There Is Nothing New In News. When Will The Industry See Disruption?

While watching this year's US election, I was left feeling rather frustrated. This is not in reference to the outcome of the election. The purpose of this article is not to make political statements. Instead, the purpose of this article is to question two things. Firstly, when will the mainstream media begin to innovate in the way they deliver the news to their audiences. Secondly, in what form will this be delivered?

Source: Geralt on Pixabay

I want to start by sharing some observations I have made. In today’s digital landscape, I think three things are currently gaining momentum:

1. The use of social media to get our daily digest of news.
2. The prevalence of short-form content gaining the most attention on digital platforms.
3. The distrust in mainstream media. While this seems a Trumpian talking point, this is true on both sides of the political spectrum.

Assuming these trends are actually happening on a macro scale, do they constitute the necessary antecedents for disruption?

Print media was slowly but surely replaced by the use of online blogs. Radio has been taken over by podcasts. TV was substituted by YouTube and streaming services. Though cable news? Not much. Right now, the newest innovations in the way in which news is broadcasted has come through some of these aforementioned platforms. YouTube and podcasting providers have become hubs for news broadcasters to share their reports, such as the case with popular broadcasters such as The Young Turks and The BBC World Service. Outside of these platforms and traditional cable programming (which is undoubtedly on the decline), news broadcasters have not yet established an ecosystem to properly distribute content to share news stories. Currently, they largely rely on sharing news through other mediums, such as social media.

So why did this frustrate me during the 2020 presidential election? As an avid Twitter user, I saw Twitter at its worse. Twitter is already a platform where users live in their comfortable echo chambers of content to tickle their confirmation biases. Personally, I don’t see most Twitter users engaging in much discourse with one another outside of these echo chambers. During the election, not only was the discourse around breaking election news dominated by trolls and passionate party members who would rather bad mouth their opposition than learn why they feel that way, but it was also rarely engaged with.

What I mean by this, is that news providers (like the Wall Street Journal, for a sake of using it as an example) wouldn’t optimize their content for the platform on which they shared it. Instead, most simply tweet out a link to a pre-existing URL to their website. Take this example below from Breibart News.

A typical way in which news is shared on Twitter.

I think this results in a user experience dominated by low-fidelity sound byte headlines. Our timelines are so often clogged by other content and ads, I find it difficult to believe that these articles are being opened and read before many users begin to comment about them. When we add this to the fact that text-based content is less often engaged with than short video-based content, I think sharing news via Twitter and Facebook is detrimental to the user experience.

This is where I think TikTok has the potential to become a big disruptor. In my opinion, the video-sharing platform has the power to be a very powerful ally to news broadcasters. It uses short-form content, all of which is visual rather than text-based. It has all the eyeballs of the youth (the next generation of news consumers). Not to mention, its popular users are loyally trusted by their communities. If there were a methodology to adequately explore this, I think it would be interesting to see the difference between approval ratings for cable-tv hosts and social media stars.

All in all, I think these conditions make it arable ground to sow the seeds of a new way of sharing news. Visual, short-form content which must be optimized for the platform on which it is shared. If TikTok influencers can become part of the conversation around the news too (or reporters, to some degree), that would be a nice little extra.

At the same time, I think these conditions make it arable ground to sow the seeds of a malicious way of sharing news. Internet users are often fiercely loyal to the influencers they follow, whether it be to support them amidst a period of bad PR, or to buy their merchandise. If this is extorted in a way to influence vulnerable demographics to adopt the dogma of a political party, it could be difficult to undo. Furthermore, as I mentioned previously, I think that synthesizing news isn’t given the time it needs. How can we explain the geopolitical factors affecting conflict in the Middle East within a 60-second video?

In summary, I would like to see a new way of sharing news. Rather than seeing news links on social media that push you to the website on which it was curated, I would like to see news providers begin to responsibly optimize their content for the mediums on which they operate. Within this optimized format, I imagine many others would also like to see various sides to the stories told, empowering audiences to use digital social features to ask questions and share their thoughts. I want to see audiences engage with an entire piece of news content (and if it has to be limited to 60-seconds, so be it) when it is presented to them.

Though most importantly, I want news providers to gain back the trust of the public, to put their biases aside and open a meaningful dialogue. The methods through which online news is shared today is making democracy exhausting. Though with appropriate disruption which rides the upcoming waves of digital user experience, I think we could soon see news which makes democracy compelling.