Is there a ‘new journalism’?

Businesses no longer need to rely on advertising to reach their customers. A decent social media strategy can give them access direct.

I started working as a journalist in the mid-90s. Back then, the magazines and newspapers I worked on were crammed full of adverts that businesses placed in the hope of reaching customers.

The model was simple: journalists like me would produce news and features of sufficient interest to the general public that they would buy our publication. Our ad sales teams would then sell advertising space on the back of the popularity of our content, and focus on potential advertisers who might be particularly interested in a given subject matter.

To give an example: if I wrote a piece about tyres for 4x4s, the ad sales guys would make a special effort to call tyre suppliers, in the hope that they would buy ad space near to my feature. Readers who looked at my feature because they were in the market for some new tyres would then have details of potential suppliers right under their noses.

Although this model remains at the heart of most print publications, it’s under threat. Advertisers have always realised that such an approach is rather hit and miss, and there’s no reliable way to measure the return on their investment.

With the advent of social media, there is a real alternative. Rather than using traditional media outlets as a means of raising brand awareness, businesses can now go to their customers direct. Well-placed blogs, timely tweets and an active Facebook page all play their part in enabling businesses to communicate with their customers without the need for an intermediary.

Of course, this relies on businesses generating content that is genuinely interesting – and, preferably, not too salesy. And that means, for an old-school journalist like me, the skills I learnt back in the 90s retain their commercial value.

Because if businesses are serious about generating online content that will engage readers, who might then become customers, they need it to be written by people who have a feel for how to communicate with the general public. And that is the most important skill a journalist possesses – namely, the ability to become attuned to their readers, and generate content that will interest them.

So the new journalism involves producing content that is commissioned by businesses who want to reach their customers direct, rather than relying on the traditional ad sales model. In other words, it cuts out the middle man – with journalists working for commercial clients, rather than being employed or commissioned by publishers.

The new journalism model has weaknesses. It raises questions about the objectivity that has been a traditional hallmark of good journalism. And it doesn’t allow for the fact that for many people (me included) there’s nothing to compare to holding a magazine in your hands and flicking through its pages.

But if we think of the new journalism as a complement to, rather than a substitute for, the traditional model, it definitely gives businesses pause for thought when thinking about how to allocate their marketing spend.