The 24 Hour (Social) Media Cycle
Thursday, March 18th, 2010Last week, CNN President Jon Klein, said during an interview with BusinessWeek that he is “more worried about the 500 million or so people on Facebook versus the 2 million on Fox.” And he has cause for worry.
We have entered an era that puts demands on our news sources to get with the times or get out. In 2009 we witnessed the collapse of some of our most beloved magazines, and newspapers are now an endangered species. Instead of buying the paper, we get our information on the Internet, where we can readily access the exact article that appeared on today’s front page of the New York Times print edition. We can get our information 24 hours a day, and as new information comes in, we get that too, before it ever hits the print edition. When you’re sipping your coffee and reading the headlines, all the while getting your hands covered in ink, I’ve already read the headlines at three a.m. when the news broke.
So are we training ourselves for the potential extinction of network news, too? All our favorite sources are online now – CNN, FoxNews, MSNBC, and CNBC. Maybe we’re training ourselves not for broadcast network news, but for the extinction of the network news’ websites.
What happens when we expect all our information to be packaged in 140 increments and we rely on social media platforms like Twitter to get our fix? People like CNN President Jon Klein start to worry that we won’t go to their website anymore, or watch their video or read the full article. But, hey, if you can’t make your point in 140 characters, what good are you?
And then there is Reuters, who last week released a social media policy telling its journalists they shouldn’t break news on their Twitter feeds (versus BBC who’s Director mandated their journalists to use social media or get out). We can appreciate Reuters trying to stay true to its journalistic routes, and break news ‘over the wire.’ It’s nice in a sort of nostalgic-good for you-I’ll-get-my-news-somewhere-else-if-you-aren’t-telling-me-first. Reuters should be more worried about Facebook users than CNN. At least I can follow @cnnbrk for the latest.
How can any news source position themselves as the most trusted network, or the place to go for breaking news, if they aren’t part of the conversation?
What is important is that instead of fighting these changes, our news sources need to integrate themselves with the changes. Get on Facebook. Let your journalists break news on Twitter. If a journalist I’ve been reading for years is breaking his/her news on Twitter, I’ll go there first. If I’m friends with CNN, Reuters, BBC, and they are giving me the news then I’ll listen to them. I’ll read what they have to say (in 140 characters or less) and maybe I’ll click on their link and read the rest of the article. Maybe I’ll stay tuned for more information on a story that is just coming ‘over the wire.’
If these news sources thought of Twitter as a wire service and their followers as their journalists who disseminate the information, they wouldn’t have to worry about the 500 million Facebook users. Instead, these sources would be part of it. The information would start with them and their followers distribute it.
Twitter users, for example, don’t just rely on their friends and followers for their information, but they go back to the traditional news source in a non-traditional way. And instead of being on the sidelines, everyone gets in the game – 24 hours a day.





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