New rule: Cover what you do best. Link to the rest
Try this on as a new rule for newspapers: Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.
That’s not how newspapers work now. They try to cover everything because they used to have to be all things to all people in their markets. So they had their own reporters replicate the work of other reporters elsewhere so they could say that they did it under their own bylines as a matter of pride and propriety. It’s the way things were done. They also took wire-service copy and reedited it so they could give their audiences the world. But in the age of the link, this is clearly inefficient and unnecessary. You can link to the stories that someone else did and to the rest of the world. And if you do that, it allows you to reallocate your dwindling resources to what matters, which in most cases should be local coverage.
This changes the dynamic of editorial decisions. Instead of saying, “we should have that” (and replicating what is already out there) you say, “what do we do best?” That is, “what is our unique value?” It means that when you sit down to see a story that others have worked on, you should ask, “can we do it better?” If not, then link. And devote your time to what you can do better.
In the rearchitecture of news, what needs to happen is that people are driven to the best coverage, not the 87th version of the same coverage. This will work for publications and news organizations. It will also work for individuals; this is how a lone reporter’s work (and reputation) can surface. We saw that happening with the Libby trial and Firedoglake’s liveblogging of it. As Jay Rosen said at our NPR confab last week — and I’ve heard this elsewhere — theirs became the best source for keeping up on the trial. Reporters and editors knew it and were using it. So those same reporters and editors should have been sending their readers to the blog as a service: ‘We’re not liveblogging it, but they are. We’ll give you our analysis and reporting later. Enjoy.’ That is where the architecture of news must go because links enable it and economics demand it.
There’s another angle to this: News is not one-size-fits-all. We don’t get all our news from one source anymore. We get bombarded with news all around us. So we all knew that Anna Nicole Smith was dead (or, in Jack Cafferty’s immortal words, still dead). So that means that not every newspaper needs to cover that story in depth.
It certainly means that The New York Times needn’t. So why did the Times devote considerable space and reporting and editing talent to the Anna Nicole story this week? They added nothing more to the story. It’s not what they do best. At the least, if they felt they really needed to cover it, they should have used the AP. Online, they certainly should have just linked to the many, many other sources that are covering it. And then the paper could have used its resources for news that matters and news that they can do uniquely well.
So why did they do it? They didn’t want to be left behind. They perhaps even didn’t want to seem snotting (as if the Anna Nicole story were below them and their readers). But that’s not the issue. Making the best use of their resources and talent it. They need to take advantage of the link.
Newspapers are getting more comfortable with linking out even to competitors. This takes it farther. It says that the best service you can perform for yourself and your readers is to link instead of trying to do everything.
And once you really open yourself up to this, then it also means that you can link to more people gathering more coverage of news: ‘We didn’t cover that school board meeting today, but here’s a link to somebody who recorded it.’ That’s really no different from saying after a big news event, ‘We weren’t there to take pictures, but lots of our readers were and here they are.’
So you do what you do best. And you link to the rest.
That is the new architecture of news.
LATER: But this is the kind of red-herring arguments we still hear in this discussion. Al Eisele, editor-at-large for The Hill, complains about criticism of MSM and points to the Washington Post’s excellent investigation of the conditions at the Walter Reade Army Medical Center.
This Jurassic journalist is tired of all the bitching and moaning by denizens of the blogosphere about the deficiencies of the Mainstream Media (MSM in the snarky parlance of blognoscenti). Out of touch, corrupted by proximity to power, dinosaur media, inside gasbaggery of the Beltway — these are some of the kinder descriptions of those of us who believe that traditional journalism is still a necessary and honorable trade, like garbage collection or undertaking. . . .Citizen journalism is fine, and it’s great that vigilant readers are keeping journalist, and politicians, on their toes. But when’s the last time it prodded the bureaucracy into action to fix a problem or correct an injustice? That’s what watchdog journalism, with the veteran reporters and vast resources like that of the Washington Post, does so well. And that’s why the Mainstream Media is still an essential part of the brave new world of journalism in the Internet age.
I haven’t seen a single blogger say that they could do this or that they don’t want MSM to do this. Shoot down that canard. Pickle that herring. What I’m saying above is that we want MSM to do more of this. Instead of covering Anna Nicole and Britney.
