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I signed on the CNN.com this morning and saw a curious thing. Under “Popular on Facebook” was the name of Jim Kavanagh, a former colleague of mine who now works for the CNN.com out of Atlanta. He was recommending a story.
The previous day, I had noticed Jim recommend another story.
I don’t recall the coverage he called out, but that’s OK. He’ll likely point out something else later today or in the ensuing days.
Welcome to the continually blurring lines between social media and mainstream media. Thanks to changes in Facebook designed to expand the service’s horizons, mainstream media are moving fast to become more interactive, more relevant, and more immediate. In other words, more fun.
Who’s jumping on this bus? Try ABC, ESPN, along with CNN and others. The New York Times is preparing its own version of Facebook interaction, according to this article by the Poynter Institute’s Mallary Jean Tenore.
ABCNews.com now features an “ABC News on Facebook” module that “that lets users who are signed into the site via Facebook Connect see the number of people who have “liked” a story,” Trenore said.
Jonathan Dube, vice president in charge of ABCNews.com, told Trenore that he “hopes the new features will motivate people to stay on the site longer and ultimately decrease its bounce rate. So far, the results have been promising.
“We’ve seen an over 250 percent increase in referrals from Facebook to ABC News since the launch of the Social toolkit on ABCNews.com,” Dube told her.
The Washington Post has launched a “Network News” feature, which integrates Facebook’s new plugins in a module that appears on the Post’s home page, article pages, blog posts and videos.
Washington Post Managing Editor Raju Narisetti told Trenore that the goal is to help increase engagement on washingtonpost.com and give people a way to see what their Facebook friends are reading without ever having to leave the Post’s site.
“We find that, increasingly, it’s important for us to go where audiences are,” he told her. “A lot of our content is circulated on Facebook, so we ought to make it easier for our readers who are on Facebook to share content and also see what their friends like and are reading without having to leave our site.”
The blurring of Facebook and mainstream media boundaries is bound to upset some who want their news sites separate from their social sites. But revenue starved media increasingly are going where their audiences are, as Narisetti said. So if you “like” Facebook, will you “like” ABC News?
I did.
The Time magazine cover was compelling. People were standing on a white cover in the form of letters spelling “JOBS” The headline continued, “Where They Are And How to Find Them.”
The Fortune redesign caught my eye. Managing Editor Andy Serwer explained the magazine would continue to produce in-depth articles, but it was adding more news their readers could use. “How to manage their careers – including ways to think more entrepreneurially – in and outside of large companies.” Much of this news will now appear in two new sections in Fortune called Careers and Venture.
As the nation tentatively feels its way out of recession, the media increasingly are trying to cover the story, from the macro-perspective of national trends to the micro-consumer news. Information on how companies can “think more entrepreneurially” is becoming increasingly valuable, along with the articles on how small businesses can compete globally without adding staff, and how those who lost their jobs can transition into a new career.
There is a great deal of media attention being paid to these topics. Along with Time and Fortune, monitor the Wall Street Journal’s small business coverage. Reporter Sarah Needleman recently moved to the team, after a stint covering career issues.
Bloomberg BusinessWeek’s small business channel is filled with news entrepreneurs can use, as is Inc magazine. CNNMoney.com has a small business channel, including a section page called “Innovation Nation.”
Forbes magazine prides itself on its coverage of entrepreneurs and small business. It’s Boost Your Business contest is highly regarded.
The careers and small business coverage used to be relegated to the back of the media bus, but no more. An increasing portion of the nation is involved in career change and entrepreneurial activity, including big businesses adopting the best practices of entrepreneurial innovation. The media are noticing, a facilitating the trend with additional information.
The spat that erupted between the White House and CBS over a blog post this week has very little to do with politics, and a whole lot to do with how the media use bloggers and other independent contributers to fill out and spice up their Web sites.
In case you missed the recent dust up, Howard Kurtz of the Washington Post provides an excellent summary in this article.
In essence, CBS News posted an online article by blogger Ben Domenech making assertions that Solicitor General Elena Kagan is gay. This was a timely post, as Kagan is said to be a leading candidate to replace retiring Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens.
The White House denied the assertion, accused Domenech of shoddy work, including “plagiarism” and asked CBS to pull the blog off the Web site.
Like many media, CBS initially declined. After all, once published, broadcast or posted, it is difficult for media to withdraw coverage. It is the media’s role to be an independent, third party and government watchdog. Withdrawing coverage already in the public domain appears to be giving in to pressure, in this case, exerted by the White House. At the very least, recalling copy involves admitting a pretty large error.
As Kurtz reports, CBS eventually pulled the blog posting after “Domenech said he was merely repeating a rumor.”
Bloggers have become increasingly important to mainstream media. Of course, the unavoidable in that relationship is the media are increasingly dependent on bloggers to provide accurate and fair coverage. Many do. But in this case, CBS seems to have been vulnerable to reporting that did not meet its standards.
Few media will criticize CBS for this one. To varying extents, they all are vulnerable to the same malady.
