Journalism flooded with numbers

There is a saying that the most dangerous act is a journalist trying to do math. However, as we near the end to 2007, this is exactly what the journalism industry is being asked to do in light of the many changes facing its future.

With the arrival of internet journalism, the industry as a whole is facing changes in their audience size, demographics and passion for the content. With these and other issues facing facing the future of journalism, decision-makers across the spectrum should remember two words: Specialized Subscription.

In sports for example, the numerous outlets to get information are growing by the day. You have national brands like ESPN, Sports Illustrated and Sporting News to name a few which have wire services and cover the national scene of sports. However to separte themselves from each other and the rest of the competition, ESPN and Sporting News have added extra in-depth content that is available on a subscription base more.

In this way, if you can lure readers to your specialized content, then they will be more likely to read your free content over other sites. Thus, you are increasing your audience which in turn will increase your advertising revenue.

Another example is the work done by Rivals.com on college athletic recruiting. They took a very specialized topic and honed in on it enough to warrant a fan to pay the subscription price. Recruiting is covered sparingly in local newspapers and more on national levels, but the idea to be specialized and charge for it has proved to be a good business move so far. Rivals.com was recently bought by Yahoo!.

The purist will say that Journalist write and shouldn’t worry about the numbers that churn their industry, but that’s just naïve. It is time the journalism community adapts and learns to swim with this flood of numbers instead of being overtaken by them.