The New Regime: We The People
One of the first things George Gombossy will tell you these days is that his recent disappearance from The Hartford Courant is not about George Gombossy. He’s wrong about that. The story right now is all about Gombossy, due to CNN, NPR, The Huffington Post, The New York Times and others bringing the nuts and bolts of what’s transpired to light (sans any comment from the Courant which has yet to appear with Gombossy or give their side of the story).
Could Gombossy’s claims of being fired in exchange for keeping advertiser dollars in the Courant’s pockets be true? We will find out soon enough (or eventually) as Gombossy has stated several times that he plans to file a lawsuit against the paper and, ultimately, the bankrupt Tribune.
The story Gombossy wants us to focus on is about regime, not just the he-said-she-said situation that we’re uncovering now. I agree with Gombossy that there is a greater discussion that needs to happen here. Whether The Hartford Courant has misstepped, as Gombossy claims, or not, is irrelevant in the bigger picture. We need to take our discussion about the crumbling of corporate media to the next level. Until now, those who have been struck by changing times the hardest – journalists, reporters and media personalities – have received little attention. They’re just another number, as in any industry layoff. Pockets of situations, like the Boston Globe nearly biting it (and now being shopped around) and the Seattle PI going down (print version) for good, have caused us to pause for a few minutes as the story rolls in AP headlines and then rolls right out.
Simultaneously, stories about Twitter and Facebook flood the mainstream as the volume of users cranks up and audiences shift their attention to wherever the heck they want. Gone are the days of waiting for Walter Cronkite to come on the tube at dinner time to give us the skinny on the world at-large. Gone is Walter Cronkite and, with him, an era that is not to recover.
I could spend this post trying to convince you that the universal shift of information delivery is permanent, but I won’t. I don’t believe that TV, newspapers and radio are going away. I do believe, however, that the business side of the news business is in serious denial about its future.
As Gombossy told me the other day, “Without the internet, I would have been toast. They may have all the ink but now it’s a level playing field.”
This is the piece of the story that interests me the most. The lawsuit that will get all the attention but my hope is that the legal battle will spark discussions that lead to real change. The change that I hope for is this:
A Universal Recognition That We Are All In This Together
The clear cut ROI that traditional media could promise advertisers ten years ago is gone. It’s done. We need a new model. Stop fighting it and let’s get on with figuring it out. Arianna Huffington, Guy Kawasaki and, now George Gombossy have figured it out – we are all publishers. We don’t need your channel to publish content but we do need you and your community to help us fight the ongoing battle of retaining our freedom of speech. We need you to be a part of the future, not the present which is already the past. Work with us, not against us.
I can get my world news from anywhere. I can get my local news from several sources around me. What can you provide me that others can’t? I see your value as bringing me trusted resources that want to engage in conversations with me and the community, along with advertisers, government and organizations that are willing to not only take the heat but become part of the conversation. If we call an organization out, then respond. We will love that establishment even more and we won’t even mind a frontpage ad that looks like an editorial if they’re willing to engage with us in other ways. Obviously, The Hartford Courant sees value in encouraging trusted resources (Gina Barreca & Laurence Cohen, Helen Ubinas, Colin McEnroe, previously Gombossy, to name just a few) to engage with the community, but it mostly feels like a sidenote. The people I trust to listen to are the reason I will pay you, listen to you and, in turn, trust you as a company, just like the old days only better.
So right now the Gombossy story is all about Gombossy vs. The Hartford Courant. Tomorrow’s story is: “Building The New Regime.” That new regime belongs to all of us. Right now Gombossy’s place in that regime is CTWatchdog.com, which was up and running hours after his departure from the Courant. He wants CTWatchdog to become an online community newspaper of citizen reporters like him to report and investigate from the ground up, and give companies an opportunity to weigh in too. His ultimate goal is to create a nonprofit that runs CTWatchdog to ensure integrity is always in the driver’s seat. As far as media folk making the leap into self-publishers, Gombossy is not alone.
I am currently part of the Navigating Change group, a mix of media, creatives, entrepreneurs, business leaders and filmmakers who are helping each other create a new career path or improve their current one in a climate that is ripe with change and uncertainty. Some of the media folk like Bruce Barber have already made that career leap (for him, into entrepreneurship), while others like Tiffanie Wong and Mark Joyella are testing the waters on ideas like Tiffanie’s quickly popular “My Husband Is Annoying” blog. Some of the group’s members have no idea what the future holds, still holding onto 2-3 year contracts that may be defunct, while others have great ideas and are working on building the contacts and capital to make them happen.
