Who is "The News Media?"

After writing almost 350-blogs, there's nothing I appreciate more than comments from the people who take the time to read them.

A recent question from a reader got me thinking about what we know as the news media today and more specifically, who is a part of it and who isn't. We know traditional media outlets are still part of the media, but what about podcasters, bloggers, online publications and right-wing reporting?

The simple answer is nobody really knows. It's subjective and in one case, the courts are trying to sort out who's legit and who isn't.

The Blurring of Media Lines

A couple of weeks ago, I did a blog titled The Unsexy Part of Dealing With Reporters. I wrote about the importance for organizations to have a policy, or at least a procedure to deal with media requests. It must also keep everyone on the same page when it comes to who speaks to the media and who doesn’t.

I got a thank you from a reader who also wrote “What about the flip side of it? As in "who do we recognize as media?" Any thoughts on organizational accreditation processes or how to deal with "media" that don't subscribe to conventional tenets of journalism (i.e., ethics), yet self-identify as media?”

Great questions. There’s no doubt the clear-cut lines of what we used to define as “the news media” have becoming much less clearly defined.

It used to be pretty simple. If you reported for a daily or weekly newspaper, a TV or radio station or network, or a magazine you were the news media. There was a long list of media outlets that clearly would fit into that category. In Alberta, it’s media outlets like the Edmonton Journal and Calgary Herald, CTV, Global, CBC, radio stations like 630 CHED, QR77 and many others, along with magazines like Maclean’s.

Gradually the lines blurred with the introduction of subscription-based news outlets, podcasts, bloggers, YouTubers, influencers, social media accounts, right-wing media organizations and others.

Who really is the media now?

The Blacklock's Example

The simple answer to that question is everyone.

The media has shifted. It’s no longer just traditional media, it’s all of the above.

As soon as someone tries to define what a media outlet is and isn’t, they run the risk of being wrong. A great example is Blacklock’s Reporter. In 2013, the Canadian Parliamentary Press Gallery in Ottawa attempted to deny the membership of Blacklock’s Reporter, demanding to know who was funding the outlet. This, despite the fact Blacklock’s owners were life-long journalists who’d been long- time members of the gallery while representing other media outlets. Blacklock’s is 100% subscriber-funded and produces some of the best journalism in Canada. Despite that, the battle with the Press Gallery is ongoing and currently before the courts. It’s run by former Edmonton journalists Holly Doan and Tom Korski.

If it’s not part of the media landscape these days then what is?

The problem is, not every little media engine that could is nearly as legit as Blacklock’s Reporter. Far too many are one-man gangs that try to look bigger than they are. When they report something inappropriate, you can’t call the person’s Editor, Publisher or News Director to complain because they don’t have one.

Many people simply decline interview requests. What's to gain?

Then there are the much bigger right-wing outlets in Canada like Rebel News and Western Standard. They obviously have an agenda in their reporting.

Recently I worked with a client that had a transgender issue. The client was concerned right-wing media would want to talk to them about the issue and the client wasn’t sure how to handle it.

Having said that, I know there are also organizations on the right side of the political spectrum that have no use for CBC and would rather not do interviews with CBC for the same reasons my client didn’t want to talk to Rebel News about the transgender story.

No Easy Answers

Answering the question of who’s legit and who isn’t certainly isn’t easy.

In many cases it's murky. Do you want to do an interview with a “reporter” who may have come at you with strange questions? Is their audience so small it’s really not worth your while?

These are good questions. There are no black and white answers. Just a lot of grey.

Here are a few things I do know. To start with, you need to do the same preparation to get ready for an interview with a blogger or a national reporter. You need to anticipate the questions you’re going to get and figure out what your answers will be. That doesn’t change.

I know people and the organizations they work for get concerned that some “non-traditional reporters” may ask more challenging questions. The reality is though is, the answers you give any reporter should be the same regardless of how the questions are asked. Even if the reporter is confrontational, your answers should be the same. How the question is asked shouldn’t change your answers.

The other thing I have learned is you can point to examples to show that a reporter for a small media outlet could work for a big media outlet with a huge audience later in their career. You may not want to waste your time being interviewed by somebody from a small newspaper, but that same reporter could be working for the Globe and Mail five years from now. That reporter will remember the time your spent with them.

The media has changed. Traditional media doesn’t have the power it once did. We need to understand that and move forward. Navigating our way is the hard part because there are no easy answers.