By Paul Bernish

The leak of an internal New York Times report on what the media company needed to do to stay fully competitive was a revelation, to say the least.  What it mostly revealed was that old habits really do die hard.

Take, for example, the Times‘ fabled obituaries, which for generations have been the paper’s most read (and, for many, cherished) articles.  They chronicled the lives of not just the famous and influential, but also lesser knowns who were interesting, brave, quirky or brilliant — people who Times editors felt justified in remarking upon at the time of their passing.

The internal Times report lamented that it took a new content provider, Flipboard, to bring those obituaries to a wider audience. It did so by selecting the most fascinating 2013 death notices into a single piece, and posting it online, where it became Flipboard’s most viewed article; the point was that the Times could have done this but didn’t because it wasn’t thinking about how to combine traditional and new media content platforms.

That revelation was one of many in the leaked document that has created a media sensation.  The Times, after all, is America’s most respected newspaper — a paragon of traditional news gathering and reporting excellence.  Yet the report concluded that the publishing company was falling behind its traditional competitors (the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post, the Guardian, et al) as well as new digital media content providers such as Vox.com, You Tube and Politico.  These competitors, the report stated in unmistakable terms, were eating the Times‘ lunch because they had much more quickly adopted new online media strategies designed to repurpose and extend content into all nooks and crannies of digital space.

“Our core mission remains producing the world’s best journalism,” the report states. “But with the endless upheaval in technology, reader habits and the entire business model, The Times needs to pursue smart new strategies for growing out audience. The urgency is only growing because digital media is getting more crowded, better funded and far more innovative.”

Coming from the Times own people, this is a huge concession. And it’s a cautionary tale applicable far beyond the paper’s newsroom to news consumers, no less than for content strategists (as we are), as well as organizations that still think that a news release faxed to the local paper counts as communication.

First, the content landscape is greatly unsettled, with one foot firmly planted in the old ways of doing things, like publishing a daily newspaper, and the other in the online realm where competition for visibility, audience and engagement is burgeoning among traditional publishers and new media startups. The Times is a giant media enterprise stuck in the old way, and as the report reveals, dragging its feet in embracing more varied content platforms.

Second, news consumers and providers are often times one and the same. That is, the editorial function, which for generations determined what constituted “news,” and how it had to be reported, is largely disappearing.  In its place is a Wild West landscape in which anyone with Internet access can create, distribute and comment upon daily events, often without no editorial oversight. While this content mosh pit excites younger generations, it is causing angst and alarm in older readers and viewers who’ve relied upon some degree of professional gatekeeping to help them understand life’s events and avoid rumors, falsehoods and propaganda. No longer.

Third, and perhaps most important, the Times document reveals that even the best content providers — news organizations and content strategists alike — need to cast off old habits if they’re to survive.

Our company, Bernish Communications LLC, counsels clients on how to employ new ideas and trends to help them gain traction and engagement with the audiences they need to reach. We’ve had to shed the habit, and advise our clients, of assuming that the traditional media (the professionally reported and edited media) was still the most viable choice for most consumers.  It isn’t.

As the Times report reveals, content that originates in one place (a newspaper article, a press release, a video segment) must be extended across multiple media channels in order to reach intended (hoped for) audiences. It must be offered in easily digestible packets, but also offer discerning readers the opportunity to access long-form articles that are of particular interest.  Most of all, the content must be fresh, relevant, and engaging. Anything less will likely not be read or seen, truncating communication.

And that, perhaps, is the irony of the Times document.  The group of reporters, editors, marketers and others recruited for the internal task force concluded that while the Times was in the business of communicating, it wasn’t communicating very well.

The learning for any organization wanting to reach its audiences with product, services or new ideas? Embrace the new, digital realm with a clear content strategy. Or end up with an obituary few will ever see.