Either way, through Navigating Change, Arianna Huffington, Guy Kawasaki, George Gombossy and others, the rules are changing. And the rule makers are not sitting in an ivory, far reaching tower. Well, some of them are. And some of them are on the street, doing their own thing while completely oblivious that they are sparking change. The rule makers are all of us. We are the new regime. Our enemy is fear and doubt.
What do you say we band together and fight the good fight as an army of one?
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Posted by:
Suzi Craig
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suzi@fathom.net
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Brilliant, as always.
Suzi, you have said it all…
…and I’m not just saying that because of your (all too kind) mention!
But seriously, folks – there’s something else here.
The Courant is a great paper with a long tradition of journalistic excellence. Their missed opportunity is an example of what all businesses need to be aware of – the need to monitor the conversations surrounding your brand.
If management had joined the conversation from the outset – instead of getting involved the the “he-said-she-said silliness that is currently fueling the story – this could have been be an entirely different discussion.
excellent post!
It can’t be overstated, as media evolves, the new “regime” needs to build trust with the viewers, readers, participants and advertisers. The challenge is great at the local level, where trusted regional and community papers disappear or get acquired by media companies. On the local media level, where, or how, does this trust germinate in the absence of trusted journalists like Mr. Gombossy?
Traditional media has had editors to make sure news was presented as accurately as possible, as fairly as possible. Sure, there are editors and publishers that lean to the left or the right. But, by-and-large standards of Journalism have been followed.
I’m seeing hyper-local news and blog sites emerging all over, but is the news coming from someone interested in exposing the truth or building traffic? Can this person keep the business side separate from the journalistic side? Ironic, this is exactly what Mr. Gombossy alleges his former employer couldn’t do.
Yes, we are changing the rules, but we need to adhere to our standards.
Thank you Suzi for your very generous comment. I just want to clarify one IMPORTANT point.
This is NOT Gombossy v Courant
This is Gombossy v Graziano, Levine, and Hazell, the three people who are destroying what hundreds of others had built up over decades and decades – a newspaper with integrity.
I love the Courant. Other than for these three people everyone else at the newspaper deserves readers’ support. Please DO NOT stop buying the Courant – the 130 honest, ethical, smart, hard-working staffers and hundreds of other employees deserve your support.
The Dog
Thanks for weighing fellas. Great chatter going on here. Let’s keep this conversation going.
George – thanks for clarifying. It is an important point to make. Hopefully, as the story develops, those 130 hardworking staffers will not get lost in the shuffle. They deserve our support and encouragement to keep doing what they do best, despite any misguidance from the top.
So Suze,
What you are saying is that we need newspapers? Just to be challenging… Why? As we age less and less people will “need” them. I do not read the paper and never heard of George till I read some tweets about it, then i read a blog about it, then I read your post. Now I am responding.
I get all the newspaper stuff on-line. So do my teenage kids and when asked, they said they could NOT imagine why anyone would bother getting a newspaper. hmmmmm…
And George is not writing for another newspaper, he is writing a blog.
As far as the army of one stuff? Never! There will always be multiple sides to any issue or argument. The battles will always be fought on MANY fronts. There will always be winners and losers. Wounded, dead and survivors.
So my hope is that there will never be an army of one but many ones that occasionally stand together for what is right.
Ya know, they are not the ten suggestions…
Respectfully, Eliot
I am saying that we need the people behind the newspapers – those skilled in investigative reporting, those holding up the constitution every day by ensuring our freedom of speech. For us novice citizen reporters, we need their expertise and insight. The actual form of a printed newspaper may go away (although I doubt it) and the construct of a news organization is going to – and NEEDS to – shapeshift.
I am calling for an army of one to stand up together and fight for integrity. Not an army of one to have one voice. An army of one that does what we’re doing right now – taking on a topic with many voices and challenging each other, while keeping each in check too.
Just in the same was as radio was eclipsed by TV – newspaper has been eclipsed by the internet. I don’t think anyone here debates this. What we could debate would be A) Do we still need newspapers? B) How else can media be generated? C) Will these new models be able to support high powered, award winning teams of media correspondents?
