The recent study of the “Jewish Web” by 4WallMedia sees that Israeli online news sources are much more popular than American-based Jewish sites, and concludes that the “takeaway point is that the American Jewish media needs (sic) to coordinate and combine their assets online.” That’s a nonsequitur, given the data reported in the study.
The most popular Jewish-oriented site, the Jerusalem Post’s, draws over 1.4 million total unique visitors per month; all U.S. news sites combined attract only 800,000. Significantly, JPost.com is not an integrated consortium of information sources; it’s a standalone company with compelling editorial content. Haaretz.com, with nearly 700,000 unique monthly visitors – almost as many as all the American sites – is also a single-source site. In other words, what’s worked best in attracting traffic, by a huge margin, has resulted from individual companies’ initiatives. Yet these researchers see the answer in the centralization of existing entities whose content has failed individually and collectively to attract a viable number of regular readers.
If the content being offered by American sites isn’t attracting enough interest now, why should it draw any more attention as part of a newly branded megasite? Readers value content above all, yet the report looks to social networking, search results, and other secondary ways of boosting site visits. The elephant in the room is the fact that the existing sites haven’t offered enough value to Web users in the material they post.
Possible reasons: news drives the most traffic, yet news-oriented American sites are sometimes days behind their Israeli competitors in reporting international stories of Jewish interest. And the U.S. sites tend to favor their own reporting or other original material over comprehensive coverage. This may make sense for reasons of branding or budgeting, but the result is that these sites are less frequented by Web users.
The 4WallMedia report puts its faith in combining resources and centralizing coordination, but that’s actually not necessary to assemble a heavily trafficked U.S.-based Jewish news site. An aggregator that links to all the U.S. and foreign sources of Jewish news and updates its content constantly would accomplish the same thing. The authors implicitly recognize that when they cite the Huffington Post as a model. By similarly establishing a distinctive voice, linking to the wealth of Jewish journalism around the world, and recruiting dozens of popular bloggers, a new Jewish-information site could rise to the top. What’s more, it wouldn’t cost that much.
Such a site is likeliest to succeed if it’s independent, like Haaretz.com and JPost.com. Like them it may also end up being for-profit, not communally funded. And it could be powered by the new generation of innovators, not the established organs of Jewish journalism.
The prejudice in favor of centralization is a persistent trope in Jewish communal life. The authors of the report avowedly share that predisposition; they begin with a D’var Torah about Jewish unity(!). Perhaps their target readers feel the same way: hardly a day passes without someone in Jewish life calling for a merger between organizations in one sector or another. But that is a bias, not a solution.
You might say the 4WallMedia report has it exactly backwards. The key to attracting and keeping readers is content, not structural change. Remaining competitive depends on nimble and responsive management, which is more characteristic of independent companies than bureaucratic cooperatives. Putting journalistic innovators together with an established Jewish media brand, backed by a visionary venture philanthropist, would make a dream team, and the result could be the biggest Jewish website of them all. Is anyone listening?
Bob Goldfarb has conducted research studies for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and the National Endowment for the Arts. Now the president of the Center for Jewish Culture and Creativity, Bob lives in Jerusalem and is a regular contributor to eJewishPhilanthropy.
Bob, great post. I was puzzled when I read the report’s recommendations too. Sure, if you could combine the disparate American Jewish news sources’ readerships and content into one megasite, you might have good-looking numbers, but you will not have increased the numbers of American readers by one.
What the report missed is that most Jewish news in America is hyperlocal, and its story is told by Jewish weeklies and quarterlies that are available only in print. American Jews turn to Haaretz and Jpost because they want news from Israel at a macro level. They turn to their local papers in the US for community news that relates to their own lives.
Hi Bob,
These are very thoughtful comments, and I thank you for taking the time to join the discussion. Despite your assertion that 4Wall’s report has it “exactly backwards,” our two visions are actually quite similar.
I think the misunderstanding comes in the link between coordination of assets and content quality. I agree with you that the ultimate need is to improve content, not just paint it over with a new bureaucratic structure. However, coordinating assets into a more efficient business model will allow the struggling American Jewish media to improve their online content as a whole. This means building a site and syndication platform with a high enough concentration of daily, quality content (yes, frequency is a major issue).
To that end, the “mega-site” would be an aggregator (just like you recommend), pulling together better news more often. We would not swallow up hyperlocal and independent brands, but rather to allow them to focus on their content and publish it in a more efficient forum.
Certainly a megasite of content is no better than many sites with the same content. But a coordinated strategy that allows for economies of scale and more efficient user interaction not only allows everyone to improve their content experience, but also makes the whole industry more attractive to advertisers. Sustainability is an important consideration here.
I look forward to your further input and we should talk.
- Mark Pearlman, 4Wall
As the former editor of JPost.com, and the founding editor of Ynetnews.com, as well as a senior editor of one of the first full-fledged Jewish sites (Virtual Jerusalem ca. 1999, and now as Internet/Media Director of Shalom Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, may I join the conversation?
