Who really matters? Newspapers v broadcast v social media

10.11.2011

Newspapers, broadcast and social media are inter-related, according to the panel at our recent event. They all matter. Conventional media is still pre-eminent, even though print readership (especially local) is in decline. Blogging is still evolving, and could even be withering to some extent, while Twitter is a very effective conduit to comment and opinion.

It has been a tumultuous year for the media, with hacking, superinjunctions, paywalls and a decline in print. The first Media and Government event of the series, explored how the media landscape is shifting, and the effect this is having.

The speakers were:

Jon Snow, Channel 4 News
Iain Dale, LBC Radio and Dale & Co
Jason Nisse, Fishburn Hedges

Peter Riddell, Institute for Government (chair)

Several themes emerged from an interesting and lively debate:

Interdependence

The truth, according to Jon Snow, about ‘who really matters’ is that all media matter; they’re interrelated, each one feeds off the firestorm that the others creates.

Iain Dale argued that despite this, TV is still the preeminent political medium, and he cited how the leaders’ debate in the 2010 General Election had shaped the campaign.

Quality

Snow believes that Twitter is a ‘modern miracle’, but it’s not about the content on the site, rather what content it can lead you to. He now reads articles which he never would have read before.

Jason Nisse lamented the demise of the traditional ‘scoop’. He cited The Guardian’s exclusive on phone hacking – it only lasted thirty minutes until it was up on every other news outlet’s website. He believes this is having a detrimental effect on newspapers’ commercial model because there is no longer any incentive for quality, investigative journalism.

There is a gap for in-depth, long form interviews on TV, which radio is only partially filling. The Today Programme, Dale felt, is the worst exponent of the 3 minute interview – it underestimates the audience’s attention span, and runs out of time just when things are about to get interesting.

The Decline of Blogging?

Dale commented on how blogging drastically evolved and changed in 2009 when newspapers and other traditional media embraced it. They began their own blogs and encouraged key journalists to blog, such as Nick Robinson and Robert Peston. These sites already had the traffic, so they started controlling the market. Dale was sad to see individual blogging decline, and believes it has been eaten up by the mainstream media. He also felt Twitter had usurped the role of blogs in terms of the spontaneity it offers.

Dale also made the point that most people don’t read the comments on blogs. Comments on the Guardian and Telegraph websites tend to be very extreme and polarized; the Internet can be a very ugly place.

In Real Time

Snow thinks that a trend towards immediacy has exponentially increased the media’s effect on government. He believes that government and politicians are out of touch with this. The rate at which political issues can catch fire has accelerated sharply. For example, the Liam Fox scandal was over in a very short time span, due to the intense media spotlight. The Profumo Affair, by contrast, took much longer to emerge (“Profumo wouldn’t have lasted five minutes in today’s media,” according to Snow.)

Nisse picked up on this trend towards immediacy over analysis. He felt that e-petitions, in particular, were little more than online graffiti, giving too powerful a voice to a vocal and shrill minority.

The Rise of the ‘Punditocracy’

Dale also flagged the rise of the ‘punditocracy’; broadcasters want to interview people like himself more than politicians, because editors see them as controversial and more likely to stir debate. This is as much an indictment of junior politicians, as it is an endorsement of pundits – they are too on message for the media to want to interview them.

Nisse agreed. He believes the reliance on pundits began about a decade ago, because columnists were cheaper than journalists.

We Will Survive!

Snow ended optimistically. Information is not becoming more superficial and ephemeral. All media, new and old are on a journey and don’t know where it will end. New media need old media as much as old need new.