The Sustainability Challenge on the Noble Work of the Media Industry

The media industry is the engine and pivot of socio-economic and political development in any society because it is the driver of information and this information that it drives is the basis upon which decisions and actions are undertaken by mankind across the face of the earth.

However, despite its importance, the media industry quite often faces financial sustainability challenges which threatens its ability especially of playing its Fourth Estate role of promoting accountability and transparency in various communities across the world.

In flourishing economies, the media industry may be sustained by paid adverts from various individuals and organisations who use media platforms to market their products and services as compared to struggling economies where less money is spent on adverts.

When expenditure on adverts is very low, private media can however be sustained by regular or once-off donations from individual and corporates who have confidence in the principles, approaches and values adopted by a certain media house in its operations.

It is worthy to note that media houses which are likely to attract the most of advertisements are those which quite often covers very exciting but less critical topics such as gossip and celebrity scandals etc. because people are more likely to be attracted to excitement than enlightenment.

On the other hand, those that tend to be sustained by donations are media houses which concentrate on important real life issues such good governance, corporate responsibility, charity work and education etc., of which though important, these subjects are not real crowd pullers.

Because of the above mentioned scenarios, serious issues in life such as the rule of law, political accountability, corporate governance and good morals will tend to easily get neglected because they don’t attract adverts and yet they are the ones which define the wellbeing of humanity.

Media houses which then chooses to concentrate on these less excitable and yet enlightening topics should therefore strive by all means to ensure that they identify individuals and organisations who respect the relevance of publicity of critical matters and then engage such for funding or donations.

The other option is for such media houses to have other revenue generating media related business initiatives that it can run pari passu with their news or information outlet.

For example, a media outlet like iniafrica.com can sign MOUs with colleges and universities that offer media related courses and then team up as training partners where the academic institution offers much of the theory and the media house covers much of the practical aspect.

Another option is for the same news outlet to be a media partner of institutions like churches, non-governmental organisations and even member based community groups where the media house trains selected members of these groups to effectively tell stories using media standards.

The media house will then use its publication as an easily accessible and verifiable social proof of its ability to deliver on a certain subject in order for it to attract partners who pay for engagement.

One of the advantages of this route is the fact that those churches members and people from non-governmental organisations or member based community groups that get such training may also be able to become regular contributors of news on their own or on behalf their organisations.

When they contribute articles especially on behalf of their organisations, they are likely to bring with them readership traffic since members are likely to read articles to do with their institutions.

Besides training, it is also important to note that by merely being a media partner of these groups, there are greater chances of sustainability since member based organisations are likely to receive contributions from their members especially if they see value in the partnership.

The failure to engage in strategic partnerships can make a media house to appear as if its doing chequebook journalism since they will be incapacitated to continue reporting especially on resource intensive issues that they may lack capacity to continually make follow ups on even though such issues may be critically important for everyone in society.

This is because a media house, just like any other business, it also has various expenses that must be paid even if it may not be operating at a profit and as such, members of society must have a general idea of what it takes to get even the most important information in the public domain.

Without the participation of well-wishing community members and corporates in sustaining media outlets that concentrate on important real life matters, these issues gets neglected and society will degenerate into self-destructive jungles of ignorance.

However, regardless of whether a news publisher is sustained by adverts, donations or media partnerships, it is important to stick to the following media values in order to remain relevant.

I consider the following to be SMART news values because they help people make quick and effective decisions about their personal lives and their institutions while ensuring viability and profitability to the media industry.

These six smart news values are based on the following questions:

1. Emotional – does the issue/story address the emotions, does it affect personal, group or societal mood, and does it have anything to do with happiness or sadness?
2. Change of Status – does the issue/story talk about or result in an upgrade or downgrade, progress or recession, success or failure
3. Opportunities and Threats – does the issue/story talk about immediate or future danger, victory (gains) or losses, potential or weakness
4. Solution or problem – does it talk about or result in problems or solutions, better or worse outcomes, heroes and villains
5. Mystery – does the issue/story talk about or address issues beyond ordinary human comprehension, is the issue a mystery buster or brings about a mysterious phenomenon?
6. Societal Impact – does the issue/story talk about issues and circumstances that affect people on a grand scale whether in the short or long run

Starting, establishing and expanding a media institution, especially a news house, based on these values will ensure that there is a continued stakeholder engagement because such values address the issues that affect human life across all age groups in different societies every day.

This is because people always want a media (news) platform which ensures that their concerns are addressed, their emotions are attended to, their dreams are made true, their victories and successes are celebrated, and their potential or immediate danger is eliminated or mitigated.

Brian Kazungu is a Media Practitioner and an Author. He has written and published several books covering various aspects of human life including leadership, entrepreneurship, politics, personal development as well as poetry and travel.

Some of the business texts that he has written include The Sales and Marketing Pocket Book, The SME Handbook and The Practical Executive.

https://www.amazon.com/author/briankazungu

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kazungu.brian@gmail.com

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This article was first published on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/sustainability-challenge-noble-work-media-industry-brian-kazungu