Over the last decade I have had many discussions and even bruited several proposals about coordinating, combining, and developing global, national, and local (even “hyper-local”) Jewish content on a single portal Internet site with private investors, communal, and even government sources.
I was involved with a consortium of editors/managers of major Jewish (English-language) websites in Israel and the U.S. that Natan Sharansky, when he was Minister of Diaspora Affairs in the early years of this decade, put together. We even began development of a portal site. That project foundered, but the 4Wall study – which offers fascinating demographic information – shows the enduring appeal of such a project.
As a journalist, editor, and onetime entrepreneur, I have bemoaned the lack of a central location for “all” Jewish and Israel news of interest. My belief – fantasy? – was that only such a large site would be able to attract the kind of mainstream advertisers (TV, beer, cars, financial providers, etc…) that generally elude the Jewish sites. There is simply no way to fund a major news-oriented website on ads from Hebrew courses, Israel tours and Purim baskets (I exaggerate to make a point.). I did the math many times both at JPost.com and Ynetnews.com.
Since those “early” days (1999-2005), the developments in the worlds of technology and journalism (“citizen journalism,” Twitter, mobile apps, iPhone, Blackberry, etc…, as well as the now solidly entrenched blog sites of the day – Jewlicious, Jewschool, et. al, not to mention the individual bloggers of note, have changed the game by appealing to specific sub-groups that were not well served by the pre-existing Jewish media – particularly younger Jews – Orthodox and non-Orthodox alike (The success of bangitout.com and onlysimchas.com indicate the interest of the young Orthodox, while Heeb and others reach the “rest of us.”).
Despite the impressive work done by some in the world of Jewish journalism (a perusal of the ’09 Rockower awards listing shows the excellent traditional journalism out there), most local Jewish media are neither stellar nor independent.
The impressive success noted by the 4Wall study of Chabad, Aish, and other sites that focus on religion speaks to a desire for information on the religious side of the equation, but, unfortunately, there is no communication across those lines. Aish and Chabad may reach many unaffiliated, but there is no dialogue among them and others, such as interfaithfamily.com, to name one of many. How would you get those sites to co-exist on a single site? With a mehitza?
Another excellent point raised by a commenter is the interest in “hyper-local” Jewish news. As mentioned above, technological changes and entrepreneurial developments are providing new platforms for hyper-local news in the “outside” world; such approaches can and should be brought into the Jewish world.
Why are JPost.com and Haaretz.com the largest non-religious sites? Because they represent about the only focus large enough to attract many Jews of different stripes: Israel. And, sorry to say, the biggest times for these sites are only when Israel is in crisis (i.e., terror attacks and wars). Day-to-day news of Israel draws much less traffic, draws many Christian evangelicals (particularly to the JPost), and still does not attract the majority of North American Jews.
Nimble, well-funded, and low-cost (social-)entrepreneurial efforts at creating hyper-local Jewish media that link together their content by theme (eruv fights; community schools; cost of Jewish living; social action/justice, etc…) may have an opportunity not yet developed. But brand-building online is a risky and expensive business.
Jewish websites are divided because the North American (and, of course, Israeli – Anglo and otherwise) Jewish communities are divided. There has never been a “one size fits all” Jewish medium in North America, except perhaps, and I don’t mean this facetiously, The New York Times.
The reason for ethnic/sub-group media, black, Latino, Asian, gay, and others, is for the community to have a lens through which it can view its own, and also through which it can view the world at large (the “local” angle, as we said in the old newspaper days). The successful and willful integration of (non-haredi) American Jewry into the U.S. mainstream means that the majority of American Jews don’t view the world through a Jewish lens (atavistic pride in Jewish baseball players and Israel – for some – notwithstanding). If local Jewish media can survive on their home turf, kol hakavod to them. Clumping them all together with one or more of the Israel-based sites and one or more of the religious sites – which won’t happen for the reasons cited and many others – won’t have appeal, as much as some of us might wish it were so.
All that said, if the effort goes forward, count me in, both personally, and as a representative of Shalom Hartman Institute. We would love a portal site to further our ideas, and we encourage and would engage in vigorous cross-border (as it were) dialogue.
I think Bob AND Alan AND Mark are correct, it’s all all all in the execution. My personal horse in this race is jewishjournal.com, and I’d love any and everyone to take a look and offer their insights on how we can kick it up several notches (assume the resources and desire are there). A site like the one Bob, Alan and Mark say should be done could be done within the next six months building on what we’ve already accomplished, and it would be great to get all your feedback, help and criticism.
So, let’s all figure out how to meet/talk on/off line.
Great idea. Send me good times for you. editor@jewishjournal.com
rob
Interesting conversation. I think people aren’t just looking for Jewish news – which as you point out already exists online but perhaps could be better organized. I think there is also a need for Jewish community and other Jewish resources online – a whole new model for the 21st century Jewish experience. That’s why we have created OurJewishCommunity.org