Regional Press Networks meeting speech extract, ‘Online Or Print?’, © Catherine Bray, 2008
Let’s begin with an audio extract from a speech I gave today to the Regional Press Networks – click the link to listen.
I wonder if this post will seem like it’s contradicting a previous entry about old media vs new media? It isn’t; that was about the contrast in working practices behind the scenes within the old/new media, rather than the ever-increasing equality in content value between the two, and hence my argument today: there is no “versus”.
Reading that opening paragraph back, I’m not sure it’s exactly a candidate for zingy openers of our times. Let’s start again: PRINT VS ONLINE: THE SMACKDOWN! Place your bets now and book a ringside seat, for one of the most FICTIONAL BATTLES in moderrrrrn public relaaaaaaations!
I spent this morning speechifying at a Regional Press Network gathering of press officers at the Hippodrome, where I was asked to be this month’s guest speaker. The topic was online journalism, and I covered a range of things from basic practice for press officers not used to engaging with online outlets, to a couple of bits of search engine optimization trickery.
The one thing I really hoped the assembled PRs would take on board was my contention that press officers (and journalists) need to stop thinking of online and print as competing models in which online is a second class citizen. To use a dietary metaphor, it’s like suggesting that protein and carbohydrate are in competition. People consume both, but they work in different ways; consuming a mixture is best, and one isn’t “better” than the other, unless you’re deluded enough the think the Atkins Diet was a good idea.
This is, of course, speaking from, if you like, a content point of view; if you bring revenue streams, be it ad sales, cover price, or whatever, into the equation, competition is undeniably a factor. But owner revenue not something writers – or press officers – should be thinking about too much in the context of placing their work with the right outlets. The mindset I’m arguing against here is the press officer who says to the editor “why is this article only going online?”, meaning “isn’t it good enough to go in the magazine?” Presumably this mindset is in turn driven by out of touch clients who are more impressed by print campaigns than online.
So that was the basis of my speech, where I explained why we put some content online and some in the magazine, and why that has nothing to do with the “status” of said content. Incidentally, I’m not keen on the word “content”, but until someone comes up with a better umbrella term for text, audio, video and images, I think we’re stuck with it.
[Edit: I'm aware of the strange URL that's been generated for this post, but don't want to break existing links, so am not changing it.]
9 responses so far ↓
Simon // June 18, 2008 at 5:00 pm |
Some very interesting points. While I’m not sure there is necessarily a direct correlation, perhaps it requires a shift in the attitudes of audiences/readers/users before PRs change their approach. I do think that there are still groups of people who subscribe to the “if I can get news online for free why would I buy a newspaper?”, which implies weighing up print and online formats on the basis of cost (or lack of) alone. But in terms of crowdsourced “content” or even classified ads, do audiences feel that the online format carries as much value as print – i.e. if you have a letter or contribution printed in your local newspaper which you can cut out and keep, is it still an underlying attitude that this is of more worth than having your comment published online, because you have something tangible which you can show to friends/family/complete strangers in the street?
My thought is that the PR mindset you discuss is less a product of this and more a result of how they have become so closely wedded to ‘traditional’, offline media; that they can’t – or don’t want to – get their heads around this young upstart thing called the Internet which has so terribly shunted them out of their comfort zone. BUT if publishers are providing a service to audiences, and PRs/marketers are trying to promote their own service/client to these audiences via the publishers, then the attitudes of those audiences come into play. If there is significant resistance among readers/users, then perhaps it will require them to become aware of the relative benefits of the web before other organisations start to view it as an equally useful tool rather than as a “second class citizen” compared with offline media.
N.B. I don’t have the answers…
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catherinebray // June 19, 2008 at 11:45 am |
“if you have a letter or contribution printed in your local newspaper which you can cut out and keep, is it still an underlying attitude that this is of more worth than having your comment published online, because you have something tangible which you can show to friends/family/complete strangers in the street?”
Interesting point, Simon. Certainly, the fact that it effectively costs money to give a letter space in a physically limited print edition, feeds into the idea that online is of lesser value than print. And if we’re contrasting a letters page of limited space with unlimited blog comments where as many comments as you like can be posted, then it’s true that print still has more value, because there’s a finite number of letters that can be fit on the page, and so an editor must be selective.
If we’re talking (which I was at RPN) about commissioned editorial, then limits should apply based on quality rather than space; online editors need to make sure they don’t commission everything that comes their way (something usually ensured by financial constraints, at least if you pay your contributors… ) but apply the same quality control as they would to print, despite the apparently infinite space they have to run content.
Simon // June 19, 2008 at 3:51 pm |
I think you’re spot on about quality control in relation to online editorial – certainly, just because there is “apparently infinite space” this shouldn’t mean that quality control is applied any less robustly than in print. In fact, I think there’s possibly a case for arguing that quality control online is actually more important even than in print, because of the seemingly endless possibilities in relation to space, whereas in print it’s not just a case of choosing what to leave out but sometimes identifying material just to fill space (single-par stories on ’slow news days’ etc).
But I think it’s quite interesting to frame the ‘online versus print’ debate, however (un)reasonable it is to pitch them against each other, in terms of the audience and their expectations because it’s these readers/users who will – or at least should? – be at the back of the editor’s mind when commissioning and publishing content. Of course, this opens up another huge topic of discussion, and isn’t what your original post was about, so I’ll get my coat…
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