Jason Unger

For Financial Media, It's All About People

Posted by junger - 12/30/08 at 06:12:18 pm

I've never held back my disappointment in the financial media, who constantly provide their audiences with some of the worst advice possible.

While outlets like the Motley Fool aggressively cover stock picking — a stupid practice for 98% of the population — they target the masses.

I'm not even out of bed by the time I've heard about the Dow Futures twice on the local news and on the Today show from CNBC updates. If I want to know what the Asian markets did last night, I'll turn on Fox Business, not News 4 Today in Washington.

The financial media don't provide useful information to the masses because, well, they wouldn't make much money doing it. Personal finance is a pretty cut-and-dry subject: once you learn the basics, you're pretty good to go.

As we know, the media needs something to talk about. And there are only so many ways you can say "spend less than you earn."

So What Should Financial Media Do?

Responsible financial media outlets need to spend more time focusing on their audience and not recommending mutual funds from their advertisers.

Instead of coming up with "the one stock you must buy" — which you probably shouldn't — they should tell the stories of real people and their money situations.

This is one of the reasons Dave Ramsey is so popular. It's not like he ever says anything new — he just applies it to his listeners' situations.

One of the leading personal finance blogs, The Simple Dollar, publishes a reader mailbag weekly. It's always my favorite post to read, because it's real people sharing their real stories.

This was probably one of my biggest issues running the Online Savings Blog. I didn't have the experience or authority to tell you how to buy a house (I've never done it), but I was (and still am) passionate about my personal financial situation.

I can share my story and talk about yours. And in the end, isn't telling stories what media is all about?

Video Blog: Renewing My PC Magazine Subscription

Posted by junger - 12/12/08 at 12:12:38 am

This is what happens to your renewal notices when the magazine goes digital only.

For more, follow me on Twitter, sign up for email updates, RSS, or videos.

The Onion: Taking the Media to Task Since 1783

Posted by junger - 10/08/08 at 10:10:36 am

The Onion, easily the funniest outlet this side of CollegeHumor, certainly has a history of challenging the status quo.

They've recently been running stories from their "historical archives," including their first issue from 1783.

In late 1783, change was sweeping the Western world. The Revolutionary War had drawn to a close, the Treaty of Paris had been signed, Mozart's Great Mass was performed for the first time, and, with the Montgolfier brothers' balloon, mankind was poised on the threshold of flight. And only one newspaper, H. Ulysses Zweibel's The Onion, had the courage to stand against it all. Here, for the first time ever, is a reprint edition of The Onion's October 6, 1783 issue.

It's brilliant.

But while political satire is all the rage these days with Tina Fey's Sarah Palin and Jon Stewart's Daily Show, The Onion has some of the sharpest — and least ideological — comedy.

Gunman Kills 15 Potential Voters In Crucial Swing State

In an era of 24/7 cable news coverage and non-stop election reporting, The Onion is slamming the media for — surprise — not focusing on what really matters.

While members of the media likes to paint themselves as an easy target, there's a legitimate gripe to be made here.

I'm just surprised they didn't pull out the Microsoft Surface table for Chuck Todd.

3 Mainstream Media Podcasts Doing it Right

Posted by junger - 06/30/08 at 09:06:53 pm

It's easy to hate on the mainstream media, especially in an Internet age where most companies don't understand Web publishing.

Newspaper sites don't write Web headlines. Magazine sites think people care what issue a story is from. And TV networks? They just think we're all pirates.

But there are a few broadcasters with mainstream podcasts that are getting it right — and believe it or not, they're actually worth watching.

NBC Nightly News w/Brian Williams
Almost immediately after each day's broadcast, the NBC Nightly News is available commercial-free as a podcast. It's not a special "online" edition — it's the entire show, sometimes even updated when the West Coast edition has something new.

We've talked about Brian Williams and the shift in media before, but what makes this broadcast interesting a day "late" is that it isn't really that late. While there's obviously news from the day, a lot of the content is timeless — so if I watch it a day or two later, it's still worth it.

Anderson Cooper 360
AC 360, iTunes' "Best new podcast" last year, doesn't feature all two hours of Cooper's nightly news program, but it's the first podcast I watch every morning. Running about a half-an-hour an episode, it normally has the latest news from the previous night.

Beyond the news, Cooper and newsgal (and former TechTVer Erica Hill) seem to speak to the Internet generation — they're not old and stogy, and love to laugh at videos of bears falling out of trees.

They also incorporate their daily blog contests — The Shot and Beat 360 — into the podcast, which are lighter fare.

Meet the Press
NBC also gets it right with Meet the Press, which it offers in its entirety, also without commercials.

Obviously, things have changed a bit since the show lost host Tim Russert, but since the show has never been about breaking news, it can be watched at any point during the week without feeling completely out of the know.

What mainstream media podcasts are you watching?

Print Isn't Going to Die, Just Change

Posted by junger - 05/14/08 at 11:05:51 am

I hate when people say the Internet is going to completely replace deadtree media. It's completely ridiculous.

Printed media is not going to die, it's just going through a major shift in content. Obviously, newspapers are not real-time. Magazines are not real-time. The Internet is.

So what should a print publication do to survive? Embrace that it isn't real-time.

The latest conversation on this comes with the launch of Dispatches, a quarterly magazine based on analysis of events, not news. (Yes, they do have a Web site.)

Why this is newsworthy I don't know. But for some reason, it gets people asking: is print dead?

Mashable, for example, gets it completely wrong.

The printed magazine, content-wise, is just like a web page taken offline: nothing more, nothing less. Is there any hope for the print, then?

First off, people do not read online. Jakob Nielsen has been saying this for 11 years.

People do read offline. When you have paper in your hand, it's a lot easier to focus on one thing. Reading offline is a different experience. You're sitting on the sofa, feet up, relaxed and a drink in hand. You don't sit at your computer desk like that, do you?

Content presentation matters. Big time. Because of that, certain content fares better online while other is better in print. So why bother comparing the two? It's like putting a square peg in a round hole. It doesn't work.

The commenters in TechDirt's coverage of the story mostly seem to be missing the point. It's not about competing with the Internet; it's about offering content in-tune with the delivery and format of the publication.

Unfortunately, there's a lot of noise in this discussion: blogs, balance and bias all get thrown into the mix. Forget about that — it's a different topic.

It's not about the competition; it's about maximizing the user experience. And everytime you think of your users first, you win.