Hamish MacEwan

“What if news organizations confronted the reality that nearly all media will be ‘social media’ a decade hence?…What if news organizations acknowledged this — or even got out in front of it, ahead of the curve this time — and organized themselves as platforms for talent?”

The traditional configuration of editorial layers and safeguards would change. As Bob Garfield notes at the Guardian, most new revenue stream ideas carry with them the potential for compromising “editorial integrity.” But the answer here is not to eschew new revenue ideas but rather to find new ways of ensuring standards. Smart, ethical journalists can handle this. And it is worth acknowledging that in a networked world, the prevailing ethic is to post news quickly, update, and iterate as new facts arrive; and the community audience often does much of the fact-checking, which is then folded into updates.

Brand will remain important, few have time or the interest to establish the credibility of each individual.  Instead I suggest the brands will become fact checkers and little else.  Receiving subscription revenue in exchange for contractual obligations to adhere to standards and certification of stories.  The lower cost structures of smaller generative units can be supported by subscription or advertising revenue, a portion of which would obtain the imprimatur of one of the news audit brands by subscription.