Bargain Basement Convergence or Real New Media

Crazy times. The debt laden Tribune Company is combining its two Hartford television stations with the newspaper it owns, The Courant, and making the TV stations' general manager publisher of the paper in addition to running the stations. Tribune management touts it as the future of media. It may be the way of the future but it will become a roadmap to disaster unless the company pays close attention to the details and the journalists who create the content.

As we watch General Motors attempt to reorganize, with great pressure from the government, you might enjoy David Brooks' take on it. TV stations risk fates similar to the automakers, because of short sighted business models that focused on cutting not building. Fear was a big motivator along with an aversion to risk. I fear that anyone who thinks you can just combine web, newspaper, and TV assets, doesn't understand the unique nature of each medium. I believe they are correct in combining certain resources but a poorly conceived joint operation will weaken them all and diminish the reasons users, readers, and viewers choose a particular website, paper, or station. They have to overlap and converge but cannot just become different platforms for identical or barely indistinguishable content. With all deference to the great McLuhan, they have to understand that each medium is its own message. The point is that they are doing what they are forced to do. There is no high concept or added value for viewers in what I read from the Tribune news release.

The successful convergence model will take advantage of pooled resources but must be built on the talent and creativity of journalists who understand the different media they serve. One size journalist doesn't fit all. The common qualities of newspaper writing and text articles for the web overlap to the greatest extent. But how you populate a website is a task much different from producing a newscast. The basic facts of news stories may be constant across platforms, but how you make that content meaningful on television requires a different set of skills and approach for the web, or radio for that matter.

The leaders of converged journalistic enterprises need to be symphony conductors, synthesizers who recognize that the gifted video editor may not be the best writer. And the on-camera communicator who addresses television viewers, may not be as effective on the small screens of smart phones and smaller devices that require more intimacy and less formality. These nuances will make the difference between meaningful content that matters and simply filling time, space, bandwidth.

As we become inundated with content and information, the journalist's most important role will be to sort through it all and make sense. In the old days news professionals saw themselves as "gatekeepers". The gate is wide open now, with blogs and applications like Facebook and Twitter. Today's journalist must be a sense maker who understands the different tools available to reach the public and how to use a particular set of tools well. The basic skills and traits that made a news man or woman good at a particular craft will serve them well in the future. But the money folks will have to understand that in order continue making money and creating value, investing in talent will pay the biggest dividends. When cutting costs becomes necessary it is even more critical to invest wisely in content that stands out and offers messages consistent with the particular medium on which it appears.

As Tribune consolidates in Hartford, how the merged media handle the "sense making" will be critical to the success of each entity. All generalists with few specialists will not give the audience a reason to read, watch or surf Tribune's newly combined operations. To get a piece of the Long Tail that fuels new media success stories, unique content well suited and particular to presently underrepresented areas must be nurtured and developed. Then this new approach can offer content and media that is creative rather than destructive, and actually will grow revenue; more important, it will serve its audience by helping make sense of our challenging moment.