Yushui Village in Lijiang, Yunnan, with snow mountain backdrop and cascading waterfalls.
9/12/2006
what if i own a main stream media
I was having a discussion with a very senior journalist on what I could do if I own a MSM. I have to brag about 'very senior journalist' to give it a little weight. If I were to say that I was talking to myself, people would just brush it off. Now the eyes and ears are wide open.
Ok, let's talk about the content of the media, international relations, domestic issues, social, political economics, sports and funs etc. I will start with international news. I think this is a lucrative source of revenue for MSM. Many countries, especially the rich and powerful ones, would like to set their agenda. Country A may want to condemn country B as a terrorist nation, or branded country C as a rogue nation. Or some may want to blaster another country for abuse of human rights.
Now if I were the MSM owner, I will willingly print what they want me to print in my press. But I will ask how much? These countries must be made to pay for their propaganda in my press. And there is no reason for me to help them to badmouth other countries for free. What is worst, or silly, is to publish their propaganda, get into the bad books of the wronged countries and still have to pay for them.
I am sure many MSM are making tons of money doing this. I don't believe they will be silly enough to be paying to do this dirty job for other countries.
Domestic News forms the bulk of any main stream papers and also incurs the most cost. Reporters and journalists are needed to cover every corner of the domestic front. But this can be better managed when domestic news is factual reporting. O or A level reporters are all that is needed when reporting does not cross into serious analysis and commentary of events. That would save a lot of cost.
ReplyDeleteAnother major cost area is reporting on domestic politics. There is no need to employ journalists and reporters covering this area. Just hook up a fax machine to all the ministries and govt departments for minister speeeches or ministry issued statements and published them verbatim. The cost of covering domestic news will be a few high school level reporters and a fax machine.
With increasing revenue from publishing foreign propaganda and lowering cost in domestic news, the increase in net income could be quite significant.
The reporting of sports news should rightly be a source of revenue for the media. Sports news must be of sports that have mass appeal. The rest are really quite irrelevant. For the moment, the most important and sought after news is football, the English Premier League type. Not half baked football leagues with half baked players behaving like world cup stars.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have seen the local media devoting tens of pages on European and British football and written by local sports reporters. Just like we think that local news or Asian news is best covered and reported by the local reporters with local favour and interpretations, it is best that such football news be reported by their own people who live there and among the players. If I will to do it, it will be best to just publish whatever the clubs want to publish and treat them as advertisements. Let them pay for their own advertisements.
In this way the media can save money paying foreign reporters and get paid for advertising for these clubs. Wow, no cost but got income. The fax machine will come in handy as well, doing multi tasking.
The reporting of sports news should rightly be a source of revenue for the media. Sports news must be of sports that have mass appeal. The rest are really quite irrelevant. For the moment, the most important and sought after news is football, the English Premier League type. Not half baked football leagues with half baked players behaving like world cup stars.
ReplyDeleteAnd I have seen the local media devoting tens of pages on European and British football and written by local sports reporters. Just like we think that local news or Asian news is best covered and reported by the local reporters with local favour and interpretations, it is best that such football news be reported by their own people who live there and among the players. If I will to do it, it will be best to just publish whatever the clubs want to publish and treat them as advertisements. Let them pay for their own advertisements.
In this way the media can save money paying foreign reporters and get paid for advertising for these clubs. Wow, no cost but got income. The fax machine will come in handy as well, doing multi tasking.
What the English Media lacks is a paper that publishes juicy and saucy news, gossips, rape, adultery, petty thefts etc. The vernacular papers are selling very well on this model. The closest the English media got to is to write on quarrels with salesgirls or chicken rice sellers. And yes, fighting between cooks and patrons.
ReplyDeleteThere is a niche for the English Media to cover. Not everyone wants to read the Financial Times or Business Times. Those papers are good to hold while in the train. It gives people the impression that the reader is serious and high brow. But the people who really read their papers are those browsing throw gossips and looking out for juicy articles to read.
And getting this kind of reports does not need the services of high brow and high salary journalists and reporters. Just get the non graduates to cover them will do. Ha, low cost and high readership.