The Future of News Media
State of Digital Publishing
A new publication and community for digital media and publishing professionals, in new media and technology.
NOTE FROM THE EDITOR
By Andrew Kemp, Managing Editor at SODP
When I applied to study journalism at university many years ago, I remember my excitement at the possible news careers I would choose from. From war reporter to investigative journalist, I was genuinely enthused by the field’s potential.
Over the course of the next four years I lost most of my passion and fire. To be frank, most of my optimism bled out on the floor of my Print Journalism class. It was here — twice a week for my first two semesters — that I learned the cold reality of news construction.
The tug of war between the advertising and editorial teams for page real estate, the need to angle stories to appeal to audience concerns, and the power of the absurd in capturing readers’ attention. Man bites dog, anyone?
After graduation, I shied away from a career in general news reporting and pursued business news, comforted by company financials and hard data.
In the ensuing years, however, I’d tell anybody who would listen (very few it turns out) that they needed to lean on multiple news sources, including at least one newswire. This would allow them to sample multiple narratives and build a more complete picture of events than any one outlet could provide.
I debated with colleagues over why I thought audiences were right to take what they read and heard with a pinch of salt, and that they needed to “fact check” their news sources by reading around. I, however, wasn’t suggesting the media lacked integrity, rather that each and every media organization has an agenda.
This is hardly breaking news or a particularly shocking revelation. It’s always been that way and that’s just fine. News outlets need to give audiences what they want or the lights will eventually be turned off. While agenda can be something of a controversial word when discussing the news, we need some mainstream dialogue on the subject. In its continued absence, how will the sector tackle the continued loss of public trust?
When looking at a chart, whether it be the top songs in a given year or the highest-grossing films of all time, one understands that first place is objectively the best. To earn that top spot they put in the most effort and reached higher than all others.
What the number of streams, the final dollar amount at the box office or the number of tickets sold on a tour cannot convey is the amount of strategy dedicated to realizing that outcome. Our culture is one that prioritizes numbers, the higher the better. More, more, more.
But what happened to quality over quantity?
Similar phenomena — that is, prioritizing metrics in a way that aims to pad revenue and establish some form of predominance — have rippled throughout television, gaming and, more recently, podcasting.
This is the topic Harry Clark of Soundrise discusses in his guest post on metrics in podcasting.
Creating great content that drives traffic and engagement is the goal of every content marketer, digital publisher or SEO agency. Developing a process to optimize your content for maximum impact, on the other hand, can be a major challenge for some.
In this guide, Narcis Bejtic from Content Refined shares a variety of tips and tricks on how to get the most out of your content marketing efforts. From understanding your audience to choosing the right keywords, we’ve covered proven practices that improve results.
Header bidding is the talk of the town in the digital publishing and advertising industries, and for good reason.
In the US, more than 70% of digital publishers reported using header bidding in the first quarter of 2022 alone. Globally, 12.5% of the top 10,000 websites now use header bidding instead of the pre-existing waterfall system for auctioning inventory. This switch to header bidding follows on the back of a widespread consensus that header bidding is both more transparent, and generates higher revenues for publishers.
On the flip side though, header bidding is a more advanced monetization technique, and requires a certain level of technical expertise on the part of the publisher. This means there is a significant opportunity for any ad tech firm that can make life easier for publishers implementing header bidding.
Setupad claims to do just that. Join us as we weigh up Setupad’s pros and cons and see how well it delivers on its promises.
Learn a technical and content SEO strategy that helps digital publishers increase their organic traffic by 100-500%. Enroll in the Publisher SEO course.
Want to see what the learning experience is like? Sign up to access the free module on Google's Top Stories.