The only way media will get better

Are you telling me they can’t make money? Or are you telling me they can’t make enough?

Plenty of attention lately on the media falling apart. What’s new?

Artificial intelligence is going to kill search, the Cookie is dead, the social media internet, at least of the 2010s, was a lie built on the idea that the rest of the world wouldn’t ask questions.

The way I see it is this: the problem with digital media, in most cases, is not editorial.

There are great writers everywhere (and many, many, poor writers as well), looking for something to do.

There is creativity everywhere, currently being funnelled into tech companies and advertising agencies, who pay a lot of money.

And there are fingers pointing aggressively at publishers, who are holding their hands up in response, as shocked and appalled as anyone else, saying hey buddy, I’m sorry, but you told me to make this!

I have said it before and will say it again: there’s always money in media. Maybe we just don’t need to build things that are trying to take over the world.

The successful media brands of the 2020s (and of at least the next 10 years) will be successful because they redefine that word: success.

The idea that a publication with five employees making a million plus annually is a failure, or not worth investing in, has been bred into the popular consciousness by venture capital and marketing bros intent on comparing industries that don’t actually have much in common besides a relationship that is required to keep friendly for advertising to work. Say it with me: media doesn’t have to be big.

Currently, many media businesses are focused on growing at scale to ideally become the Everything Brand absolutely no one is asking for.

Don’t get me wrong: it’s a great idea. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to have a single location for everything you’ve ever wanted? But I have bad news, kid: not even Adam and Eve could make that idea work.

The reality is that the media industry isn’t dying, it’s downsizing, and in brutal and unfair ways. It is not new to observe the people who are paying for this with their heads are not the ones who got us into this mess.

But, just as a forest might sprout up after a manic and chaotic fire, the returning media industry can be great. It can be sustainable. It can be better.

Whether or not we achieve that is based on expectation, and the agreements people make between each other over what qualifies as “good.”

This is an industry that routinely sprints through over 100million dollars on singular projects (The Messenger) only to shut them down having barely made a mark.

You can’t tell me giving one hundred people a million each wouldn’t give you a better chance at actually fixing this thing.

The world based the initial model of digital media on many of the lessons learned from advertising and an obsession with Getting Online Immediately. And boy did we build some shiny glue factories, some beautiful dumpsters, and an endless supply of slush no one seems to be asking for anymore (and really, probably, never did with much intention).

Congratulations to everyone who made their millions off of that grift. Really, you outdid yourselves.

But we need to reframe what the next ten years needs to look like if anything is going to work moving forward, and that starts with the expectations we have for scale and for publishers globally.

You do not have to do everything, as long as you do it well.

Quality always wins.

Of course, for any of this to really start rolling you need your friends on the other side of the fence to play ball (advertisers).

As long as we set margins of success at millions of impossibly boosted views or impressions or whatever terminology you want to make up… the advertising agency will swallow it whole. And then… what exactly? We keep playing? The game being, well, make something and tell me it did what I asked, but don’t give me specifics. I just need to tell my boss we’re in the clear. Ultimately, that entire game is just lines of people trying to tell the person managing them that it’s OK this month… they did their job.

Over the last few years we have watched gigantic, prestige brands shut down. And they did so while still having remarkable and understood brand value. You’re telling me they can’t make money? Or are you telling me they can’t make enough?

Media is not complicated.

A couple words, a few video clips, a few photos. Some money spent on relevant design. Distribute it in a way that makes sense. Work very hard to spin that wheel for as long as you can. Yes, truly, one must imagine the average media worker happy.

But that’s why we’re here. The action is the juice.