As Much As An Online Reader.
http://www.businessinsider.com.....ine-2011-5
The NYT collects an average of $879 of revenue per year for each print reader (wow!). This is composed of $434 of circulation revenue (subscription or newsstand) and $385 of advertising revenue.
Online, meanwhile, before enacting the paywall, the company collected an average of $3.85 per year per average monthly unique user, all of which came from advertising.
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