The Cost of a ‘Pivot to Video’ ⇥ cjr.org

Ross Benes, Digiday:

According to data from comScore, the publishers that pivoted to video this summer have seen at least a 60 percent drop in their traffic in August compared to the same period from a year ago. Mic went from 17.5 million visitors in August 2016 to 6.6 million visitors in August 2017, according to comScore. The decline at Vocativ was even more drastic as it went from 4 million visitors in August 2016 to a 175,000 visitors in July 2017. By August 2017, Vocativ’s traffic had shrunk enough that comScore couldn’t detect it. Over the past six months, the Alexa ranks of Vocativ, Fox Sports and Mic have also plummeted.

Heidi N. Moore, Columbia Journalism Review:

Publishers must acknowledge the pivot to video has failed, find out why, and set about to fix the reckless pivots so that publishers focus on good video. It should be original, clever, entertaining, and part of a balanced multimedia approach to digital journalism that includes well-written, well-reported stories, strong data and graphics, and good art.

Moore’s article is killer — a well-considered dressing-down of publishers that rely on lazy video techniques to try to replace high production value journalism.