One of the roles of newspapers has traditionally been to be the head watchdog of corporations and governments. Due to media conglomeration and the pressures of advertising this is no longer the case and more and more often whole sections of newspapers are being cut or outsourced. International reporting costs a lot of money… who knew?
With decades of journalistic experience and rapport, even if the sources can be replicated, the type of information will change, and probably be more diverse, which is a good thing. So long as we don’t see this as the death of information, I don’t think we need to be ‘scared’ of the death of newspapers as we know them.
So long as there isn’t a government sponsored Baill Out and good papers with good people are allowed to fail. These good people will continue to do the work that has driven them in their life for someone else. An out of work journalist doesn’t become a nurse – they become authors – Look at Jeremy Scahill (author of BlackWater) or John Perkins (Confessions of an Economic Hit Men) both are breaking news in print (Books and Essays) outside of the newspapers and being recognized with rave reviews and financial incentives in the form of more book deals. As they are free agents they can appear on any platform they want to broadcast their message (NPR for instance). People want news that matters and if they don’t get it from the newspapers they will get it from somewhere else.
I heard a bit on NPR not so long ago with a guy talking about New New Media collectives. He made similar points. He had more numbers than I, but was saying that some of these small collectives with under 50 people operate with roughly the same profit margin as the hay day of newspapers – around 30%. It’s a smaller pie (~30 million annually instead of 800 million, but the 30% margin is still there if the C-level execs are open to new ways to generate income and maximize the networks that they already use.
It’s a brave new world, and as net/information people we’re on the front lines. Just as we work to open the streams of information others (telecoms such as Comcast and ATT) are working just as hard to close these streams down (Net Neutrality for instance). I hope we win.
I hope so too Steve – thanks for chiming in.
However the channels of information looks 5, 10 years from now we just can’t predict. But the need for accurate information from trusted sources will never go away. We will always push our entrusted sources to the top – it will take more work on the part of individuals, but it will happen.
ok – stupid question – but likely an old question..
How do you tell who is telling the truth and who is just renderering a total BS opinion in order to spread fear or hate etc..??? E
You can’t. You need to rely on the crowd to call out the fakes.
How can you rely on anyone? A book author makes up a story, writes a best selling book and gets on Oprah. Someone in the crowd said, “hey, that guy’s a fake” so the truth came out.
Alternatively, Wikipedia is guarded with its life by the editors who work like crazy to ensure accuracy.
It’s the same process. Propaganda and inauthentic information has been around since the ages. The channels are just different.
Great post Suzi! You certainly got the conversation off and running here!
The sad thing is that advertising dollars are starting to dictate editorial coverage. As a public relations professional, I can’t tell you how many times I run into editors, reporters, TV producers, you-name-it who are becoming more and more hesitant to giving a client editorial coverage if they’re not an advertiser. Sure, there still is integrity, and good reporters still exist, but the trend for quite some time now has been leaning toward the almighty dollar. No pay, no play.
I won’t name any particular media outlets and shows here that are charging for in-studio air time. This applies for outlets in markets across the country, not just Connecticut.
It’s a slippery slope, and I give George a big pat on the back for challenging this and “barking” about this. Kudos.
Best,
Derek
As a former newspaper reporter, I’ve been watching with interest this trend toward citizen journalism. It’s certainly a democratization of the newsmaking process, but it can never entirely replace newspapers and other organized media outlets and the role they play in society.
Why?
As Suzi alludes to, part of it is a question of “whom can you trust?” It’s more than that, though. It’s just as much about what stories wouldn’t be told if we lost our professional story tellers.
A plane goes down in the Hudson? No one can better capture it in the moment than the bystanders with their iPhones at the ready. But what about the mundane city council meeting, the one that no one in their right mind would be attending if they weren’t getting paid to be there? Those of us with day jobs – even those of us who are keenly interested – don’t go to these things because we’re too busy with the rest of our lives. We rely on the media to cover – and uncover – corruption and keep our elected officials honest.
Reporters used to go into journalism because they believed it was a career where they could “comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.” With the advent of media monopolies, it is the media itself that had been getting too comfortable. The web has changed that, turned it into an ugly struggle for survival that at times goes against the very heart of what journalism is all about – or should be.
I, for one, hope these established media organizations can figure out a way to be true to the original mission of journalism, otherwise we’ll be losing something we can’t replace.