In a piece by Michael Calderone & Daniel Libit on Politico.com, an
argument is made that for this year’s election cycle, cable and
broadcast news had been usurped by (gasp) Twitter streams of
influential political pros. And there’s a major insight in this for any
company looking to broaden its influence within its particular industry.
From the article’s top:
Political junkie Mike Murphy couldn’t get his fix while flipping through the cable networks Tuesday night.
“With a few exceptions,” Murphy told POLITICO, “like [James] Carville
on CNN or [Karl] Rove on Fox, I didn’t see people who know anything
about elections.”
For hardcore lovers of politics, Twitter served up the real-time nuts
and bolts of campaigns racing to the finish line. Top political
reporters like NBC’s Chuck Todd tapped away for hours as results came
in. Meanwhile, the Washington Independent’s Dave Weigel provided
constant, on-the-ground dispatches from New York’s 23rd congressional
district, with Twitpics inside Conservative Doug Hoffman headquarters
as the tide changed toward the Democrats. With each precinct reporting,
journalists and junkies offered quick takes, both amusing and
analytical.
Only more evidence of what we’ve said in this space before — people
like content that features true expertise and useful insights. While
CNN, MSNBC and FOXNEWS provide a fun rip roaring run through the
hot-and-bothered opinion-driven political sphere, the people who work
in politics want facts, insights and relevance — sometimes from the same employees of these networks without all the chuffa-chuffa of the network.
Too much media strategy
has been placed on appealing to the most viewers possible…including
vast millions who tune in these cable shows with no real interest in
politics beyond the joy of getting worked up. (Same thing for when they
are in traffic getting cut off, yelling at a drive-thru clerk for
botching an order or arguing with a gate agent at LAX. Is this really
the demo a network wants to offer up to advertisers?)
As a veteran of the newspaper/radio/TV/Web media circuit, I’ve been
through streams of editors who thought dumbing-down the coverage to
appeal to “real people” was the answer to the creeping irrelevance
everyone is fighting in a splintered media market.
The problem is, dumbing down turns off the only people who mattered in
the first place — people who treat information, knowledge and insight
as a hot commodity. Those who have specialized in an area (Politico.com
is an example that comes to mind) have thrived in this challenging
market. And the insight for corporations who now feature Twitter
streams, Facebook news feeds, blogs and the like is that you can truly
own a conversation by putting your expertise front and center in front
of the world…cover your industry honestly, with enthusiasm, gusto and
sophistication and watch the world of influencers flock to your
doorstep.
–Mike Hudson
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