I’ll give you some business advice you probably don’t get a lot: Stop. Stop already! Your business is trying to do too much at once; you’re trying to do too much. Stopping is often viewed as a failure or, at the very least, a lack of success. But “not winning right this second” and “losing” are very different things. But how do you tell what’s worth your time?
CNN begins the new year a leaner news media company. This past year saw resignations, layoffs, the promise and peril of CNN+, as well as a number of programming changes. At the same time, CNN rose to the formidable challenge of covering war — a complicated, expensive, messy, dangerous, yet essential endeavor.
Teddy bears on the moon. A cat wearing VR headsets. Homer Simpson in “The Blair Witch Project.” It’s time for journalists to have a serious discussion about how good artificial intelligence has become at creating an image for just about any idea imaginable.
A democracy can’t function and flourish without educated and informed citizens. KSPS, the public television station in Spokane, Washington; the Spokane Area League of Women Voters (LWV); and the Spokane Public Schools created Civics Bowl, a quiz show of competing high school students, to promote responsible citizenship.
About a decade ago, Peter Laufer, Ph.D., was in Italy enjoying a leisurely lunch with a publisher. They were making plans for an Italian translation of a book he’d written, “The Dangerous World of Butterflies,” when their discussion turned to the plight of news and the public’s changing news consumption habits. Where they sat, they weren’t far from where the “slow food movement” was born — for which quality ingredients and their provenance from farm to table are valued above speed and cost-efficiency. Laufer conceived of a similar concept applied to newsgathering, what he called “slow news.”
It’s a new year and time for media, agencies and local advertisers to digest the many competing forecasts for 2023 ad spending. There will be sales quotas; agencies will create pitches; and local advertisers will search for the most effective media mix. However they may approach these tasks, the universal forecast is: Digital advertising will continue to gain on legacy media and become an even more dominant force.