Changing the News Perspective : Is podcasting a threat?

And happy-hello if you’ve landed here from LinkedIn where I launched this newsletter as an LI-enabled newsletter last week.?

I’m in another rabbit hole right now …?

Because tomorrow our team from Story Studio Network is heading to Radio Days North America in downtown Toronto.?

I’m pumped because it’s an opportunity for me to really dive in to see how SSN is positioned against not just other podcast companies, but also the big guys in the ‘nooz’ biz and how they are leveraging emerging platforms to cultivate new audiences and tell new stories.?

In a recent episode of the Broadcast Dialogue podcast, Radio Days co-organizer and veteran radio man Ross Davies lamented that local news, and the media business in general, was being “threatened” by podcasters.?

I gotta say, it perked my ears way up when I heard him say that.

Because that’s not at all how I see it.?

That threat is an opportunity. So let’s dig in, shall we?

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If you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change…?

How is this true for modern media? And for the news business in particular?

We’ve been cultured to look at media a certain way… In fact, I often think those who work in news media and production are the worst culprits of the ‘this is how it’s done’ type attitude.?

I remember one of my first philosophy classes at University of Toronto - Professor Ronnie De Souza … eccentric as you can imagine, and quirky.?

I adored his class.?

And on day one, we all shuffled into the Isabelle Bader Theatre (it had just been built!) and witnessed Ronnie sitting on a chair, centre stage, with a giant projected screen behind him… with this drawing and the question - ‘what do you see?’?

We spent the next hour unpacking how each one of us saw the shape - a circle with two lines - differently.?

Some saw a planet.?

Others saw a ball of yarn.?

Some saw a dinner plate with a fork and knife.?

Others took it literally and said it was a line drawing of a circle and a line.?

I remember feeling slightly uncomfortable because there were some in the class who were clearly frustrated by the assignment.?

They saw it as one thing and couldn’t make space for the drawing to be anything other than what they believed it to be. (*Cough - the majority of these folks were the literalists who wanted to end the conversation at ‘this is a circle with a line’).?

But when I felt into the energy of those who laughed their way through the class, joyfully shouting out hilarious notions of what that diagram could be - I felt what Ronnie wanted us to feel about philosophy …. and about perspective.?

That the question is just the beginning.?

He was teaching us to put down ingrained beliefs and enter a state of suspended belief.?

What if it was a balloon balancing on a sewing needle??

Or the underside of a conical party hat, and the lines were the strings that had been cut to save old Uncle Albert from death by party hat ligature??

Or as Ronnie said at the end of the class…?

What if we’re looking down??

And it’s a person wearing a wide brimmed hat riding a bicycle??

Now what if we did the same thing for media and the news writ large.?

What if we flipped it all on its head?

What if we stopped conflating the distribution infrastructure with the content… or better yet the content with the ideas?

What if we broke our understanding of ‘if it bleeds it leads’??

What if we intentionally challenged the very concept that selling audiences is the only way to monetize media?

(And here I sit as a student of George Grant, McLuhan and Chomsky, acknowledging that this request sparks a personal existential crisis).

What if we stopped believing that the news machines that built the current system are the news machines that will inform us into the future??

I’ve already written extensively about the challenges of trying to jerry-rig the news biz of the 80s and 90s into the hearts and minds of Millennials, but recent research by the Pew Institute says it better than I do, with more facts and figures.?

News consumption is now niche.?

And ‘the news’ is divorcing itself from old-school distribution; peeling back reliance on cable lines, tv subscriptions, day parts, HD receivers, and mainstream ‘big networks’.

Doc Ronnie’s simple ‘circle with a line’ is becoming the person wearing a wide brimmed hat riding a bicycle.

It’s no longer <Broadcast News at the Top and Bottom of the Hour on the AM dial> (please, if you’re a Canadian media nerd, hear that line in your head in the voice of the great Terry Scott).

It’s <My News, My Way, On My Time>.

And podcast technology and distribution is, in part, driving this cultural shift in perspective.?

I mean, we accidentally on purpose produce one of the most listened to current affairs and news shows at Story Studio Network.?

Now & Next (as well as its companion political weekly On The Ledge) were an internal, off-the-side-of-our-desk development project we launched simply to scratch our ‘daily news’ itch as broadcasters.?

But now both shows command thousands of downloads a month and have a dedicated and loyal audience.?

And they are technically news podcasts.?

(Please one day, over beers, ask me about the time a former boss ran up one side of me and down the other when I suggested we add a podcast into our news routine that contextualized the headlines… pretty please, ask me about that time… because now I’m eating my just desserts).?

If we change the way we look at ‘news business’, the ‘business of news’ will change.?

If we change the way we look at media, the process of creating it will change.

And I for one, am here for it.?

*Pops on wide brimmed hat. Hops on a bike. Rides into the sunset*?

Until next week,?

Erin?

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Hello btw ??I’m Erin Trafford.?

I’m an award winning broadcaster and I love the media business. I am currently the founder and CEO at Story Studio Network.?

Ask me about podcasts. Ask me about the future of news.?

Here are some other things to consider:?

>>> Work with Story Studio Network as your Podcast Partner?

For larger brands and organizations looking to drive a narrative, by integrating a branded podcast production into a larger earned media and marketing plan. Story Studio Network works with a select group of companies on branded, narrative style podcasts and/or editorial-media type productions. If you have a big idea or question about how a podcast can work for your organization, book a spot on my calendar here.