: Jeffrey Dvorkin, ex of NPR and now of the Center for Concerned Journalists, echoes my view from above in relation to foreign reporting. As summarized by Romenesko:
* There are local, foreign reporters who are knowledgeable and whose English is excellent. They need to be identified and trained.
* The role of the blogger in foreign reporting needs to be rethought. It is just possible that a blogger-correspondent might be the next phase of reporting.
* The BBC may be a model where eager and often young journalists are given the basics of news gathering then sent overseas to act as one-person bureaus. These journalists may not have all of the experience that old hands may have, but they are willing and adept.
: Richard Sambrook reminds me of a report (PDF) on use of wires vs. original reporting. The Associated Press has been the center of this architecture for years: if you don’t do it, get it off the wire. Only now, there are more ways to follow that same model.
So, Mr. Eisele, rather than whining about bloggers, it would be better to find more ways to work with them — and to link to competitors — so you can concentrate on just the reporting you and I admire.
: SEE ALSO: This earlier post: Nobody wants less reporting.
: LATER STILL: Cory Bergman makes a great point about the parallel world of TV:
There’s an interesting implication here for TV news, as well. The majority of stories in local TV newscasts (and the networks, too) are exactly the same. This sameness is not a detractor in a linear world: most people who watch TV don’t turn off a newscast if they’ve already read or seen a story somewhere else. But on the web, sameness is a drawback: people who have already read or seen a story somewhere else aren’t going to click on it to read it again. Posting the same stories as everyone else has a more tangible impact on pageviews than airing the same stories has an impact on ratings. This becomes even a bigger drawback when you consider all the stories TV newsrooms get from newspapers, which have already been online for most the day before they end up on the TV websites. In the end, covering unique, original stories is a must for TV sites — resources willing — even if it means diverging from TV’s daily coverage. Or better yet, TV newsrooms should cover more enterprise stories as a percentage of daily assignments.
Yes, and then TV news might actually be valuable. Like newspapers, the have resources. It’s a question of priorities.
Tags: newsarchitecture, newsinnovation, newspapers
February 22nd, 2007 at 8:20 pm
When I read the title of this post, professor, I thought you were referring to bloggers, not newspapers. What you stated is a rule that most serious bloggers learn pretty early in the process (or at least learn the first part of it); focus on that which is your added value and forget about everything else. Don’t bother to link to irrelevant items because because they will be linked by others who find it relevant.
Focus only on the mission.
February 22nd, 2007 at 9:15 pm
[...] Jeff Jarvis makes an excellent point in this blog post that urges news organizations — especially newspapers — to focus their dwindling resources on their strengths instead of trying to duplicate coverage that’s widely available. Newspaper sites are already posting more national wire and syndicated stories to free up their reporters to cover more local news. But Jarvis goes a step further to suggest they link to sites that are doing a better job covering a story. [...]
February 22nd, 2007 at 11:10 pm
[...] Jeff Jarvis makes an excellent point in this blog post that urges news organizations — especially newspapers — to focus their dwindling resources on their strengths instead of trying to duplicate coverage that’s widely available elsewhere. Newspaper sites are already posting more national wire and syndicated stories to free up their reporters to cover more local news. But Jarvis goes a step further to suggest they link to sites that are doing a better job covering a story. [...]
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:23 am
Hmm… So are you proposing a new era in which every newspaper is really a highly targeted niche publication? It seems that was once the case, but that megapapers like the NYT have grown to become purported catch-alls for every news item under the sun.
What happens if the NYT becomes a strictly New York-based publication and drops anything not within its immediate geography? Is there still room for a newspaper as umbrella news aggregator? Is there still a need for such a thing?
(My two cents: yes, there still is. Just as there are too many blogs to sift through without a filter, so too is there a need for an aggregator of hyperlocal news, or hyper-niche news. The revolution is not in the restructuring of information; it’s in the reimagining of information search.)
February 23rd, 2007 at 12:38 am
As a former newspaper reporter and editor and current hyper-local blogger, this post really made sense to me. It made me think that perhaps news research could take a page from scientific research where discovery comes from the work of many building off one another to lead to a great breakthrough. The method has brought us lots of scientific discovery. What if it could bring us ground-breaking journalistic discovery — the kind that’s so hard to get in an era of newspaper cutbacks and diminished resources?
February 23rd, 2007 at 6:02 am
Good observation and good post. I find most of us who blog and get into discussions of news events are getting our info from online newspapers on an equal footing with news services, and tend to go to, say, a local source when the news is from there. Like al Jazeera for the M.E.
