Categories: Articles

The New Journalism

Everyone likes a feel good story.

It’s part of the reason why the latest online viral video sensation is the story of Ted Williams – a homeless Columbus, Ohio man who was a former radio broadcaster. This is an amazing story (and you can watch the video that started it all below), but it’s also another shot against the bow of traditional journalism as we’ve known it to date.

"Just post it on the Web or something."

A story about a homeless person rarely makes waves. It’s not the type of story you see kicking off the evening news on CBS or on the front page of your daily newspaper. It rarely makes it on the local news radio and there are not that many magazine features about people like Williams. Doral Chenoweth III is a videographer for The Columbus Dispatch. He had seen a sign that Williams was holding up by a freeway panhandling about how he has a great voice for broadcasting. The video of their encounter (which was originally posted to Disptach.com) is now clocking in at 8 million views on YouTube. Now, Williams is on the CBS News (and Jimmy Fallon and Jimmy Kimmel), he’s had multiple offers from companies like NFL Films, countless radio and TV stations and other offers of help and work.

It took us… not them.

What brought this story into our hearts wasn’t the work of great editors or producers… it was the work of the new journalists. People like Chenoweth III, who are beginning to see that a truly great story doesn’t need a gatekeeper… it just needs a home. Social Media is this home. It is an instant publishing channel that treats all pieces of content equally. How far that piece travels and who it reaches it not based on a fixed distribution system or promise of reach. It’s based on who passes the story around (and well beyond YouTube and into other channels like Twitter, Facebook, Blogs, etc…).

A nose for news.

The new journalism (and the new Marketing) is about having a nose for news. It’s about being able to tell a story that will connect with people. If no one is following you on Twitter or posting to your Facebook page or watching your videos on YouTube, here’s the cold, hard truth: it’s not resonating. Watch the story of Ted Williams. Think about this videographer and the story they uncovered. There are more stories like Ted Williams – where the mass public will see it and feel it… and act on it. The new journalism (and the new Marketing) won’t be a as heavily reliable on the traditional media channels, because now we have other ways to get stories to spread and reach critical mass. We’ve been waiting for the Web to truly deliver on this promise… and now it can.

This is the new journalism. This is the new marketing.

Mitch Joel

Mitch Joel lives at the intersection of technology, business transformation and consumer culture. He is the Executive Director of Next Era Institute, a strategic intelligence platform helping leaders understand the forces reshaping business, technology, culture and society. The Institute identifies which shifts matter, explores their wider significance and translates them into strategic direction and momentum. Mitch is also a globally recognized keynote speaker. He has delivered thousands of presentations across both B2B and B2C industries to organizations including Google, Walmart, LEGO, Shopify, Microsoft, Procter & Gamble and Unilever. Strategy Magazine has called him “one of North America’s leading visionaries.” Mitch built his career by working directly inside the waves of change that reshaped modern business. He founded and built a digital marketing agency that worked with some of the world’s largest brands and was later acquired by WPP, where he served as President of a firm operating in 25 countries with almost 3,000 employees. Mitch is the bestselling author of Six Pixels of Separation and CTRL ALT Delete, and the host of Thinking With Mitch Joel, one of the longest-running business podcasts in the world. His writing and commentary appear in outlets including Harvard Business Review, Fast Company and Inc. Magazine. He is a member of Dr. Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches and was named to the Thinkers50 Radar. Mitch also hosts Groove – The No Treble Podcast, documenting the oral history of electric bass players. Mitch is also Co-Founder of ThinkersOne, a platform that enables companies to bring personalized thought leadership from world-class experts into meetings, events and off-sites in focused 15-minute bursts.