It's hard to miss a parade, but somehow mainstream media did.When I worked in TV news in Knoxville, Tenn., it was the stuff that made news producers salivate: a local connection to a series of bombings in England. We immediately put a reporter on the next flight to London to interview two local teens who were injured. Wouldn't our competitors be jealous? Wouldn't we rule the local TV news market? After a series of high-fives all around, we watched in disbelief as another local station beat us by reporting that the teens were already on a plane headed home.
I hated when our newsroom got scooped on a story. It usually led to a heated debate about what to do next: Should we play catch up? Should we look for another angle? Or since we didn't have it in the first place, should we just label it insignificant and move on?
I think option three is what most mainstream media (MSM) decided to do when new media offered new ways of reaching people. The all-powerful MSM thought they had a lock on getting the message out. Their mantra seemed to be: "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."
In the beginning, most MSM saw the Internet and interactive media as nothing more than add-ons to their existing brands. Many still do. Those who have seen the light are playing catch-up because what they once viewed as "insignificant" is eroding their customer base by meeting consumers' "on demand" information and entertainment needs.
The situation has lots of MSM dropping big bucks to jump onto the new media bandwagon. The problem is the parade's already passed by. To catch up, it looks like MSM will have to wade through a lot of what the parade's horses left behind.