By Jeff Rowe
Reporting and producing news accurately is getting significantly harder, and never before has the business of journalism been so perilous.
Those themes emerged on Thursday at the CNPA Capital Conference, themed “Rebuilding Trust in an Age of Disinformation.”
It’s not just that the hoped-for ad bump exiting Covid didn’t arrive, but every aspect of revenue generation for news organizations emerges as a danger zone.
In her presentation on the lawless arena for advertising, Claire Atkin of Check My Ads showed how unwitting advertisers find their ads appearing on websites spewing conspiracy theories or hate.
“We uncover lies told to advertisers,” Atkin said.
Richard Gingras, vice president of news at Google, led the audience on a speed-walk through Google’s “evolving” immersion into journalism.
Some publishers view Google as a behemoth eating their ads and readership, but Gingras presented a spirited defense.
Google has enabled news organizations to get wider dissemination of their news, trained 400,000 journalists in search techniques and invested $75 million in news literacy, he noted.
The biggest challenge to news organizations is relevance, Gingras said, citing the decline in citizen engagement with mainstream news organizations and “the drift to partisan news.”
His advice: “We need to develop some new recipes” for our news presentations and “innovate together.” Part of that innovation, Gingras said, will involve artificial intelligence, which Google is increasingly using.
Was the audience of publishers, editors and business managers convinced that Google can be a friend in their quest? Judging from the polite applause, skepticism lingers.
Few sure solutions to any of the challenges the news media faces emerged, but questions abounded.
For example, does the public benefit from the profusion of polls during election campaigns, or would coverage be of greater benefit directed to issues?
Tom Bevan, founder of Real Clear Politics, said he doesn’t know. What he is sure of is that “people want to know who is leading” and “we provide (that information.)”
Moreover, some of the new polling organizations that emerge in every election angle their questions in an effort to shape a certain narrative or to raise money, he said.
Advising political campaigns is where David Axelrod earned a national reputation guiding President Obama. He said cable news and social media have exacerbated the descent of politics into outrageous behavior, tribal allegiances and acidic exchanges.
“It really matters where people get their information,” he said, noting that “facts are relative” thinking has permeated what had been rational thought.
“The country is tired of constant warfare over politics,” he said.
News media encouragement at CapCon came from perhaps a surprising source: state Assemblyman Heath Flora (R-Ripon) and his legislative outlook panel mate, state Sen. Mike McGuire (D-Healdsburg), the majority leader.
The two outlined legislative plans for the budget, homelessness, housing and water. They said they agreed on far more than they disagreed.
Flora told attendees “not to be discouraged” and that he personally appreciated their efforts in producing credible news reporting.
This was too much for at least one person in the audience, who filed a written question wondering if an episode of the long-ago surreal television show “Twilight Zone” was being produced.
“Let’s try to rebuild that local community trust,” said Flora.
On that, everyone agreed.
Sundry items from the day’s presentations;
- Total websites around the world: 1.7 billion.
- For small publishers, polling likely will remain out of reach because of the expense. Tom Bevan of Real Clear Politics said that to get 1,000 responses, 50,000 telephone calls need to be made.
- Political campaign strategist David Axelrod likened running for president to “an MRI for the soul.”
- CNPA General Council Brittney Barsotti said her office defeats “repeated” efforts to eviscerate the Brown Act, the state’s open-meeting law.
- California has an estimated 100 million dead and dying trees, casualties of drought and pests.
Jeff Rowe is a freelance writer, entrepreneur and educator in Long Beach. Read his Wednesday coverage of CapCon2023.
