The Washington Post, the News Industry, Jeff Bezos, Martin Baron and Innovation in News- Driving Change in a Changing World

Executive Summary: The Washington Post is neither an Amazon nor a Buzzfeed. Below are some elements of building a distinctive news organization that Jeff Bezos, Martin Baron and the news leadership would likely have considered at The Washington Post. They are structured as a framework, and presented with a parallel between building such a news organization and with managing innovation in fast paced industries. The metrics and insights that you may develop from these go a step beyond what the conventional audience, digital and social media metrics can do for you. No industry jargon was harmed or involved in the making of this quick essay. From the desk of A-Fine-Balance-between-High-Risk-Objectives-and-Metrics-For-Key-Results. 

Since Jeff Bezos bought The Washington Post last year, there has been a lot of media conversation here (Businessweek) and here (Politico) about the news organization's personnel changes and also about its direction.

The most recent and highly cited one has been an article by David Carr of the New York Times (See link: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/10/06/business/media/the-washington-post-regains-its-place-at-the-table.html ). The Washington Post, driven by Martin Baron and the leadership team, can take many paths towards building a distinctive news organization. For more about how New York Times handled its change, see here: http://goo.gl/7eSsQV

Let's address the elephant in the room.

What did Jeff Bezos gain by buying The Washington Post?

Digital is here.

Digital is not going away.

Digital will grow without Jeff Bezos' involvement.

Regardless of any potentially larger, altruistic reasons to own the newspaper that Jeff Bezos may share with the previous owners, The Washington Post offers Jeff Bezos a digital insight into minds on the Internet operating slightly higher up on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, compared to other websites. (Note: Maslow's Hierarchy is mentioned here only for simplicity- for a branding context, please feel free to refer to David Aaker's work here on the brand loyalty pyramid and Jennifer Aaker's work here on building innovative brands).

Additionally, while book publishing is a different animal from news, building a distinctive news organization that thrives in a digital world offers some transferable insights.

The Framework.

The framework below is one way to think about the trade offs involved in building a distinctive news organization. It offers a pathway to out-of-the-box metrics and potential key results the new organization's leadership could develop to manage a driven, aligned and responsive (towards stated objectives, not reactive) organization. I list a few dimensions of this framework to serve as guardrails.

The Objective.

Let's set a broad goal/ initial objective of this thought exercise for the Washington Post:

To build a widely read newspaper that has the sort of cache in the mind of the reader that Apple has relative to its competitors. It becomes a leader in an ecosystem for driving awareness, engagement and change, based on news elements, for the reader.

How's that for a start?

You will note that the objective explicitly sets the Washington Post a little higher on Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs than a content farm. (Note again: Maslow's Hierarchy is mentioned here only for simplicity- for a branding context, please feel free to refer to David Aaker's work here on the brand loyalty pyramid and Jennifer Aaker's work here on building innovative brands).

The Dimensions

A few iterations through the structure below should yield some quantifiable objectives as well.

Dimension 1: Reader Impact Zones.

In terms of the reader, let's define how news may impact the reader in the scope of his or her daily life. We shall describe these as concentric circles.

Immediate Zone: The Giants winning the Superbowl is an Immediate Zone impact. So is news of a regulation cutting your taxes in half.

Near Network Zone: News about quicker or easier access to drugs for a sick relative would be a Near Network Zone impact.

Overarching/ Distant Network Zone: Immigration reform that does not affect you directly, but is important to you as an issue, would have an Overarching/ Distant Network Zone impact.

Dimension 2: Type Reader Network Effect.

What kind of a reader network effect can a news story have? We can draw from our experience of current metrics covering news, digital and social media here.

Awareness: This would go beyond just how many readers have read the news item on a topic (i.e. not just CPM as a sample metric).

Engagement: This is not just sharing on social media. This may involve the number of thought leaders engaged in the conversation in and around the news coverage. The news organization's leadership in facilitating conversation across the ecosystem on the news topic.

Change: Is there a change in the readership's views due to this news topic coverage (if that is important? If not, why not?) A change in law, as a direct effect of the new organization's leadership in news coverage, would be an example of the change effect.

Dimension 3: Timeline.

How long does the news coverage and its impact last.

Thinsliced: Commentary on cat videos is an example.

