By DAVID A. CHAUVIN //
Well, it’s official: The Giants are rebuilding.
It wasn’t too long ago that I was sipping a freshly brewed preseason cup of false hope, as news outlet after news outlet predicted Big Blue would make a 2021 playoff run. And yet, here we are again.
Nobody and nothing beat the New York Giants when it comes to proving the folly of predicting the future. This is especially true in an epoch of omnipresent news coverage. Some prognosticators are better than others, and studies have shown that accurate predicting is a skill that can be developed over time. But the large majority of predictions are no more than hot takes – especially when it comes to guesses on the economy, politics, sports and, of course, the media.
Consider: Every year, pundits forecast the coming 12 months will bring an inevitable end to traditional journalism and news media. They’re always wrong. Journalism isn’t dying – but it is changing in dramatic ways.
There’s a morbid journalism meme I’ve seen circulating on Twitter: “Every time we print an obituary, we lose another subscriber.” That’s darkly funny, but behind the scenes, news outlets are actually pivoting to meet readers where they are.
Take, for example, The New York Times’ recent purchase of The Athletic, the once-revolutionary digital-sports news outlet whose 2016 launch was supposed to signal the death knell of traditional sports media.
David Chauvin: Media on the move.
The Athletic’s plan was to recruit name-brand reporters from established news outlets – those who’d been laid off, or were burnt out from the constant demand to produce rushed click-bait – and present their work on a sleek, modern, advertisement-free website. The catch, of course, was a subscription fee to access The Athletic’s terrific content.
The digital publication valued depth over breadth, a throwback to the days of Grantland Rice. It became famous for breaking landmark sports stories, including the Houston Astros sign-stealing scandal. It was to be the media outlet for the digital age, uninhibited by the stuffiness – or economic realities – of traditional media.
And now it’s been bought by The New York Times.
The irony of The Athletic being purchased by the epitome of what it intended to destroy is amusing, but from a journalistic standpoint, it’s incredibly exciting. It shows how news outlets are embracing new ways to tell stories.
There’s no question that the importance and popularity of digital news platforms have increased exponentially. People rely more than ever on mobile devices and social media, and many are exploring new storytelling avenues.
Consider how Newsday is augmenting its platform with the Newsday LIVE virtual panel discussion series. News12 has used Facebook and other social channels to extend coverage and directly engage with Long Islanders. Innovate Long Island has been leading the charge for seven years now, adding an incredibly engaging and inspiring podcast in 2021 (on which I really hope to be a guest one day).
Meanwhile, traditional print – contrary to longstanding opinions – isn’t exactly going away. According to the Pew Research Center, 2020 was the best year for U.S. newspaper circulation in a dog’s age; even excluding large national publications such the NYT, The Wall Street Journal and The Washington Post, Pew reports that newspapers saw more revenue from circulation than advertising in 2020 for the first time in nearly seven decades.
The more things change, the more they stay the same. But as the news media continue to evolve to meet the public’s changing appetites, one thing will always stay constant: We’re in the business of telling stories.
On a separate note, it was recently announced that four senior News 12 Long Island reporters – and dear friends – have left the station this past week: Shari Einhorn, Christine Insinga, Jackie Lukas and Jamie Stuart. We are forever grateful for their advocacy, diligence and commitment to Long Island.
David A. Chauvin is executive vice president of ZE Creative Communications.
Another insightful column by David Chauvin. Indeed the New York Times’ acquisition of The Athletic is a prime example of how traditional news outlets are evolving to meet today’s audience needs. As far as the departure of those four News 12 veteran journalists, they did not just “leave the station,” they were fired, excessed, laid-ff, dismissed . . . in short, their “sell by date” had passed. Altice, which owns News 12, made it clear that they value corporate profits over good journalism, something that has been in short supply on Long Island with the ever shrinking newsrooms across the Nassau-Suffolk region.