The ftm 2021 Greatest Hits
It's likely we will remember the year 2021 as a noisy jumble. Obviously, this is a coronavirus symptom, choose your variant. For those with functioning memory cells - not to be confused with AI - the previous year 2020 seemed quite placid, insane election news coverage notwithstanding. In 2021 we had billionaires tustling with other billionaires over media deals, often with dreams of making a killing in streaming. Through this politicians plotted making a killing from Google or social media. Publishers still chased that Google Money, too. Meanwhile the Happy Advertising People remained optimistic and as far away from that other stuff as possible. Angst was the spirit of the times as the annual ftm Greatest Hits list, based on reader traffic, illustrates. Zeitgeist. And 2022 will soon unfold. See the 2021 Greatest Hits list with links here.
Joint ventures are reasonably robust corporate structures. Typically, they conduct business through a defined set of rules. There’s a lot of sharing. Companies like joint ventures until they don’t. And that’s how it’s supposed to work.
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Ideas are the competitive edge in the long slog of human behavior. Good ones bring benefit, sometimes remarkable. Bad ones, to paraphrase Gresham's Law, drive the good ones out, typically by rewarding short-term self-interest and punishing innovation. Bad ideas, however, can be valuable for shining a light on foolishness.
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Building scale has long been the favored business strategy. Bigger is, quite naturally, stronger. Smaller is just a lot of work. It is just the same for the media world as, say, the oil business or, in recent decades internet technologies. Bigness has its detractors; enemies even. This has only grown with big associated with bad, particularly super-big, particularly in popular headlines. Empirical evidence is far less incriminating.
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Social media platforms have been roundly disparaged for failing to curb misinformation, fake news and hate speech. It is an expensive proposition for them, risking profits and share prices. The other risk, negative consumer opinion, can also be costly, particularly when lawmakers add to the rain on their parade. That free speech defense collapses when real lives are at risk from disinformation. When advertisers and telecoms, the financial backbone, are unwilling to put their own brands at risk social media platforms hit the brakes.
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Media proprietors exert undeniable control over their broadcasting and publishing assets. It is the benefit - and sometimes peril - of ownership. Outside of some public broadcasting structures, listeners, viewers and readers either accept what is distributed or, well, not. Most often, though not entirely, private sector media owners seek to monitize the most attractive product offer. There are certain variations.
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Most media mergers and acquisitions are rather trance-like. Bland lawyers mingle with equally bland accountants to engage in an incomprehensible kabuki to carve up companies, usually without the knives, and dice up the money. A century ago this was so much more fun, at least made for the movies. Alas, we return to those glory days of high drama.
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Publishers are coming to terms with a painful lesson. They will never compete with big tech nor bring it to heel. The businesses are different, potentially synergistic but derived from different skills and processes. The primary intersection has been advertising sales. That, too, is changing.
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So many forces compete for attention. Each have their own purpose. The news business - particularly the newspaper - was built on chronicling the times. In the digital era the purpose has been reduced to piercing the moment. The most shrill tend to win out. The rest slip away.
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Advertising people are fixtures of positivity. It is an occupational necessity. They find blue skies and rainbows in every moment. The coronavirus put a slight dent in that. But only slightly.
Human rights issues are, like almost everything else, highly politicized. Country to country there is wide disparity of judgement on what is and is not important. Press freedom and freedom of expression are included by some, not by others. And the differences have grown wider since all nations adopted the Universal Declaration on Human Rights (1948), which vowed that "human rights should be protected by the rule of law."
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Media in Spain - Diverse and Challenged – new
Media in Spain is steeped in tradition. yet challenged by diversity. Publishers hold great influence, broadcasters competing. New media has been slow to rise and business models for all are under stress. Rich in language and culture, Spain's media is reaching into the future and finding more than expected. 123 pages, PDF. January 2018
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The Campaign Is On - Elections and Media
Elections campaigns are big media events. Candidates and issues are presented, analyzed and criticized in broadcast and print. Media is now more of a participant in elections than ever. This ftm Knowledge file reports on news coverage, advertising, endorsements and their effect on democracy at work. 84 pages. PDF (September 2017)
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Fake News, Hate Speech and Propaganda
The institutional threat of fake news, hate speech and propaganda is testing the mettle of those who toil in news media. Those three related evils are not new, by any means, but taken together have put the truth and those reporting it on the back foot. Words matter. This ftm Knowledge file explores that light. 48 pages, PDF (March 2017)
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