MarketerBlog

Jon Stewart on Journalism with Walter Isaacson

The Daily Show With Jon StewartM - Th 11p / 10c

Walter Isaacson

Daily Show Full Episodes
Important Things With Demetri Martin

Funny Political News
Joke of the Day

Walter Isaacson’s Math Problem

A tweet from @SteveCase pointed me in the direction of Jon Stewart’s hilarious interview with Walter Isaacson last night.  Actually, I think “skewer” might be a better word than “interview”.  At one point Stewart started whistling the theme song from Mayberry R.F.D. while Isaacson was trying to make the case that ice should be free.  Ahem.

In any event, Isaacson, never short on words, has published his solution to the so-called “crisis in journalism”:  micropayments.  His article is the cover story for the current issue of Time magazine.  In a nice bit of irony the cover graphic is a copy of the New York Times being used as a fish wrapper.  One wonders whether the artist meant this as editorial commentary rather than pure illustration.

Like many recovering media executives, Isaacson gets the math wrong when he analyzes the situation. There isn’t a crisis in journalism.  There are more media outlets and published writers than ever before.  Disciplined, talented journalists continue to turn out great stories, whether they’re published on blogs, the New York Times or as videos on CNN.  And amateurs have been invaluable i-journalists in situations like the recent attacks in Mumbai and the USAir crash.  The breadth of journalism is well understood by Barack Obama who gave it the Presidential seal of approval by taking a question from Sam Stein, a Huffington Post blogger, during his first press conference.  

The problem is that a 19th century economic model doesn’t support 21st century news media.  So publishers and media executives are doing a lot of hand-wringing but have yet to find a solution to the red ink spilling all over their earnings reports.  Isaacson recommends micropayments as an alternative revenue stream for media, drawing an analogy to iTunes and impulse purchases like ringtones.    

What he fails to see is that this isn’t about payments versus free or publishers versus consumers.  As Clay Shirky rightly asserts, those faulty analyses ignore the fundamental point.  The Internet has radically altered the media ecosystem, moving us from being passive audiences or even rapacious consumers to becoming active users.  Media today is part of the conversation, not a walled garden or an artifact which can be controlled and monetized.  Media companies need to understand and leverage these new dynamics into economic models which work today.  Free content is not the problem here.  People will pay for things they value.  Media companies need to devise a better way of delivering value - or a cheaper way of creating it. 

But don’t expect these new inspirations to come from media executives.  After all, it wasn’t a music industry executive who created iTunes.  

Station Break

Okay, a 20-month blogging hiatus is more than a station break.  As usual, the media world has again shifted in its orbit.  Microblogging via Twitter and other status services now seems to trump lengthy analysis.  That said, there are some interesting posts on the issues around new models for media (versus new media models) of late.  See Clay Shirky and Fred Wilson.   Time to re-engage and ponder.  Look for less OpEds and more quick comments.  And yes, my tweets are a mix of professional and personal.  But that's life, isn't it?