SUMMARY: Media sites like BuzzFeed and the Huffington Post continue to layoff staff. It’s a time when news organizations are losing visitors to their websites which in turn is going to lead to many shutting down. If content written by professional journalists is king why are these sites hurting so much?
We’ve been told, over and over, that content is king. Develop good content and people will flock to your website and your metrics will improve. Evidently, there needs to a big footnote to that philosophy.
The Times, New York’s Daily News, The Huffington Post, and others are all shedding journalist jobs. There can be only one reason for this; lack of traffic to charge a premium for advertisers. But why?
Why is the media shedding jobs?
1ne: In the U.S., roughly nine-in-ten adults (93%) get at least some news online(either via mobile or desktop), and the online space has become a host for the digital homes of both legacy news outlets and new, “born on the web” news outlets. While readership, online, is up the continued fragmentation of online media has hurt the industry overall.
2wo: The estimated total U.S. daily newspaper circulation (print and digital combined) in 2017 was 31 million for weekday and 34 million for Sunday, down 11% and 10%, respectively, from the previous year. This has affected revenue.
3hree: More and more people are getting news headlines on social media and just don’t have the time to read in-depth stories.
4our: Top online news sites are online portals not newspaper online sites.
5ive: The lack of in-depth reporting on some stories coupled with the proliferation of fake news.
My favorite online newspaper site is the New York Times but I have to admit that some of their stories are too long to read in a time compressed day. Like a lot of other people, I scan and power read stories but the Times could do more to communicate key points with story summaries and call-outs.
Content may be king, but the continued layoffs continue to show that only the RIGHT content is king. Today it’s not enough to just add content, you have the content that is most relevant to your audience.