Short: From one to a few news cycles.

Medium: May require sustained effort towards engagement and may lead to change.

Long: Policy decisions that may change the nature of society.

Dimension 4: Originating, Curating and Funneling News Items (a la Innovation).

Just as organizations realize that the next great disruptive innovation may not arise in-house, news organizations would understand that they may not always be at the center of the next 'greatest news story ever'. How you manage origination, curation and funneling (you may replace funneling with acceleration of news ideas, if you like) of news stories is important. What percentage of ‘impactful’ stories would The Washington Post like to break?

Dimension 5: Distribution.

Top two on this list would be partners, along with cross medium, multichannel content and promotions.

Investigation into civil forfeiture and also posting a John Oliver video on the same topic is a great example of partner and cross medium thinking. See link: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/style-blog/wp/2014/10/06/watch-john-oliver-explain-civil-forfeiture-aggressive-police-procedures-on-last-week-tonight/

Evaluate The Framework So Far

We can come up with a few more dimensions, however, let's pause here. How does this help the editor and publisher? Here are questions worth thinking about:

How many news items can the news organization run in a year that string together into a medium term topic, which impact user views on the topic, engage 50%+ of the thought leaders on the topic and lead to an actual change in the life (say via a change in law) of the reader?

What is a sustainable frequency for these efforts?

Does a higher frequency of such efforts lead to increased subscriptions and greater reader retention?

Does a reduction of thinslicing type of content (say commentary on cat videos) lead to a reduction in traffic and hence a reduction in audience engagement?

Can this reduction in audience engagement be offset by pushing content through partners and other channels?

Conclusion.

Building a distinctive news organization requires and understanding of, and a sustained effort towards, the level of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs the employees, the readers, the industry and the news organization as a whole, wants to operate at. Going by kudos from readers and media watchers (David Carr at the New York Times), the leadership is showing success at this. The dimensions and the framework shed light on some of the challenges they deal with on a daily basis.

What do you think?

Film Industry, Digitalization and Creative Empowerment: "Side by Side"

Executive Summary: In the context of the excellent documentary, "Side By Side", here is a quick snapshot of digitalization's impact on the film industry along the dimensions of film making process, creativity, innovation, innovation collaboration, end product quality-trade offs between digital and film, the human factor, and history and trends. Is it digital vs. film, or digital and film? Or is this debate a distraction? From the desk of No-Industry-Is-An-Island-Unto-Itself.

Overview

Digitalization has impacted our lives in many ways, specifically, how we-
- Connect with people,
- Search for, find, and utilize information and entertainment, and,
- Get things done.

Over the years, there has been quite a bit of news about digitalization's impact on the publishing industry (you could blame the NYT's media desk for a lot of it). I have talked about a "fly on the wall" documentary, "Page One: Inside The New York Times", which describes the impact, here.

On the other hand, there has been relatively less news about digitalization's impact on the film industry beyond the usual reviews about special effects laden movies.

How has the film industry been dealing with the digitalization of the world around them?

Some Initial Questions

Waiting in a standby line for the sold out film, "Side by Side", at the Tribeca Film Festival, I roped in fellow film enthusiasts, waiting in line, into an interesting discussion about digital technology's impact on the film industry. Some of the questions raised were:
- Do you lose out on quality (cinematic experience) with digital films?
- Is 3D really better?
- Would actors be replaced by machines?
- Digitalization impacts jobs and people's lives- is it really a good idea if it does that?
- Wouldn't human experience be lesser in movies driven by machines?

Thoughts Before the Screening- Baseline Ideas

My initial reaction to a lot of these challenges was:
- Human beings have been telling stories for ages- this is just another tool to help us tell stories.
- Any narration would always have to rely on creativity in the story, and on how well the story is told.
- Film was a technological advancement in telling stories. Digitalization is just another step in this story telling evolution.
- Human beings would always want "real world" contact with another person (there are anecdotes about conversational skills of teenagers that seem to prove otherwise).

I am of the view that this digital vs. film debate is a distraction. The conversation should be able the story *you* want to tell, and the story *you* want to hear.

"Side by Side"

The documentary, "Side by Side", premiered at the Tribeca Film Festival, provides a bird's eye view of how digitalization has affected the film industry. It was surprisingly well equipped to handle a lot of the questions raised.

