Hold the phone, we are all media companies now?
“Everyone is a Media Company” -Tom Foremski circa 2010
“Okay, brilliant. Tom you are a genius.” -Mazarine Treyz
“Everyone is a Media Company, but no one is very good at it” -Tom Foremski circa 2011
“SAD BUT TRUE! People need help!” -Mazarine Treyz
“Everyone is a Media Company, but no one is very good at it, therefore newspapers should teach people how to be journalists as a replacement for lost revenue that they used to have before people stopped buying newspapers.” -Tom Foremski circa 2012
“OK ACTUALLY? No.” -Mazarine Treyz
Tom Foremski has a blog called Silicon Valley watcher. In it, he details how every company and nonprofit is a media company.
Every company is a media company because every company, no matter if it makes ball bearings or diapers, as to publish in many different channels and formats to be visible. If you aren’t seen amidst all the media noise, you don’t exist.
It’s not easy being a media company because you need to develop the skills to do it well. But lots of businesses know that they need these capabilities and they are beefing up by adding former journalists, and other media specialists, to their staff.
The media those companies produce is a loss leader, it is a cost of doing business and it helps drive sales of their products or services.
And this is why many media companies report losses. The media they produce is a loss leader. But they have nothing else to sell.
Every company is a media company — but every media company needs to also be something else. They now live in a world where every company is a media company, they have more competitors than God — it’s no wonder they can’t make money.
Now According to Tom Foremski, Journalism has a future. Helping communities tell their stories.
He thinks that since newspapers and media are losing money at an astounding rate, and everyone has to become a media company now, newspapers should teach us how to tell our stories, and incidentally, MAKE MONEY SELLING EDUCATIONAL SERVICES.
He writes: . . . Media skills will become as common as knowing how to write your name. But in the meantime there’s a good business in teaching those skills to other businesses.
Community newsrooms
US newspapers have a great opportunity to build on what The Guardian is doing, by getting into the education business. There are both public and commercial benefits.
If a city newspaper can teach its communities how to produce great media, it’ll not only create enormous goodwill but also gain access to growing numbers of citizen journalists who know what they are doing — and know how to do it well. The newspaper would get some great content at very little cost.
New business services
Every company is a media company but most don’t know how to be a media company yet this is now an essential competitive requirement. This is a great commercial opportunity for a media company.
Sure, and they could also sell used cars instead of just listing them!
I’m all for citizen journalism, but is this the best newspapers can do for a revenue stream?
Why should we all go to a .edu revenue model?
Why should we spend MORE time producing MORE content that people are not going to read? Why should we INCREASE the level of noise by making everyone a media producer? Let’s face it, we should NOT all be media producers! It will just get harder and harder to be heard!
I mean, if there’s a giant racket, then why add to the cacophony? Why not just make newspapers nonprofit and ask them to report on community news, instead of the giant task of trying to teach the community how to report the news?
Not everyone needs to be a media company, or media producer. We all have different skills, proclivities, and things we enjoy doing, and we should honor that.
What do YOU think?
