IDEO [1] is a multi-disciplinary design firm. They’ve designed products for Apple, TiVo, and even NCR. They have patents, they’ve won awards, they have smart people as “Fellows” as part of their firm. It’s the kind of firm that you hire to answer the questions about your product or service you don’t even know to ask. Blue sky type ideas lead to very real, concrete solutions.
When Peter Drucker [2] said “companies should worry less about improving what they do and more about whether they ought to be doing it in the first place” the people who would give you a really good answer work at IDEO.
We could even hire them to tell us what Dayton should look like, or what we could be, and get a pretty interesting answer- for a lot of money- that we’d probably ignore because they wouldn’t include the Wright Brothers, John Patterson or Charles Kettering in the answer.
So, when I ran across their interpretation of what the “journalism of the future” would look like- I was interested, and you should be too, because it will include you. You will be a large part of the information stream that will be all around us, all the time.
Journalism is more like having a conversation. People speak with unique voices, take ownership of content, and establish credibility, which in turn enables strong communities in which news can thrive. Anything that’s notable to a person in a particular moment and place becomes newsworthy.
This future journalism is less beholden to current models of production, distribution, and advertising support–but nimble brands still find ways to thrive. Formerly obscure companies, like Google, Facebook, YouTube, and Wikipedia–now household names–are joined by other powerful companies in a network of touchpoints that lets us find the information we want as soon as we want it. News is supported by a web of contributions from consumers, for-profits, nonprofits, distribution partners, and other entities. Rather than eschewing risk and possible failure, brands (at least the ones that endure) shift from a top-down model of centralized distribution to become incubators for journalistic experiments.
via News Flash From the Future: What Will Journalism Look Like? | Fast Company [3].
There is one thing that they don’t really touch upon in the article however, and it’s something that I believe is critical in this new conversation: respect.
Why will the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal outlast the other journalism outlets? Respect. Not just of the readers, for giving factual, honest, well written and researched news, but- respect for the reader. It’s a two-way street. To earn time from readers, writers (including this one) must respect the readers and provide value- not just valuable information, but a value of integrity. If we don’t trust you, just like Chicken Little, we stop hearing your message.
If we’re looking at why the Dayton Daily News and the three “TV news” stations are failing us, it’s because they don’t respect their subject matter anymore. The “if it bleeds, it leads” mentality has given us little of substance to think about for the last, oh, 20 years. We can read the police blotter elsewhere now- and see exactly who is in jail with just a quick click on a site. Without higher level discussion, thoughts, ideas, investigations, the local news has lost its value to the readers- and as other news distribution methods gain effectiveness- advertisers now have options to ignore the old media.
However, if you’re looking for higher level contributions from readers of the DDN, don’t hold your breath: there is no way of carrying on an educated conversation on their site. No users earn respect, because there is no verification of the identity of the contributors.Bill Pote at Dayton Most Metro recently called for the end of the unverified comments online [4]. He’s right on the money. Many of us wondered what had happened to journalistic integrity when they began the “Speak up” comments on the editorial page- sans signatures ages ago.
If the key to journalism is inclusion, the Dayton Daily News has shown us the worst possible way to do it. They’ve also focused on all our flaws for way too long. After a while, people and even entire cities, tire of being treated to a constant barrage of negativity and stupidity. It’s time for regime change at the Dayton Daily. We want our newspaper back, or don’t include our city’s name in your masthead. Bad news for the news, we’re the bigger part of the community, and we don’t need you anymore if you won’t shape up.
Kevin Riley [5], Ellen Belcher [6], care to comment?
And a little kicker from the NYT R&D group:
[vimeo]http://vimeo.com/4630706[/vimeo]
Most if not all news is opinion anymore. Look at the NCR stuff in the DDN – a simple article or two, yet a dozen if not more opinions on why the left and if it was fair to Dayton.
People gravitated towards the opinion part of it – not seeing the NCR side of it.
