Over this past week, the Reuters multimedia news agency launched their Reuters TV channel on YouTube, as well as a roll-out on the Reuters.com website. This launch comes during the same week that The Huffington Post Media Group announced their plans to offer an online programming channel called the Huffington Post Streaming Network, or HPSN.
While The Huffington Post’s online plans seem to be more towards building a 24-hour online news network in the CNN mode, both news organizations are building their programming by aggregating the talent and followings of their journalists.
All of this means that it’s more important than ever for journalists to keep personal branding in mind. If this idea conjures up feelings of panic and a bad episode of Mad Men, think of branding as answering two questions: “What makes me unique as a journalist?” and “Why should people spend time reading my work and connecting with me?”
Because like it or not, news organizations will remain in the hunt for new revenue streams and a big part of that search will be looking at staff journalists to be potential media stars in order to build audience and advertisers for their online and offline products.
