The News Media is Becoming Extinct

Today is a great day to take a break and write this blog. 

Today is Memorial Day Monday and what I write below, is a nice match with the "memorial" part of the holiday name.

As I was getting ready to write this, I grabbed a great Southern Fried Chicken lunch at one of the great Atlanta hole-in-the-wall mom & pop restaurants.  As I sat pickin’ apart the chicken from the bones and taking a spoon full of home-made potato salad, I thought a lot about how I would best write this.

When I mentioned to the "grandmother" that cooks up the chicken, she said, "darlin', just tell it like it is!"

We are in the midst of watching an industry get slam dunked. And I’m not talking about the Big Brands mentioned in the last blog!

Gallop just released a study that evaluates sources that people trust and source that people don’t trust. Gallop has been doing the survey since 1972 – that’s 45 years ago!

In the release this year, the “national news media” scored rock bottom at the lowest level of trust since Gallop started the survey in 1972. 

“Full trust” in the news media posted only a single digit percentage!  “Total full trust” combined with “fair amount of trust” did not even secure a third of the participants at 31%. 

More people trusted banks, insurance salespersons, organized labor, the medical system, the police and the church than trusted the media! Only used car salespersons scored lower than the news media!

Folks, the news media is committing suicide!

A month ago, Fortune Magazine published the results of another study in which nearly two-thirds of the surveyed public believe that news journalists regularly “make-up” news – 64%. 

The Wall Street Journal printed a story last week that reported more people trust the Trump White House than the media!  37% of the respondents in the survey trusted that the White House was being truthful vs. 29% of the respondents trusted that the media was being truthful.

Nielsen also just issued a report in the last two weeks that radio news is at its lowest level of trust since 2013.

Having worked at Time-Warner and having worked with the CEO of CNN back then, it is difficult to say it, but I think CNN might be the root cause of the collapse.

While the bottom has broken out of CNN’s last several years of ratings, CNN needs to take on the responsibility from day #1 Ted Turner launched it.

Upon the launch of CNN, the news left behind its calling for news reporting and shifted hats to news entertainment.  After all, CNN was a commercial-supported 24/7 television network.

Oh I know, when CNN first launched, it was a replay of news most every 30 minutes.  BUT quickly the ratings it got from 6a-7a and again from 6p-7p waned. 

CNN then converted over to the new-talk forum from its radio cousins. 

And that is when broadcast news entered a new era. 

Then came MSNBC and then CNBC and then FOX News and then radio news nets fought for its slice of a slice-and-dice news entertainment genre.

With the onset of the Internet more than 20 years ago, those that thought that they still held control of news quickly added 24/7 “real-time” news websites.

As Millennials left behind the news-nets and the newspapers for social exchange, the news media bastardized itself even more with social media news feeds… or news media social feeds. 

LOL… it all adds another level of perspective to the trans-gender debate!

So where are we at today as I write this?

CNN is free-falling right now and has gotten beat out by MSNBC in primetime news!

CNN reaches 1.170 million households during primetime.  MSNBC reaches 1.174 million households during the same day part.

CNN’s ratings are down 47% from 18 months ago.  MSNBC rating are down 42%.

FOX News is not having party-time either.  While FOX News nets more viewers than CNN and MSNBC combined together during prime time for a total of 2.9 million households, its viewership is down 2% since 4^th quarter 2016. 

Some think that the FOX News slip will be more severe in 3^rd quarter 2017 as the network struggles finding talent replacement for its highest ratings hosts who are been let go for their confrontation with women.

The Big Three nets – ABC, NBC and CBS are seeing drops of more than 10% in their corresponding ratings... and that is after a decline of more than 35% in the last three years.

This past week, the news journalists spent more time foaming at the mouth about an encounter up in Montana with a congressional candidate and a small niche media journalist than reporting about a terror attack in Egypt or Wall Street stock market gains.

From the New York Times to the Washington Post to the Chicago Tribune, the big newspapers rank up even higher percentage on perceived “fake” news than the broadcast nets. 

Here in Atlanta, The Journal-Constitution (AJC) ran a series of stories highlighted on its website about the police and sexual abuse of their staff for six months.  Never found any similar news on the radio, broadcast TV or online during the same time period. 

The only winners coming out of all of this are the local community and alternative newspapers whose readership is actual increasing. 

Community Newspapers Inc. (CNI) is one of our clients.  CNI owns about three dozen small town newspapers in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida.  We also work with a set of suburban and alternative newsweeklies in greater Atlanta, North Carolina and Tennessee.

In surveys we do for the papers, local news and local events-entertainment take top slot in terms of importance among readers.

I work hard coaching the owners and editors to stay on track with reporting what is of value and avoiding editorial slants. 

Just before I started my company, I approached the University of Georgia Henry W. Grady College of Journalism and Mass Communications (that really is their name) and tried to set up a scholarship fund for advertising majors. 

When I called the Dean’s office, I was informed that he was very busy with the Peabody Awards, new faculty and relations with the large broadcast news media.

Thank God he was busy. 

Had I set up the scholarship fund, my money would not be reinforcing a basic skill, but instead churning out graduates focused on getting the ratings and readership up again with entertainment content vs. true and honest news.  

Will the news media correct itself and get out of the entertainment field?  No time soon from my perspective. 

Do brands need to re-think how they use the news media as a channel of communication?  Absolutely. 

My firm does a significant amount of work with politicians.  The strategy we have used in the past is getting re-engineered in terms of the role news media plays.  Media endorsements are not even a goal because the endorsement action itself affects the politician-brand in a way that is not necessarily positive.

People are running away from the news media and refocusing around what is real, honest, trusted and local.  

Millennials are buying homes and learning for the first time how to use push mowers.  Boomers are abandoning the East coast and West Coast urban centers for the more real, small town and in-town community hamlets. GenXers are replacing the kids soon-to-leave with volunteerism in the local non-profit and cause groups. 

Getting featured at Betty Crocker Cook-offs, Bud Beer horse-shoe tournaments, PTA meetings, 4-H clubs and Rotary meetings are bunches better than securing a TV newscast. 

Americans believe that those events are real, personal and genuine.  In an era of social media isn’t that what the techies strive for onine?

Nearly two-thirds of Americans believe those TV newscasts are fake.

I know where I am putting my bets.