Build Your Own Content Channels

One of the most important items on your “To Do” list for 2024.

By Jennifer R. Farmer

As we near the end of 2023, I have at least one item for you to put on your To Do list for 2024; invest in your own content channels. The days of relying solely on traditional media or social media platforms (owned by companies that may not share your values) are over. You must continue to create and invest in your own platforms.  

Why? 

Whether it is the acceleration of artificial intelligence, a desire to return more money to shareholders, newsroom cuts or media platforms obsessed with celebrities and popular culture, the media continues to contract. Certainly, the media has been contracting for years, but the cuts show no signs of abating. Earlier this year, Axios reported that the media industry cut 17,436 jobs. This was more than the start of the pandemic when 16,750 media jobs were cut. And the cuts this year follow years of steep losses in newsroom jobs.   

As the media contracts, there are fewer trusted journalists to tell our stories, and fewer journalists who understand and appreciate the nuances of race, gender, sexual identity, etc. Consequently, disinformation spreads as more and more people turn to social media.  

What is more, as a result of continued media industry cuts, public relations professionals outnumber journalists 6 to 1. There are more people pitching reporters than there are reporters to write and cover stories.   

If ever there were a time to become a curator and publisher of information, that time is now. Learn how.