Tuesday, October 18, 2011

Is Traditional Media on the Verge of Death?

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Is Traditional Media on the verge of death or will it simply change? Are blogs and social media taking over the news? Well one thing is certain and that is CNN seems to be doing things right with their integration of iReporting. It’s the best of both worlds. It keeps the content fresh from users, so that CNN has a slight bit of YouTube quality as well and just as well there is user participation. And there is something to actually being on television or in print that changes things for people. The pillars of society are still there. Even Chris Brogan of Trust Agents mentions that he wrote the book instead of doing an e-book, because there is a certain amount of fame and establishment from traditional print publishing that you cannot get otherwise. Perhaps is it then that people who upload these videos to CNN, rather than to some place like YouTube, feel important and that makes them come back? Any Tom, Dick, and Harry can be found on YouTube’s mess (and that’s how we see it – as an unorganized mess that will go away unless they adapt)…. But alas: not everyone can be seen on CNN.

The best bloggers don’t seem to be ordinary. They have special skills of motivation, innovation, skilled wordsmithing, and even sometimes a Journalism Degree. (The book Putting the Public Back in Public Relations notes the TechCrunch site, which was joined by a major journalist). For every great blog which seems to stir, there are thousands if not millions which are mostly ignored. To say that basic bloggers will take over is absurd. However, we do think that the bloggers which are influential and superior would have been just as good or innovative with any available technology, with a few “lucky” exceptions.

In a recent analysis we read a newspaper from the 1800s about journalism and it was surprising how laid back the articles were. Some were even written by regular citizens. Some were half-Ad, half news. In the end, the Professionals took over. Though everyone having a newsprint in their hands were experiencing “New Technology” and regular people would put their words in there, it eventually came to be Modern Journalism as we know it.

Then the radio changed things. Early radio was very weird and weak and sometimes they would interview the dairy farmer down the road. We hear clips from the “great programs” from back in the day, thinking that they were all polished, but this is not true. A great many stations had just regular Joes at first. It eventually became NPR and the “drive home” radio and such. And now it’s becoming Satellite Radio.

We saw the same thing with television as well. Just as Radio was supposed to kill Print, television was supposed to kill radio. None of these things happened. And now… the web was supposed to kill them all (as spoken in some circles). We think that print and traditional journalism will survive as long as mankind. It gets rocky every time there is a new medium, but it’s in our nature to watch and pay attention to the “professionals” in all walks of life. People seem to think that we are moving so fast, but we still have parts of the planet that are unexplored, we visit the moon as often as we visit great uncles, we have yet to feed the planet and there are some parts of the population that live in the same way that humans lived 2,000 years ago and with no technology, no bottled (or even clean) water, no rubber comfort shoes (or any at all) and yes… believe it or not…no Blogs. When people claim the death of print they aren’t taking in the real world and perhaps all it is, is that we are getting a little ahead of ourselves. Let's face it, with the way things move we will all be talking our Blogs to each other soon enough, which technically will replace the web, YES?

This is our first blog post but one of importance since we are looking for answers that our readers may have on the lively hood of media; therefore, if you could take a minute or two and provide us with agreements or disagreements, we would love to continue this conversation. Otherwise, we will look forward to reporting our views and conversing with others in person and in the new virtual world we all live in. Until then, KEEP SMILING!

David Dandaneau is a Consultant at [SevenTimesSeven]. He specializes in helping business owners “manage their business and not their processes!” For more connect with him via Twitter @ddandaneau or any of the other social platforms you may find him on.