A lot of media interest recently in CNN terminating its contract with Reuters. It was the end of a 27-year relationship in which Reuters supplied the Atlanta-based outfit with a wealth of text news, pictures and television images. CNN says it wants to grow its own content stream, Reuters says commercial terms could not be agreed.
Some piquancy subsequently when Reuters was first to source and distribute a new video tape by Osama Bin Laden, the first in three years from al Qaeda’s leader-in-hiding. The New York Times reported considerable discomfort for CNN at being unable to access the material. It would be tempting to blow our own trumpet on this were that not an invitation to all and sundry to mock when we aren’t first with a story. One account of how Reuters pipped CNN to the OBL tape suggests it could easily have been CNN’s triumph.
Competition is fierce across all parts of the news landscape with rival agencies keenly monitoring their performance against each other. Can anybody win that race? Are agencies like Reuters, Bloomberg and the Associated Press converging on the same stories as coverage budgets shrink and alternative information sources proliferate on the Internet? Yes, suggests dotcom-era star analyst Henry Blodget - all the agencies are essentially producing the same material. That paints a vision of commoditised, undifferentiated news streams that will struggle to command a premium in a difficult media marketplace. Is it the reality? 
Not to my mind. Check out Beijing reporter Chris Buckley’s exclusive report last week on Chinese officials paying to lock up complainants in a violent, private prison. The ‘black jail’ will stifle discontent ahead of a Communist Party congress that Chinese leaders do not want interrupted by social protests. Chris Buckley’s strong sources and local awareness are the hallmark of distinctive journalism.
Take a look also at Dmitry Solovyov’s piece from Siberia on melting permafrost polluting the atmosphere with the odour and planet-warming CO2 of mammoth dung. Dimitry’s story has already drawn critical fire.
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I think it is fair to say that the vast majority of what the competing agencies cover is the same — they all cover the White House, Microsoft, the Iraq War. But covering the same stories is not only what they do, and it is these differentiators that will become (are?) the deciding factors in customers’ minds.
CNN was perhaps a bit short-sighted or Reuters placed to high a value on its content or the failure to come to terms was some combination of the two factors. The OBL saga was an unfortunately swift reminder about the value of differentiators, but was it proof positive that doing without Reuters is inherently foolhardy?
I’d like to think so, having spent a large part of my professional life wearing Reuters on my sleeve, but it probably ain’t true. Every agency will have its enterprise hits and its hard-to-explain misses. In the end, customers who have options will make decisions about which of the similar providers to stick with at least in part by reckoning who among them are the most different.
- Posted by John C AbellYou don’t even get it! You’re not doing the world any good by being OBL’s pulpit and publishing terorist propaganda. Your actually helping to coordinate the terrorists! I’m happy CNN is distancing itself from you and your lack of socal responsbility. I hope you lose a few more contracts if you don’t grow some integrity. All you care about is your stupid profits, so glad yours are going to fall.
- Posted by Steve