Timeless advice from Rob Curley — Part 1: What people do online

in News by Charlie Weaver — July 16, 2010 at 8:34 pm | 0 comments

I was recently going through some of my old files and reorganizing past notes to see if I could find anything worth posting here on Media In Touch to pass along to students. I eventually ended up stumbling across a sheaf of scribbles from the first time I had the opportunity to attend a Rob Curley lecture. For those of you who are not familiar with Mr. Curley, let me bring you up to speed.

Curley is the current President and Executive Editor of Greenspun Interactive, the new-media division of the Las Vegas Sun and Greenspun Media Group. His career has taken him from Kansas to Florida to D.C. and now Sin City. It’s been a very impressive journey for arguably a very impressive visionary. Curley has a resume a mile long and has used every opportunity to help break new ground in journalism and its current evolution along the way. He has been one of the strongest proponents of the hyperlocal philosophy I’ve had the fortune of meeting, and will extol, at length, the necessity of always being a reporter first in any media endeavor.

His passion is infectious, and his message is timeless. My notes are more than four years old, but are impressively relevant to the practice of journalism today. Yes, there have been a few tweaks and, more accurately, additions along the way (his Four ‘P’s list has since been bumped up to five), but I think that goes to show the level of commitment Curley has to the reimagining of the Fourth Estate.

So here you go. The first part of a three-part series on Rob Curley’s thoughts and ideas on where Journalism is and what it needs to accomplish to continue to move forward to a successful future.

Enjoy.

WHAT DO PEOPLE REALLY DO ONLINE? (Explaining the Five ‘P’s)

Passions
Personal interests, desires, wants, and needs — ultimately this is why people come to the internet. If you truly want to know about an individual or their personality, the quickest way to find this information is to look at his or her bookmarks and browser history.

Practical
The internet is an almost endless and immediate resource in fulfilling Maslow’s hierarchy of needs. The internet gives you direct access to many of the basic things you need and want to live your life — food, banking, shopping, correspondence, etc.

Playful
It’s a great place to go to kill time. We’ve all been there I’m sure — ‘I’m just going to quick check out this video about some British kid biting his brother’s finger …’ and three hours later you find yourself watching videos about masochistic Japanese games shows. Let’s face it, there are thousands, if not millions, of websites like this on the internet that offer mindless entertainment for only the sake of entertainment purposes. And we demand to be entertained.

Personal Communication
This is the newest addition to Rob’s ‘P-List’ and rightfully so. When I first heard Rob speak, social media was still in its infancy — Facebook was still taking its first steps and Twitter wasn’t even a twinkle in its creators’ eyes. The realization of the opportunities these new platforms offered weren’t all that apparent to the journalism community. Blogs were talked about, but not in very flattering terms. The idea that untrained community journalists could just buy a domain, install a blogging CMS and start ‘reporting’ was considered a blasphemous aberration of the Fourth Estate.

Thankfully more and more news organizations are realizing the power of social media in reporting. And when used correctly, these new tools can substantially enhance almost every aspect of our operations. From gathering information and sources, to interacting with our readers on a more personal level, social media offers a more peer-to-peer approach to what we do on a daily basis. An approach that — if we as an industry include our audience in the process, and yes even delivery — will help cultivate reader loyalty.

Pornography
I think this particular ‘P’ speaks for itself. There are countless theories on advancement of technology through porn, but for the purposes of this series, we will only be dealing with the first 4 ‘P’s. Sorry.

UP NEXT: part two — How do we become the future?

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