And recently I and blogmate at http://www.cabdrollery.blogspot.com were invited to post on a high traffic blog, because we had shown expertise in our areas. Hmmmm.
February 23rd, 2007 at 7:19 am
One of the things that I love about your blog, Jeff, is that people come on just to agree with you and say how right you are. And you certainly talk a lot of sense here. We (MediaGuadian.co.uk) hired Roy Greenslade a year or so ago. He was a former national newspaper editor, but has swiftly become an uber-blogger. He writes about the subjects that he knows best. He links to the things that his readers would be most interested in. And his aggregating and commenting interacts with our news coverage.
However I think newspapers (or should we just call them traditional news organisations) should continue to compete. This competition is part of what brings out the best in our journalism.
And as for your point about Anna Nicole Smith. Aside from a long argument about whether this is proper news that should be covered by serious news organisations, the fact is that this sort of news is “popular”. It sells newspapers. It attracts viewers. And to take the approach that so many other people are doing it that we don’t need to, is just not a ratings/circulation option for major media organisations.
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:09 am
Steve,
Agree completely (see, now I come to you to say I agree) about competition. If you can do the story better, do it! If not, link and do something else great.
I’m the last to argue against any coverage of Anna Nicole; I used to work at People magazine. But theTimes didn’t do it to sell papers; it was inside. And they didn’t add anything to the story. And they wasted resources trying to be popular even though anyone who cared about the story certainly got more — much more — elsewhere.
February 23rd, 2007 at 10:19 am
Jeff:
Your new rule is absolutely right, and I would suggest that this is what has allowed small local newspapers to flourish for the last decade. They have relied on trusted wires sources for national and international news and focused solely on adding value through local reporting (what they do best).
In my discussions with newspaper executives, the central questions seem to be (1.) Can we trust the source? (2.) Will we give the impression to readers that we are not doing our job? and (3.) Readers want “our” take on the story. As you correctly point out, when a newspaper’s take is simply a rewrite of an AP story–it’s hard to say #3 matters. Newspapers must similarly start to realize that concerns #1 and #2 are not the central issues in the evolving era.
In my larger work on the implications of the evolvint Web, the subtitle of my award winning book Go It Alone! is Do WhatYou Do Best Let Other’s Do the Rest. Now, media companies must figure out how to make the same evolution that is striking other industries: You have absolutely put your finger on the key rule for survival. To help companies and individuals find the tools they need to “Do What They Best” I have followed up on Go It Alone! with Ventures Without Capital, a blog recommending the best low-cost services that let any business leverage what they do best.
Once again, your insights are right on the money!
Bruce Judson
February 23rd, 2007 at 11:52 am
It would be easier for a newspaper to start from scratch as a small focused publication that doesn’t try to do it all. It would win admirers that way. But as the traditional full-service newspaper tries to become that, all it does is lose readers a handful at a time. A hundred people might miss the stock listings and not care about the TV listings. A hundred others might miss the TV listings and not care about the stocks. When they get together, they’ll complain that “there’s nothing in the paper anymore.”
It will be interesting to see if a sizeable metropolitan newspaper gets rid of its wire services and becomes like the country weekly that won’t have anything about 9/11, the tsunami, Katrina or the Iraq war unless a local person is involved. Maybe a metro tabloid that covers its home turf fiercely is the way to go. Maybe the Christian Science Monitor can become a Parade magazine-like insert for newspapers that have gotten rid of their wires. No more West Coast scores.
I wouldn’t be surprised if, after all this happens, the publisher of a local shopper starts running wire news for that smaller and older group of readers who still aren’t at the same place as the future-of-media thinkers.
February 23rd, 2007 at 2:43 pm
as a former news person, I asked and sought out the “best” info on the Libby trial, and wound up at firedoglake.com.
I’ve been saying this for years in response to some lame-o coverage of some stories. Now, it’s very easy to say, it’s up to the reader:
“New Rule: Your Own Best Editor”
February 23rd, 2007 at 5:44 pm
[...] New rule: Cover what you do best. Link to the rest. Jeff Jarvis has a suggestion for newspapers and the headline pretty much says it all. Not sure, in an age of media messiness, we need more “rules,” but the idea seems sound. [...]
