Will Journalism Survive? Google Director Says Yes
Macalester Today/ Macalester College
Media entrepreneurs listen up!
Despite an online death toll for newspapers and other signs that journalism is dying, Google’s Richard Gingras sees a bright future ahead.
As the opening speaker at a conference for journalism educators, Richard Gingras, director of news and social products at Google says journalism will be much better, but the industry has to rethink everything. According to his speech transcribed on Poynter, people consume media differently and companies must respond with revamped offerings. The following are three areas in which the media landscape has evolved:
- The article page may be the first and last page readers see. In other words, the importance of the homepage has shifted to the story page. Rather than focus a website’s design and advertising around the homepages, the media will need to consider that today readers are more likely to reach stories directly via Facebook, Twitter or Google News.
- People read more on mobile devices, and this is happening now. Mobile just passed TV to become the number one channel that affects what people buy, and where advertising goes, the media should follow.
- Journalists have access to much more computing power. Gingras may be more accurate than he thought. People aren’t reading robo-articles just yet, but sites are already honing software to do it. Media companies must adapt and implement these technologies in order to remain competitive.
Gingras explains that these shifts are not the first for the industry. For example, each city had several newspapers until TV came along in 1949 and newspapers lost a huge chunk of advertising.
While adapting isn’t easy, these changes present an opportunity to reach a wider audience than ever before. “Among its many powers, the Internet has the ability to provide support for any opinion, any belief, any fear and give it greater volume,” Gingras says.
Perhaps the most uplifting part of Gingras’ message: “The future of journalism can and will be better than its past.”
Journalism isn’t dead. The media will simply have to fight to keep it alive.
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