Tuesday
Jan262010
Does journalism exist?
Tuesday, January 26, 2010 at 9:25AM
Last night I read the text of Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger's lecture entitled "Does Journalism Exist?".
This was circulated on Rusbridger's Twitter account and sparked quite a bit of interest and comment on Twitter.
The text is quite long, but in my opinion is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the future of journalism. His remarks on the different business models being adopted and the role of the BBC in all of this are particularly fascinating.
However, the article has a wider relevance and makes very interesting reading for lawyers too. James Dunning blogged about the similiarities between law firms and newspapers last year (Law Firms and Newspapers, the same or different) and suggested that:-
"what the newspapers are suffering heavily from now is what many smaller law firms are beginning to suffer from and will undoubtedly suffer heavily from in the future - their primary product being available for free on the web..."
In this context it is worth looking at Rusbridger's comparison between the closed, paywall, model and the open model with journalists "bouncing off each other, linking to each other... linking out... allowing response – harnessing the best qualities of text, print, data, sound and visual media."
This may not sound so relevant to lawyers (although it certainly is to law bloggers). However, the final words of the paragraph are striking:-
"If ever there was a route to building audience, trust and relevance, it is by embracing all the capabilities of this new world, not walling yourself away from them."
If "building audience, trust and relevance" isn't relevant to law firm marketing then I don't really know what is. The comments at the beginning of the piece about Search Engine Optimisation are also very relevant to law firms.
If you are a lawyer or interested in internet marketing for law firms read this article now - I can guarantee you will see some parallels to your own business.
This was circulated on Rusbridger's Twitter account and sparked quite a bit of interest and comment on Twitter.
The text is quite long, but in my opinion is essential reading for anyone with an interest in the future of journalism. His remarks on the different business models being adopted and the role of the BBC in all of this are particularly fascinating.
However, the article has a wider relevance and makes very interesting reading for lawyers too. James Dunning blogged about the similiarities between law firms and newspapers last year (Law Firms and Newspapers, the same or different) and suggested that:-
"what the newspapers are suffering heavily from now is what many smaller law firms are beginning to suffer from and will undoubtedly suffer heavily from in the future - their primary product being available for free on the web..."
In this context it is worth looking at Rusbridger's comparison between the closed, paywall, model and the open model with journalists "bouncing off each other, linking to each other... linking out... allowing response – harnessing the best qualities of text, print, data, sound and visual media."
This may not sound so relevant to lawyers (although it certainly is to law bloggers). However, the final words of the paragraph are striking:-
"If ever there was a route to building audience, trust and relevance, it is by embracing all the capabilities of this new world, not walling yourself away from them."
If "building audience, trust and relevance" isn't relevant to law firm marketing then I don't really know what is. The comments at the beginning of the piece about Search Engine Optimisation are also very relevant to law firms.
If you are a lawyer or interested in internet marketing for law firms read this article now - I can guarantee you will see some parallels to your own business.
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