I spoke yesterday with Ryan Squire, managing editor of NBC4 in Columbus. In a LinkedIn discussion about social media’s impact on journalism, Ryan shared with me that that NBC4 was shifting from a TV station to an “information aggregator.”
Information aggregator? I had to know more.
Television news, Squire says, is on its way to becoming an irrelevant product. Advertising, the financial fuel of TV, demands an audience, and TV news simply can’t deliver anymore.
The TV news industry has been slow to adapt to changes in communication technology. Camera crews are regularly scooped by a kid with a camera phone and a YouTube account. Bloggers break news immediately while TV crews have to wait for the 6 p.m. broadcast.
So how is NBC4 adapting? For starters, they’re redefining what it means to be a journalist. Instead of anchors, reporters and photographers, everyone will be a journalist – meaning they’ll have to be a little bit of everything.
They’re also embracing the convergence and evolution of technology. It’s not just about having a website; it’s about blogs, instant video uploads, Twitter. It’s about being more agile, more nimble.
How does this affect the PR community? Squire gave me some free advice: If you’re pitching a story to him, pitch it via Twitter. Email and fax pitches (what legitimate PR person faxes pitches?) are just noise to him.
Wow.
When Stowe Boyd conceived the Twitpitch, it was a novel concept that, in reality, only affected a handful of early adopters. But NBC4? That’s mainstream stuff. Has Twitter really reached critical mass?
The answer, I think, is no. And I think Squire would agree. I’m sure you can still send him an email. But the channel 4 news team’s use of Twitter is evidence of a paradigm shift. The Twitter limit of 140 characters per message forces you to get to the point. And isn’t that, in essence, what’s happening to TV news stations – a trimming of the fat, so to speak?
Here’s another thing: Squire doesn’t connect just for connection’s sake. He takes the community aspect of social media seriously, and he takes the community aspect of living in Columbus seriously, too. He’s got the whole newsroom thinking differently. Instead of sources, he’s taught his crew to think of people as…well, people.
Every member of his team gets time each week to go meet people. Today it’s the mayor, tomorrow some guys at the VFW, next week it’s a plumber in Westerville. And it’s not about conducting interviews and creating a news report. It’s about getting to know their audience. His people produce one or two fewer stories a day, but they magnify their goodwill tenfold.
What does tomorrow look like for NBC4? Citizen journalists instead of staff reporters? Grainy camcorder videos instead of professionally shot and edited footage? Information posted before a thorough fact check? Nobody knows, least of all Squire.
And that might not be such a bad thing.
(Editor’s Note: Living in Columbus? Did you know we have a PRstore in Columbus?)
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