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The explosive growth of digital news and information providers is forcing news organizations to recognize their diminishing significance to users of digital devices, but many remain bewildered about how to respond. This challenge is difficult because many news personnel do not make distinctions among news provision, information provision, and journalism. Consequently, the strategies of many news organizations approach each as equally valuable. They are not. News provision involves providing reports about contemporary events and developments locally, nationally, and globally. Information provision involves providing non-news content that meets audience interests and needs. Journalism involves researching and producing news, features, and analytical stories based on professional practices and norms. In the past, news organizations tended to have strong control over journalism, news provision, and information provision in their markets. However, they began losing that control with the arr

The attack on the French satirical newspaper Charlie Hebdo that killed at least 12 people today is probably the largest deliberate killing of Western journalists since the bombing of the Los Angeles Times a century ago.   It draws attention to the fact that journalism is becoming an increasingly dangerous profession and reminds us that at least 61 journalists were killed worldwide in 2014 alone. It may sound indifferent, but such attacks actually signify an important reality: journalism matters. In an age where so much “journalism” involves coverage of entertainment, celebrities, fashion, food, and lifestyle topics, journalists that question social values and pursue accountability in ways that anger or offend should to be celebrated. Nobody attacks those who write or say insignificant things. Asking questions that some people don’t want asked is journalism at its best and that kind of journalism needs to be revered. Charlie Hebdo has a history of lampooning politicians and providing i

The majority of newsroom hires in many news organizations today are digitally oriented personnel with titles such as web developer, data scientist, interactive digital designer, social media editor, engagement manager, and digital content editor. These job titles say a great deal about news organizations' strategies of servicing audiences across platforms. They also reflects the reality that screens are now the primary way most people get information and entertainment and that visual display of information has increasingly become the norm in recent decades. There is now a public expectation that news and information will be conveyed with some visual display of information, such as infographics, slideshows, multimedia presentations, mapping, interactive graphics and data bases, video and interactive video, and calculators. The growth in digitally oriented personnel in newsrooms is producing a growing struggle about how news stories should be told and what forms they should take. Tra

Cable and satellite companies are increasingly finding it difficult to get the growth in customers and revenue they would like. Over the past 4 decades they achieved growth first by introducing services in new markets and by acquiring smaller providers and then, as unserved markets and acquisition opportunities declined, by offering an increasing number of channels, telephone and internet services.   The strategy increased customers and revenue, but inevitably let to a mature market in which only lower growth was possible. In the past decade cable and satellite overcome that maturity and achieved growth by offering a variety of new services and products to consumers--allowing them to access programming at times it is not offered on their channels or systems or in different forms--and syndicating their original programs and finding new income through merchandising and related activities. The development of connected TV and use of video on laptops, tablets, and smartphones has spurred us

Early in the rollout of the Internet, leaders of the emerging online companies described it as an immaterial world of virtual objects and virtual activity that was not subject to the economics, financing, laws, or business arrangements of the material world. They portrayed it is as world without structure in which informality and collaboration among users would guide its operation. They described it as global phenomenon beyond the reach of governments. Many expressed highly utopian visions of the internet. Most embraced a highly libertarian philosophy; some an anarchistic one. These leaders primary interacted with each other and deluded themselves into believing what they were doing was unique, hallowed, and beyond worldly oversight. Internet service providers saw themselves as facilitators without responsibility for who used them or for what purposes. Companies such as Google, Yahoo, and Huffington Post created value extracting models in which they expropriated the work of others as p

Most media companies claim they are creative, believing that merely producing  content makes them inventive and artistic. Most media firms are not particularly creative, however, and we recognize it daily as we are confronted with formulaic and derivative content of limited quality. But some companies are consistently notable for unique and ground-breaking content that meet higher standards. What makes them successful is their ability to manage creativity. The concept of managing creativity may at first seem like an oxymoron. Anyone who has worked with talented writers, designers, directors, actors, or musicians knows that the muse of creativity is capricious and does not present itself on a predictable schedule. This does not mean it is impossible for an enterprise to manage creativity, however. Organizations that consistently produce highly creative content spend a great deal of effort managing the environment and processes in which creativity takes place. They do so to make certain

Media ownership transparency has become a goal of media reform advocates on both sides of the Atlantic, but is often simplistically presented as a solution to problems in media performance. As I have shown in my research over time, it is not the form of ownership that matters, but the owners themselves. There are good and bad corporate owners, good and bad private owners, good and bad family owners, and good and bad foundation owners. And many owners whose media perform badly on issues of social service and public interest don’t care if the public knows who they are. This is not to oppose making it easier for the public to know who the owners are—in some cases (especially in southeast Europe) owners sometimes hide behind shell companies, investment firms holding their shares, and even individuals fronting for them. Gaining transparency may help identify consolidation and concentration for antitrust and pluralism analyses, but lifting those veils alone is not going to solve the issue th