Everyone talks about the two niches we like: geographic and topical. But there’s a growing third niche that, if you can bear it, should be considered.
The future of news is largely in niches. We all agree on the importance of targeting sections to smaller and smaller communities of people who are united by an interest in a specific location or subject. For example, create a Web site for the politics of immigration and you’ve created a niche site. Or, get microlocal, they say!
Consider another niche: bias. The niche of bias is growing and is probably best known in the form of Fox News Channel. Viewers can choose from a menu of news channels, and conservatives tend to pick Fox. They like Fox because it reports the news from their perspective. Like it or not, Fox is the No. 1 cable news station because they understand the power of bias.
Other networks are following suit. During a 60 Minutes profile, Lou Dobbs said he’s not a fan of President Bush and that his audience should know where he’s coming from. Dobbs calls what he does advocacy journalism. By the way, his ratings are up.
With the exception of Don Imus, the more talk radio hosts share their opinions, the larger their audiences get.
So what does online have to learn from all this? If you’ve got the stomach for it, I recommend starting some biased Web sites. The fact is not all people want their news presented objectively; some want it “fair and balanced.”
Comments (2)
You're right -- the future of news, and all mass-distributed media, is in niches.
The reason for Fox News' success isn't as simple as many people complain. One of the more solid studies on media bias (http://www.newsroom.ucla.edu/page.asp?RelNum=6664) found that 18 of 20 major media outlets lean left of center. Surprisingly, Fox News' own Special Report with Brit Hume was found to be one of the most centrist programs on politics. I think most of the "Fox News is so conservative" hype is just liberal bristling at its success. If anything, the facts say that Fox News has filled the void left when the major networks abandoned the center and moved to the left. (Bill O'Reilly and Sean Hannity -- who aren't "news", by the way -- notwithstanding.)
Posted by Matt | May 9, 2007 10:55 AM
Posted on May 9, 2007 10:55
You are correct. In fact, the US has been all alone in the world, insisting that bias is a bad thing, as I describe in this post on my site:
"French Presidential election newspaper coverage reminds us that only U.S. participated in failed “objectivity” experiment"
For decades, most Americans have assumed that “objectivity” is the gold standard in news coverage, given that’s what our journalists told us. But in fact, objectivity was a unique American invention that the rest of the world by and large chose not to emulate (the exceptions have mostly been news media controlled through ownership or regulation by governments that prefer that their citizens receive a single, government-friendly view presented as the truth, e.g. Pravda, BBC, Xinhua). Reminding us of America’s isolation on the objectivity issue is this article on French newspapers’ reaction to conservative Presidential candidate Nicolas Sarkozy’s victory. Self-identified conservative papers like Le Figaro and Les Echos celebrated it on their front pages, while leftist papers like Liberation and L’Humanite mourned. It’s now been more than 80 years since U.S. journalism introduced the goal of objectivity. Yet today, 83% of U.S. likely voters still do not believe they are getting it, while cable TV news and talk radio successes suggest they do not even want it. Soon the U.S. will rejoin the international community of the free world, and most news consumers will be selecting news that is compatible with their personal worldviews. (From The Future of News)
Posted by Steve Boriss | May 9, 2007 9:31 PM
Posted on May 9, 2007 21:31