Devoted to show business and the entertainment industry

In an article called, 'And Seven More Things to Look Forward to in 2007,' the writer quotes Michael Rogers, a media consultant for the New York Times (NYT) concerning what they need to do to become competitive in the new media environment.

Here are some of his comments:

"We really need to think about what it means to be in an interactive environment and have an audience that wants to communicate with us." From this opening comment, he is already missing the point. The last part of the sentence shows that he's already off track. The implication is that there is an audience out there that wants to communicate with them. In other words, thinking of a monologue rather than a dialogue.

Next he says:

"When these new ideas come along, things become polarized very quickly - it's newspapers versus bloggers, user-generated content versus network television."

Of course it does. The marketplace is to be competitive. As far as the polarization goes, the fault lies with old media that still refuses to open up the gates and be more of empowerers, rather than controllers.

Lastly he adds:

The challenge for media companies, Rogers says, is to figure out how to "keep the necessary authority that's taken many decades to establish, but still have our audience participate."
 
Here's where he finally reveals the ultimate problem that still hounds old media companies. They're still trying to be gatekeepers and maintain the 'priesthood.'

Think of the words he uses: 'necessary authority.' They're still trying to figure out how to keep it. This is focus that is completely on the wrong thing. Essentially he's saying that they want to keep their authority based on the fact that they've operated for decades. So what? But what's even more insulting is the way he talks down to people in saying that while they keep that authority, they will throw a few bread crumbs from the table out there to the audience so they can have their opportunity to communicate with the 'experts.' Yawn.

This is a huge reason why there will continue to hemorrhage readers.

But the odd think as it specifically relates to the New York Times is that they were losing readers even before the emergence of citizen media. Speaking of polarizing, they have gone so far out of the mainstream, that they aren't even considered credible by millions of Americans.

It's not just the technological ability to do these things easily that's released the avalanche of the democratization of the media, it has also been the arrogance of the media companies in how they've handled themselves as temporary caretakers that has spurred this onslaught of new user-generated media. It will never go back to business as usual in that sense. To believe so and look for ways to recapture it is an exercise in futility.