The answer is content? If so, what content?

When I had worked for a local broadcasting company as a news reporter from 1995 to 2009, not only my colleagues in charge of management but also reporters were often asked to have entrepreneurial spirit by a CEO. At that time, most of the reporters including me harbored ill feeling against the demand, thinking that journalists should only concentrate on ‘the holy work,’ not on business-oriented work. This might show that journalists were reluctant to be involved in setting the course of their companies.  

I think that Picard’s argument is sarcastic, but hit the mark. The time has come for journalists to “find ways to alter journalism’s practice and skills to create new economic value.” To do so, what kind of labor do journalists sell in the market for revenue? Do they have to go out to the street to distribute and sell the news? Should journalists be nervous about new technologies? I totally agree on Picard’s opinion, “it is not just a matter of embracing uses of new technologies.” Technology is just a tool that provides journalists with a better way to do their journalistic practices. The answer is content!

If so, however, what is the information that customers (readers, listeners, and viewers) cannot receive elsewhere? How can it be attained to produce unique news content? What is the value of journalists’ labor above the level such as accessing sources, determining significance and effective presentation? What are the unique skills, abilities, and knowledge of journalists that deserve high pay?

It must be one of the effective tactics for attracting customers to provide differentiated product (information and news) through coverage of specialized news areas. However, coverage of specialized areas seem to have been already overflowed, and hence outdated. To my mind, thus, more valuable is in-depth and substantial exploration of certain issues and implications of events and trends, which provides new perspectives on news with something novel and hence can be uniqueness. I’d like to ponder a proverb, “there is much less water to drink when flooding.”

Below are two Time stories about the gloomy future of journalism and how to save it.
The Future of Journalism: Good for You, Scary for Us   
What Price Journalism? What Would You Pay?