Turn and face the strange

Why is the news industry so resistant to change? It’s almost impossible to shift focus, reassign resources, introduce new working practices, or change to a new CMS without a hue and cry.

This week it has been the BBC’s turn to get it in the neck for what seemed to me to be two very sensible decisions.

First, guidance went out to its reporting staff that they should prioritise social media over traditional linear programmes when it came to filing their content.

For a national broadcaster that needs to meet the British public where they are – and lest we forget, the majority now get their news from social platforms – this seemed an obvious course of action. In fact, maybe it was one the BBC should have taken earlier to ensure it was reaching younger audiences who have always been social and video first in their news consumption.

To many though, the decision meant the barbarians were at the gate. Today, its flagship morning news programme on Radio Four, was felt to be in particular peril. One insider told The Guardian: “This feels like a tweak but it’s actually a body blow … the plan appears to be for Today to hear from, for instance Steve Rosenberg [the BBC’s Moscow correspondent] if Putin dies, only after Steve has satisfied people who get their news on TikTok. Those 10 minutes serve to chip away the relevance of Today to the life of the nation. This is an act of vandalism pure and simple.”

Really? I’d say it is a natural response to the overall change in audience patterns, as described above. And anyway, Today is not what it was. It has slumped in listeners from nearly 8m a week in its 2010s peak to just above 5m now. Its audience is greying fast – the average age is 56 and heading up. And it hasn’t had a dedicated reporting team for years now. Should the BBC really not prioritise instead the places to which its listeners and viewers have migrated?

Second, the sports department were criticised for anchoring their coverage of the World Cup in Salford, rather than from New York, as its rival ITV has done. In the past the BBC has spent big to build sets overlooking key local landmarks in host countries, such as the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, Red Square in Moscow and Copacabana Beach in Rio. This time its presenters are staying at home.

Of course, many compared their studio unfavourably with ITV’s cinematic view of lower Manhattan from a Brooklyn rooftop. The commercial broadcaster even paid for the floor to be raised so the Statue of Liberty would sit just over the lead presenter’s shoulder. Lovely, but is that what the BBC should have spent its taxpayer-funded money on?

Credit to Alex Kay-Jelski, the BBC’s director of sport, for coming out on the front foot against the detractors. “The actual end product people are getting at home, I don’t really think it’s that different,” he said. “If these people were sitting somewhere else, would your viewing be massively changed?” No, but it’s different, so people get overwrought.

This is not just a BBC thing, though of course its opponents like nothing better than to leap on their perceived mistakes. The internal battles at news organisations might not make it to the media pages as often but they are relentless. Take the union at a large publisher which argued that AI should not be used for any task that could possibly be done by a human. Or the revolt against a new CMS by senior staff who tried to get the old one reinstated despite an 18-month change programme. Or the editorial team that refused to use performance data.

I know the news industry is not unique in being resistant to change, but it is particularly pronounced and it crosses national boundaries. When I think about why it is the case, two reasons spring to mind.

First is that the industry was so stable, and unchanging, for so long that the status quo became entrenched to the point of ossification. Whether in newspapers, radio, TV or the early internet, the business model was pretty static and the profits were good for decades if not longer. In that environment, why would you even countenance change? Let the good times roll and don’t do anything that might possibly upset them.

Now, however, we are in a situation where the dynamics of the industry is changing almost by the month with the advent of AI and the accompanying policy changes of Google and social companies to meet this challenge. In a world of instability, we will need to get used to this uncertainty. I know of one management team at a news organisation that is constantly being asked by its staff when the seemingly non-stop restructuring and changes to working practices will stop. The answer, in truth, is “never”.

The second reason speaks to the widespread lack of understanding among journalists about the market and technological forces affecting their business. This is not the result of a lack of curiosity, but rather because their days are spent in a maelstrom of ever-changing activity – aka the news – so they don’t really have time to sit back and think about the business of journalism. I worked on a Sunday paper for many years and only for events like the World Cup did we ever think about what was happening after the following weekend. It was all about getting the next issue out. Anything beyond that? We’ll think about that later.

Many news executives admit privately that they suffer from this time-poor myopia. “I just don’t have enough time to think strategically,” one said to me recently. “There’s always so much going on.”

They need to find that time more than ever. Newsrooms of all types need to be told that change is now part of standard operating procedure. Executives need to be on top of the issues so they can make the best case. Then we’ll move faster and with greater purpose as an industry.

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