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By Chris Meadows

dillo2 On the Nieman Reports, Michael Skoler sums up the root of the problems that traditional media are now facing. Others have said similar things before, but this essay says them so well that it is very much worth reading.

And what is that root? The way the culture has changed since the advent of the Internet. Most news media are still trying to be one-way, top-down information providers in a fully-interactive world. Skoler writes:

Today, people expect to share information, not be fed it. They expect to be listened to when they have knowledge and raise questions. They want news that connects with their lives and interests. They want control over their information. And they want connection—they give their trust to those they engage with—people who talk with them, listen and maintain a relationship.

This really reminds me of the points raised by the venerable old Cluetrain Manifesto, which was first posted in 1999. Hard to believe it has been that long. To cherry-pick a few of the Manifesto’s 95 theses:

1. Markets are conversations

3. Conversations among human beings sound human. They are conducted in a human voice.

6. The Internet is enabling conversations among human beings that were simply not possible in the era of mass media.

14. Corporations do not speak in the same voice as these new networked conversations. To their intended online audiences, companies sound hollow, flat, literally inhuman.

15. In just a few more years, the current homogenized "voice" of business—the sound of mission statements and brochures—will seem as contrived and artificial as the language of the 18th century French court.

Really, so many of them are applicable that I could quote almost the entire thing. Substitute “traditional media” for “corporations” (not that it is much of a substitution, given that most traditional media these days are owned by corporations) and it seems weirdly prescient.

These days, far more people are getting their news from social networks and blogs, their information from Wikipedia and other websites. Traditional media’s readership and viewership is falling because its relevance is falling. Consumers of media want real interactivity, not the sham version that many news media sites are providing.

The complete text of the old Cluetrain Manifesto book, which expanded those theses into essays, is available on-line as a free e-book. Though I have not yet read it myself, I do own a dead-tree copy and something tells me I should have a look. The relevance of those old theses to the print journalism crisis is starting to seem downright uncanny.

 
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