I think it stinks NCR left, but they had valid reasons – facts for the story, the news – larger and better educated work force, better airport, wanting to be with other big boys, moving near key customers, huge financial incentives, etc. All these are facts. We (Dayton and Ohio) competed and lost in most every key category.
Some people move to places like Oakwood bc they want to be perceived as rich. NCR, in part, move to Atlanta to be viewed as a player. We don’t know if it will work, and most of us can not comment bc we are not in that “big boy” world.
We are Dayton. We should embrace that. NCR was Dayton. NCR now is Atlanta. They may fail, they may not. But they had valid reasons to leave yet the only thing we here and in the DDN wanted to read and comment about was the opinions of the move, not the facts.
The fact is Dayton is dieing a slow death. We need help. Begging is for losers. We need to do it ourselves. F*ck NCR – I am over it – change all the names of NCR’s founders to new companies moving here or who are growing here. Patterson Homestead – 86 it. Patterson Park – new name please.
Gene,
John Patterson is probably rolling over in his grave over what’s become of his company. He took a very paternalistic view of Dayton (not such a bad idea, for the times) literally saved the lives of hundreds of people during the flood and in the end Dayton had an excellent corporate employer (better under Patterson’s guidance than those who followed) for more than a century. I say Hang Nuti by his Scrotum, if you like, but no need to desecrate the memory of a man who did a lot for this community.
It just makes me tired to talk about journalism, so no comment at that aspect.
Interesting that I find this article on the same day that DDN discontinued its “classified” section, incorporating what few classifieds they get now into the final 4 pages of “Life”.
Maybe they should change the name of that tabloid section to “Life Support”?
Classifieds, of course, were once a major revenue producer. Now, Craiglist meets that need for more consumers.
BTW, Gene–New York Times and Wall Street Journal are not exactly fonts of credibility anymore. WSJ is almost unerringly biased toward a right-wing view of the business world; NYT has a lingering aroma of Judith Martin.
BTW, I’ve been aware of IDEO for over 30 years now–Dayton could get similar results without hiring them by changing the way we do business as a city generally. Quit allowing a few commissioners, board members, and civic leaders to make decisions; open the process and get everyone who’s interested involved.
Yeah, that’ll happen.
Mr. Ruddick- isn’t this blog a way to get the process open and let people get involved in a transparent manner?
And I too, noticed the micro classifieds- of course, the sheriffs foreclosure section on Fridays is paying the freight now (who knows why?)
Though a brilliant salesman and organizer John Patterson was also a racist and a crank.
A lot of people were racist back then – as well as cranks.
John Patterson was also very generous…… something that can not be said of NCR now.
Have been reading a book called The Argument Culture by Deborrah Tannen. The problem lies in the fact that most believe there are two sides to a story. Truth is there are as many sides of the story as their are people involved in it. The media is no longer about journalism, it’s about entertainment and ratings. To boost ratings, they use controversy – to get the most out of that controversy, they have to bring in the lunatic fringe to offer their opposite sides of the story. By using this either/or confrontational approach, we miss out on dialogue that could be happening in the middle. Most of the country sits somewhere in the middle, but that’s considered boring.
I guess that’s why I tend to like NPR News – the stories are longer, in depth and present multiple points of view. They are thought provoking – where as FOX, MSNBC and others are trying to provoke emotions….especially outbursts.
Take health care reform for example. I think if the conversation was framed as “what is it we really want” we’d find we’re probably more in agreement than the talking heads and politicians would have us believe. So instead they use provocative words like socialism, nationalized health care. Is there anyone in this country who doesn’t want affordable health care?
A true story about Patterson’s racism during his days at NCR is that black employees of NCR weren’t allowed to become managers so he had all the black employees fired since they couldn’t advance in the company.
^
I think Patterson might have been an early eugenics believer. The way I heard it is it was belief that blacks couldnt advance.
A lot of people were racist back then – as well as cranks.
And they still are…just read the comments to DDN articles.
The racist comment in the DDN are unreal – yes, they should delete or edit comments – or better yet, don’t have a comment section.