Future of media & communications? Let's go!

Photo by Jeremy Galliani on Unsplash

By Deron Snyder

If printed newspapers have lost me as a customer, I fear that their prospects for developing future customers is between infinitesimal and nonexistent.

I still love newspapers, which have been part of my life since elementary school, when I devoured the New York Daily News every day (as a sports fan, backwards) and later added the New York Post to my reading list. During visits back home after leaving the city to attend Howard University and start my journalism career, I’d stop at newsstands and purchase the aforementioned papers as well as USA Today, The New York Times and New York Newsday.

Nothing quite compares to flipping through the pages of a “daily miracle,” the term some journalists use to describe a newspaper. I’m convinced that the physical act, the tactile experience, provides some sort of subconscious mental reward, like the release of endorphins during exercise. Sipping coffee, scanning the headlines, examining the photos, putting moisture on your fingers (to help with page turning) … priceless.

But I knew it was finally over when I cancelled home delivery of The Washington Post several years ago. By then, the bulk of my news reading occurred online anyway as newspapers piled up, unread in their plastic sleeves. I had subscribed to a newspaper for 20 years and felt a sense of obligation to the industry that paid my bills. I didn’t want to be like everyone else, going online to enjoy the fruits of journalists’ labor but refusing to help foot the cost. This was before newspapers had the nerve (Courage? Common sense? Foresight?) to establish paywalls and offer digital subscriptions.

Today, I have e-subscriptions to the Washington Post, New York Times, Baltimore Sun, and two sports websites – a national outfit, The Athletic, and a local enterprise, The Sports Capitol. So, yes, after more than 30 years as a journalist and more than five years as public relations practitioner, I still qualify as a news junkie and I pay for my habit.

However, there aren’t enough consumer like yours truly to go around, which presents a huge problem for legacy newspaper publishers. Their operations cost way more than digital revenue streams generate. And convincing more people to pay for online news is challenging, because multiple generations have been conditioned to believe that free Web content is an inalienable right. 

The BlackDoor MediaComm blog will examine this issue and several others regarding strategic communications and emerging media. Each week, I will delve into topics that leaders in media and communications grapple with each day, areas such as: the diffusion of innovations; interpersonal influence; opinion leadership; social media; communication with government groups; message development & placement; media strategies; and the future in strategic communication.

As a longtime journalist and communications professional who’s studying for a master’s degree in Strategic Communication, I think we have fascinating topics to discuss. But these subjects are vitally important for everyone, even those who don’t realize it and don’t have professional/academic interests in the matter. The world of journalism and communication underwent rapid change in the decade preceding November 2016. Since then, alteration has occurred at warp speed, leading to warped perceptions of truth, reality, accuracy and credibility. Our democracy is at risk if we can’t get a handle on those on pillars.   

To follow the conversation, please bookmark blackdoormediacomm.blogspot.com. (A redirect from blackdoorblog.com is pending and I will announce when it’s active.) I hope to share what I’m learning in my Leadership & Media Strategies class at Troy University, my observations as a media consumer, and what I’ve gathered through working at five newspapers and two nonprofit organizations since 1985.

The predicament illustrated at the top of this post is a great example. If ever a business needed innovation and the Diffusion of Innovations, it’s the newspaper industry. Recent generations have shunned ink-on-paper and future generations are unlikely to be different in that regard. Simultaneously, newspapers struggle mightily to monetize their e-product. The industry cries out for innovations that will spark interest amongst would-be early adopters in Generations X, Y, and Z, especially those who already consume news for free. They key is to convince them – and members of their social system – that journalism is vital to our democracy’s preservation, and then creating mobile-friendly delivery that they’ll willingly pay for.

Thankfully, no one is counting on me for the innovation part! I too old and narrow-minded, or simply lack the requisite creative muscles, to solve this problem. But having gone from a “never-payer” to a “multi-subscriber,” I’m proof that a change is possible. Now, someone just has to find the right formula for my college-age children and my future grandkids. I believe part of the answer resides in nominal monthly fees (say, $5), that are set up as automatic debits. But another large part lies in the design, functionality and accessibility of e-news, particularly delivered via mobile devices. Once that part is solved, I believe we’ll see a sharp rise from early adopters to majority audiences among the target demographic.

Easy? Hardly.

Do-able? Absolutely.

Either way, the journey should be very interesting. Let’s do this!