Adam Tinworth is Head of Blogging at Reed Business Information (RBI), although he’s the first to flag up the fact that his job title is the last thing that defines what he does everyday.
RBI is Britain’s largest B2B publisher, producing over 50 trade magazines. These provide information and services for professional communities. A profitable but somewhat unglamorous branch of journalism, as admitted by the man himself.
But the crisis in print journalism is taking no prisoners and B2B or commercial mags, national or local papers must get paperless fast. Glamour or no glamour.
Online profit making is the all important step ahead. That’s where Murdoch firmly shacked up.
But I was surprised by Adam Tinworth’s lecture. He flagged up some important markings on the new road to good journalism.
Firstly, everyone can blog so there is more choice of what to read. Secondly, mediocre journalism will ousted by people blogging about things they genuinely know about, lazy writing cannot be protected as it might have been in an established publication. Thirdly, more voices can be heard and so there will be greater desire to be connected.
The third point is the key. Having had a lot of experience in B2B journalism, which Adam describes as media that does not create communities but offers a platform for groups which already exist, the importance of a truly social medium would have been pretty easy to get excited about.
Adam said, “It simple creates a link between people talking about things.”
Another great point Adam made was this: Journalists are not experts on things but they have to know how to talk to people who do know about things.
The net has become the biggest info distributor humanity has ever conceived of. This sounds worthy of the film-man trailer voice, I know, but I must agree.
A good question to ask now is: Where does the journalist go?
It seems he or she must talk and share and remember that conversation is not opinion. Conversation is discussing topics of mutual interest.
Adam’s got his own blog, check it out
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