Can the (self-proclaimed) "Most Trusted Name In News" break into a new line of news?
Yesterday in The New York Times, Tim Arango and Richard Perez-Pena raised the curtain on a whole new venue for Cable Gaming: a new CNN wire service for the digital age. Here's the top of the Times:
CNN, in the afterglow of an election season of record ratings for cable news, is elbowing in on a new line of business: catering to financially strained newspapers looking for an alternative to The Associated Press.
For nearly a month, a trial version of CNN’s wire service has been on display in some newspapers. But this week editors from about 30 papers will visit Atlanta to hear CNN’s plans to broaden a service to provide coverage of big national and international events — and maybe local ones — on a smaller scale and at a lower cost than The A.P.
“The reality is we don’t have a lot of relationships with newspapers,” said Jim Walton, president of CNN Worldwide. “We have relationships with TV stations around the world.” Mr. Walton said the meeting this week, which CNN has billed the “CNN Newspaper Summit,” is “kind of a get-to-know-you.”
With its CNN Wire, the company is going up against the largest news-gathering operation in the world in The A.P., and it must convince editors that it can offer something that is well outside its broadcast expertise — which may not be a tough task given the dire circumstances newspapers face. In addition, a number of newspapers are unhappy with the cost of The A.P., a nonprofit corporation that is owned by the 1,400 papers that are its members. Some newspapers have even given notice that they intend to leave The A.P.
Will it work? Can CNN move from TV to the Internet to newspapers? The Cable Gamer thinks it's possible. In fact, it's actually not as much of a transition as it once would have been, given that all forms of news content are Converging into a Digital Unity, a oneness of content that is "agnostic across platforms," to use some tech jargon.
So what are CNN Wire's prospects? On the one hand, the news biz is not exactly robust these days. But on the other hand, this is the information age, and so an outfit with savvy and a strong brand might well be able to muscle out a larger piece of a shrinking pie--that will probably be expanding again in the future, albeit in new forms. So if the Times further noted:
CNN Wire could offer columns written by some of its high-profile personalities, like Anderson Cooper. It also plans to offer text versions of its major investigative pieces for television.
“The CNN system is set up so we use content across all our networks and platforms,” Mr. Walton said. “It’s not unusual for Anderson Cooper to appear online or on CNN International.”
What has yet to be determined, of course, is whether CNN can pull it off. It probably doesn't help CNN that Ted Turner has chosen to rear his crazy head at this time, with a new book that will remind everyone that CNN was founded by a man who was, well, loco.
But of course, Turner is only a memory at CNN. And so while CNN is still identifiable liberal, that hardly makes it different from most of the rest of the MSM. Perhaps now CNN has found a way to better monetize all of its talent. And when I say "talent" I don't just mean La Anderson, and all the others who might put their byline on someone else's work. Instead, I mean those who would actually do the reporting and writing--the material that will actually appear on someone's screen. And without a doubt, in a place such as CNN, there are plenty of non-famous folks who know a lot--a lot more than will ever find its way on air.
And so CNN has the opportunity, now, to make sure that all of that talent, and the content it can generate, will be extruded to more places: whether that content goes in a teleprompter for a talking head to read on TV, or a website, or a newspaper, or--who knows?--an avatar.
But as noted, the distinction between CNN and its rivals, AP, Reuters, etc. is mostly a matter of business competition--competition among likeminded rivals. So the big question is whether a genuinely different voice will jump in. Such as, say, Fox, which could bring a whole new fair-and-balanced style to a wire service.
So stay tuned, 'Gamers!
