State of Media: Can Journalism Be a Phoenix?

In this series, professionals debate the state – and future – of their industry. Read all the posts here and write your own (use #MyIndustry in the body of your post).

As the tech media obsessively writes about "Unicorns" — startups with billion-dollar valuations — there's a question to be asked about our own industry and another mythological creature. Can journalism be a Phoenix and like that resilient bird, rise from the ashes of charred newspapers?

There's no question: journalism is undergoing a transformation thanks to technology. It's changing the game in reporting, producing and disseminating news and analysis. Technology has brought down the cost, leveled the playing field, and empowered individuals. It has changed who can produce news content, and how they get it out there. What's not yet been figured out is who profits — and how.

Just take a look at Apple's new News app unveiled at its Worldwide Developer Conference. Replacing Apple's 'Newsstand' app, which required users to hunt and peck and in the old fashioned way one would a real newsstand, the News app will make it easier for people to browse content—articles, photos videos—with an interface designed for mobile devices and a generation raised on newsfeed.

It's far too soon to say how successful the News app will be, but the good news for publishers is that not only does it make it easier to find and engage readers, but they get to keep all the ad revenue from ads within the app, and 70% of revenue from ads around their content that Apple sells.

A sign of hope: Traditional publishers including the New York Times, Conde Nast, and Hearst are on board. In fact, the Grey Lady has made a number of bold moves to explore new distribution models to gain better traction amongst mobile and younger readers, and grow ad revenue.

For the first time The New York Times—along with The Atlantic, The Guardian, and digital content companies such as BuzzFeed—will publish stories directly onto Facebook as part of its 'Instant Articles' initiative. The idea is that readers shouldn't have to leave Facebook and redirect over to the New York Times to read a full piece. 

The risk: positioning articles among status updates means the Times loses out on the browsing that happens once people have decided to enter its digital walls. People are less likely to partake in the rest of what the paper has to offer if they never enter its ecosystem. The benefit? Readers are more likely to get sucked in and read a whole article as they scroll through, which means more revenue.

The storied publisher is counting on its content — and Facebook’s better interface — to outweigh any risk of losing out traffic. It seems worth the risk to breathe new life into the publisher's distribution and revenue into its coffers.

The publisher needs to take that leap now that there's a truly dizzying array of places to find high-quality journalism. Medium, the kind of anti-Twitter home for long-form articles founded by Twitter's former CEO, is a whole new kind of self-publishing platform, which also helps surface the best content. BuzzFeed is investing in not just listicles, but in hiring real investigative journalists, and beefing up its bureaus around the world..

And what about the wave of departures from traditional outlets as journalists leave to hang their own shingle. Alexia Tsosis recently announced she's stepping down as co-editor of TechCrunch to go to business school "probably, simultaneously, working on my own thing like everyone I know."  

That “everyone” means journalists, not just entrepreneurs. And naturally, those covering tech are those most likely to take those tools to do their own thing. Former technology writer for the Wall Street Journal Evelyn Rusli says she's now "building something." Jessica Lessin left the Wall Street Journal several years ago to found "The Information," a subscription model for in-depth tech-focused business journalism.

But there are a lot of question about whether entrepreneurial journalists can go it alone. Take Kara Swisher and Walt Mossberg, who famously split from the Wall Street Journal to launch independent Recode.net -- their particular brand of breaking tech news and analysis, plus a valuable conference business.  Eighteen months later, just a few weeks ago, they sold to Vox Media, writing that they will "gain new resources and colleagues that will help us grow." (Note: my employer CNBC has a strategic partnership with and investment in ReCode.)

They need scale so they can focus on the content. And they need to focus on content because everyone's competing with everyone.

When I left Fortune Magazine and the print publishing world nine years ago I was entering an entirely separate world of television. But now, we're all creating print and video content and putting it online. At CNBC we also happen to be broadcasting live over the air, which is a massive source of advertising and subscription revenue. But as we write more articles and traditional print outlets including the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times broadcast live shows online and send their journalists into the field with video cameras, distinctions are disappearing.

So what is the state of the industry? It's in transition. I'm confident that the journalists will keep writing and producing, and will find new ways to get their content out there. What’s unclear is whether the traditional outlets will be the ones to profit from the persistent demand for content on all these new platforms.

Every year I’m asked by aspiring journalists what route they should take to be successful in this day and age. The challenge — especially when speaking to students — is that the field is changing so quickly. By the time they graduate, there could be some new startup like BuzzFeed, or some new distribution format like Facebook’s “Instant Articles.”

So my advice is simple, and hasn’t changed much in the past few years despite the ongoing evolution of the industry: great content, expertise, and specialization will continue to be valued. I tell young journalists to start writing for whatever publication they can find, or even to publish themselves. And to figure out what field they’re most passionate about, so they can start to dig in deep. Who knows what platform will come next for distributing and consuming content — I can’t imagine what wearable devices we’ll be attached to five years from now. But I bet we’ll still be reading and watching on them — consuming more content than ever.