February 23rd, 2007 at 6:10 pm
Jeff;
I think you are reading way too much into how a general daily paper like the Times decides what to cover. The Anna Nicole Smith story meets the first criterion of any news source that is serving what is, by definition, a general readership: it’s bloody interesting. Why should we media workers - be you an old-school reporter, blogger, editor, photographer - try to impose some technocratic limitations on that cardinal rule between journalist and news consumer…If it’s interesting and worth analyzing, then cover it.
I’ve worked in every old-school medium going - in the UK and now here in the US - and I remember well the days when BBC senior news managers threatened to start establishing corporation-wide rules for what was “worth” throwing reporter-power at. Ultimately, you have to allow individual programmes, or sites, or papers, who aim at a GENERAL audience, to edit their own product. Falling into some trendy zeitgeist would be a disaster for reporting everywhere.
February 24th, 2007 at 4:30 am
[...] Jeff Jarvis propone como nueva regla para los cibermedios concentrarse en la cobertura de aquellos temas para los que cada medio está mejor preparado y enlazar el resto: New rule: Cover what you do best. Link to the rest. [...]
February 24th, 2007 at 3:15 pm
Very good advice. As I work in news, I am currently transferring our internet site to a new direction, the advice was quite helpful.
February 26th, 2007 at 6:24 am
[...] in Tom Foremski’s NewRulesCommunications. Tom references BuzzMachine.com’s story New rule: Cover what you do best. Link to the rest about how local papers might do better by covering their community and taking wire/Internet [...]
February 26th, 2007 at 9:21 am
… and when you can’t do anything at all… just link to it! like the daily free newspapers that you get everyday delivered to your hand on subways and trains.
February 26th, 2007 at 10:25 am
[...] I noodle around with the notion of a new architecture of news, I wonder whether news organizations start to look more like platforms and less like closed content [...]
February 26th, 2007 at 10:44 am
[...] way it is: Newspapers try to cover all the news themselves. The way it will be: “Cover what you do best. Link to the rest.†— Jeff Jarvis [...]
February 26th, 2007 at 12:05 pm
Keskity siihen minkä osaat - ja linkitä loput…
Olen viime aikoina ihmetellyt pitkän linjan journalistien marmatusta siitä kammottavasta tosiasiasta, että heidän on täytynyt raahautua Susan Kurosen kirjan julkistustilaisuuteen. Mistä moinen käytös johtuu? Oma arvaukseni on, että journalisti…
July 29th, 2007 at 8:22 am
[...] You can’t do it all yourself. The story gets better when the story can get bigger. Do what you do best and link to the rest. [...]
August 29th, 2007 at 8:54 pm
[...] * Report, damnit, report. The most important thing we can do is, of course, bring journalism to the community: report. We need to become known as the indispensable sources of local help and information and I’d argue — contrary to the Shorenstein report — that this comes not from trying to compete with the big guys in national, commodity news but by putting all our resources behind what we do best and what no one else — including, ferchrissakes, local TV — can afford to do: report. We have to make our value absolutely clear and we need to increase that value even as our resources are diminished. How? Do what you do best and link to the rest. [...]
November 13th, 2007 at 8:26 pm
[...] New Rule: Cover what you do better, link to the rest! –> Sobre uma tendência identificada pelo autor na qual seria mais produtivo se os agentes de mÃdia fizessem somente o que é de sua máxima expertise e linkassem o resto (e aà teriam também que ser bons para linkar com a coisa certa!) [...]
January 2nd, 2008 at 4:42 pm
[...] too (the Glam model). Then I’d still have the benefit of his best-of-breed coverage — doing what I did best while linking to the rest — with less expense — none, really, because I’m just sharing revenue for sold [...]
January 2nd, 2008 at 5:34 pm
[...] Within the post he links to an earlier post which really struck a cord with me. Jeff asserts that a key principle of blogging is to “Cover what you do best, and link to the rest.” [...]
February 13th, 2008 at 3:47 pm
[...] curate more as we create less. That’s another way to say what I’ve said other ways: Do what we do best and link to the rest. Also: We need to gather more and produce less, so we also need to encourage others to produce more [...]
February 15th, 2008 at 9:30 am
[...] which is also engaging in layoffs, can’t afford to do everything anymore and so it has to do what it does best and link to the rest. Granted that the ad revenue on a Baghdad story won’t be great but added traffic would add [...]