Here are a few of the areas it covered:

Film-making Process and Creative Empowerment:

An anecdote by a woman filmmaker summed up the empowering outcome of digitalization. A woman filmmaker (an actor on Girls, on HBO) admits that she would not have been able to make a movie if it were not for digital technology. She was daunted by movie making process as a complex film "undertaking".

As the documentary slices through the various facets of film making you can see this creative empowerment theme through the various film making steps below:
1. Movie development and production:
- shooting and production
- acting and actors
- film direction,
- cinematography and camerwork,
- film editing, and,
- post production
2. Film planning and budgeting decision making
3. Film distribution,
4. Film screening, and finally,
5. Film archiving.

Digitalization has forced changes in the degree of creative control and influence asserted by each step of the creative process. While independent movies had embraced digital technology early on, fully aware of the detrimental impact on cinematic quality at that time, big budget movies appear to have  begun to embrace digital technology as a tool for budget control.

Movie making creativity:

The documentary covers while getting industry greats and pioneers, from George Lucas to Scorsese, to spill their guts about the creative impact of their choice between using film and digital media for their film releases.

While some directors have relished
- the flexibility and freedom of instant feedback,
- the removal of the 10 minute shot, and,
- the cost constraints of using expensive film for footage,
some others have decried the loss of cinematic experience in moving to digital.

One filmmaker was concerned that the quality of films has dropped drastically since anyone can now make a movie thanks to digital technology. Quote: "there is no taste maker". Christopher Nolan believes (and correctly so, for now) that digital does not match film in quality.

Scorsese points out that for effective storytelling, you must return to the wells of human creativity. David Lynch summed the pro digitalization view on storytelling and cinematic experience aptly, by drawing a parallel with the publishing industry, through the analogy that "everybody and his brother has paper and a pen..."

Innovation, and  Innovation collaboration:

A striking example of innovation was the team behind RED cameras talking about how they rigged a camera mechanism overnight to enable the rowing sequence for "The Social Network" to be shot. While George Lucas had collaborated with Sony on "Star Wars: Episode 2" to move digital camera technology along, this is a different order of innovation collaboration.

As with changes in creative control and influence exerted by each step of film making, the potential for innovation is leading to a need for greater collaboration and participation across each area associated with movie making.

End Product Quality- Trade offs between digital and film:

The documentary pulls no punches on the technical details of how film captures images and how digital technology has advanced over the years. Digital technology, in many ways, is still short of the cinematic experience that film can provide.

While digital technology is catching up, it has a lead in:
1. Night sequences of the type shot in the movie "Collateral",
2. Movies of the type "Star Wars",
3. The active sequences of the type shot at the beginning of Danny Boyle's "Slumdog Millionaire", and,
4. The rowing sequences in the movie "The Social Network".

The Human Factor:

The movie making team is changing on the dimensions skills, creativity expectations, collaboration, creative control and turnaround time.

"Side by Side" clearly lays out the human impact of this massive change. George Lucas had to call a summit at his home to deal with the backlash from his decision to shoot Star Wars: Episode 2. Some members of the industry accused him of shooting on film and claiming he was shooting in digital, because "digital could never be that good".

It has been a tumultuous period for the film industry, with old skills being replaced by new, especially in functions like editing, and post production.

History and Trends:

The film covers the gamut of the movie making ecosystem, from George Lucas' and James Cameron's big budget movie technology toys to a student at NYU's film school, shooting a film on a Canon 7D. Her take was that while the Canon 7D is not a movie camera, it allows her to focus on the story and turn in her project within the time and budget constraints.

Conclusion:

The film industry has had its fair share of upheavals, like the publishing industry.
It will continue to embrace the advantages of digital technology.
Story telling skills will always be in demand.

Finally, this all hinges on the movie goer enjoying the experience. That has been a different story altogether, as you can see in this article here:
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/05/20/magazine/how-to-enjoy-going-to-the-movies-again.html?_r=1&smid=tw-nytimes&seid=auto

My view? This documentary put me firmly on the side of the view that this debate is a distraction. It should be able the story you want to tell, and the the story you want to watch. Use the tools you believe will help you deliver and enjoy the experience your way.

What do you think?