<\/p>\n
When it came to the switch from print to digital, the news media spent a long time pretending that it wasn\u2019t really happening and carried on much as it had always done. Partly this was the result of the decline of print being slow and, for a long time, profitable.<\/p>\n
One of the messages from Newsrewired, organised by the relaunched and renamed JournalismUK<\/a> this week in London, was that the current revolution will not allow that luxury of time or inaction.<\/p>\n In her opening address, Lucy K\u00fcng<\/a>, a strategic adviser to many news companies, talked about how traditional media was being squeezed from one side by creators, to whom some advertisers are already allocating 50% of their budgets, and generative AI solutions on the other. \u201cThe party is happening without classic media,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n She was stark about the challenge ahead. \u201cWe need to unlearn everything we learnt with digital \u2013 that transformation was slow, it took 25 years,\u201d she said. \u201cThe media led its consumers [to digital platforms] to a degree; now the customers are there in the creator ecosystem already. Things will move faster.\u201d<\/p>\n The trick for established media will be to co-opt creators, who are already showing the signs of burnout that afflicted the early bloggers: producing content daily over weeks, months and years inevitably takes its toll. Or to adopt their operational model.<\/p>\n Put simply, that is to focus on a \u201cmagic triangle\u201d of products around a niche subject, as K\u00fcng described it. For breadth of audience, you use newsletters; to add depth, you start a podcast (or two); to really serve your superfans, you run events.<\/p>\n It\u2019s a simple model but of course it will require news companies to move further into areas \u2013 podcasting and events \u2013 for which they will need to find new skills, people and budgets.<\/p>\n This will require a new way of operating, one that embraces change and is unafraid to jettison the past.<\/p>\n