Comments on: The X Prizes for news (and media)

By: Do online games have a role in news? « Explorations in New Media from the Schieffer School of Journalism at TCU

Tue, 08 Dec 2009 22:11:38 +0000

[...] model. The games also provide increased engagement levels, which addresses a long-held belief by many that low engagement is one of the most daunting problems facing news organizations [...]

By: murmur

murmur — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 01:10:57 +0000

The media should function as the “fourth estate” as much as possible.

WIKIPEDIA: Novelist Jeffrey Archer in his work The Fourth Estate made the observation: “In May 1789, Louis XVI summoned to Versailles a full meeting of the ‘Estates General’. The First Estate consisted of three hundred clergy. The Second Estate, three hundred nobles. The Third Estate, six hundred commoners. Some years later, after the French Revolution, Edmund Burke, looking up at the Press Gallery of the House of Commons, said, ‘Yonder sits the Fourth Estate, and they are more important than them all.’”

Those with power, influence and money need to be continually held accountable if their actions impact others in some specific way. Investigative journalism is still needed today and will continue to be needed in the future.

The new media can be used to elicit topics and specific information for investigations. Funding should not come from advertisers or readers, but from a pool of money obtained from large corporations or organizations. Once a corporation reached a certain size or had a certain profit profile, they would contribute a small percentage of their earnings to the pool. Independent news organizations could compete for the best investigative reporting “prize” in different topic categories.

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 12:34:10 +0000

Katie,
Wonderful comment. Thanks.
Good point on P&G; I should have linked to that and so now I will.
Your father won’t end up being that far off, I think….

By: Katie Delahaye Paine

Katie Delahaye Paine — Sun, 27 Sep 2009 11:50:29 +0000

As someone who was born with printers ink (diluted with martinis and manhattans of course) in my veins, I think this is brilliant. My father, the former publisher of Fortune, told me that by the year 2000 Time Inc would no longer be printing magazines. He died before he could find out how wrong his predicition was, but I always wondered whether he might have been forecasting the merger with AOL.
As it happens, after following in my parents footsteps (mom was editor-in-chief at Harpers Bazaar) for awhile, I got into the marketing research and PR end of the business and have been measuring engagement for the past three years. http://kdpaine.blogs.com/themeasurementstandard/2007/11/measuring-custo.html
With P&G’s announcement this week that they would ONLY pay for engagement, I think the problem of defining engagement will be solved before you get your x-prize off the ground. But how to monetize that engagement is key. If we could figure out how to get people like me to pay the media news outlets for the stuff I can’t live without the problem would be solved. I routinely pay $20 or more for Hotel internet just so I can read Maureen Dowd and listen to my local NPR station on the road — but barely give that much to NPR when they ask for it. Is ther e a way to monitize the fact that I follow WMUR on Twitter not for the news, but because they ask for story ideas every morning and I therefore feel connected to the news process? I’m sure there is, and that’s why I LOVE the idea of this prize.

By: Hungry Gardener

Hungry Gardener — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:46:20 +0000

Love idea of X price for new news platform. However, something that mystifies me regarding analysis of new news is best demonstrated by the question — Did wikipedia create jobs (or opportunities) for (reference) librarians? Not sure why people in news business believe new news platforms will create jobs for journalists?

By: Rosenblum

Rosenblum — Fri, 25 Sep 2009 21:10:41 +0000

Jeff,
I think the problem is not with the journalism.
We have an over abundance of journalism, and more is being made every day.
The problem is on the monetization side.
The whole model of ‘selling’ advertising is what now has to be changed, just as we have already successfully changed the content producing side. Time to stop screwing with the content production and start paying attention to the money. In fact, I would say, follow the money.

The answer I think is to do to advertising and monetization what we have already done so successfully with content -open the platform and monetize it.

At the moment advertising is still done by strange people in the back room – the ‘ad sales’ guys. Because we came from editorial, we tended to give them a wide berth. Wrong!

Instead, break out the revenue side and turn it over to the people. Create a free market for ads.

What do I mean?

Instead of the ad sales people selling ad space in the New York Times dot com, allow anyone who can sell space. Let them make the ads. Let some creative 23 year old on the Lower East Side with a video camera go out an shoot a few really creative spots in Bloomingdales and then auction them back to The Times. Give the kid 30% of whatever he gets. In other words, attach value to the ads and open the process up to anyone and everyone.

Would the public at large be able to make and sell spots. I think so. Would the Time take the revenue from the never ending auction? I think so. Would Bloomingdales participate in the process? I think so. I think it would be a lot cheaper than hiring Saatchi to make the stuff.

Enough with the content! And enough tinkering with the old model.

Time to rethink the revenue side.

Like the Good Book Says: Follow The Money!