Preparing for the Coming Era of Participatory News

Preparing for the Coming Era of Participatory News at http://www.ojr.org/ojr/future/1017170352.php: The Internet means now everyone is a journalist – or can be.

Outside the newsrooms and the boardrooms of our news companies, the road ahead looks bumpy:

1. Communication is king, not content.
2. News is a distant fourth – behind entertainment, communication and transactions – on consumer’s hierarchy of desires.
3. News evolves into collaborative, a participatory activity. Everyone is a journalist, or can be. Peer-to-peer news will eclipse business-to-consumer news.
4. The expected synergies and efficiencies associated with consolidation, centralization, and clustering prove to be overrated.
5. Convergence happens to consumers, not to newsrooms.
6. Every company becomes a media company. They succeed or fail on the basis of their stories.
7. Services replace products as the foundation of local, regional and global economies.
8. The decline in the traditional markets for news accelerates. As media become ubiquitous and pervasive, fragmentation of markets also accelerates.
9. A new group of consumers – the Millennials – emerges. They have no loyalty to news organizations. They don’t read newspapers. Their habits and behaviors have no context in traditional news products. By sheer numbers, they have the power to transform consumer markets.
10. The news industry fails to innovate, to change, and to create catalysts for growth.