Journalism, journalists and money
Over the past few weeks, a sort of taboo subject has continued to bubble up. More buyouts at some of the best news orgs in the country. Plunging stock prices. An intriguing article on the relationship between the newsroom and print advertising.
As if fated to be seen in contrast, the Pulitzer winners were announced, and some fantastic work got the credit it was due. Google beat out Wall Street projections and posted a profitable first quarter. And some yayhoo railed against Rob Curley, calling him a schlub because his products don’t make money (I have no clue whether that’s true or not, but, regardless, the barb was lofted).
So I ask, with both feet firmly planted in the journalism camp: At what point does all of this become our problem? At what point do we, as journalists, as the webby voices in the good ol’ MSM, start actively thinking about how we can make it better?
If there was a theoretical continuum mapping out the stance on this problem in the average newsroom, I’d wager the needle would be staunchly on the “Not my job” side of things. Any product of a worthwhile J-School has heard the horror stories: Staples Center, the CBS New Year’s Eve gaffe, various examples of ad placement for story coverage or spiked stories to preserve an advertising relationship. The overall message many students walk away with is, “If you think about how any of your work will make money, you’re dirty.”
This isn’t true. What’s more, it’s hurting us. Go over to TechCrunch and check out the list of startups. The plurality of those applications would have been ideal undertakings for a news organization. Those ideas were cooked up to make life better or more interesting, sure, but they were also meant to make money. Generally, they’re succeeding at both.
But too often, we’re leaving it in the hands of advertising people to see that it makes money. Their solution, inevitably, is, “Slap an ad on it!” “Upsell X, Y and Z!” or my favorite, “You can’t do that, we sell something similar in print.”
These aren’t wrong answers. Well, except for that last one. Unfortunately for all of us, it isn’t working. It’s time for a new plan. What about allowing subscription cell phone updates for our best apps, or a choice for ad-supported and free? What about harvesting user information and allowing for targeted, premium advertising (The Facebook model)? What about sponsorship?
The journalists who are doing this kind of work are spilling over with ideas. We’re passionate. We love what we do and we want to keep doing it. And I honestly believe that if we started thinking about this, from Project Day 1, we’d come up with something that could work.
To be clear, I’m talking about turning our best ideas into sources of money, not building ideas around sources of money. That’s an important distinction, and a tougher pill for our bosses to swallow. We don’t have to compromise our passions to make this go. Doing so would subvert the entire undertaking. But the belief that our employers should let us do good work because that’s just what news organizations do is somewhere between dead and dying. We have to prove ourselves.
And we can.
ADDENDUM #1: Any and all comments appreciated. If you think this means I lost my soul, please say so.
ADDENDUM #2: Heard from an advertising/marketing person who was looking to repair a relationship with a news editor after mentioning that a new product was mostly being created because it would lead to new revenue. At the very least, that denial of the business side of this business gotsta stop.
This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19th, 2008 at 11:08 am and is filed under Innovation, Internet, Misc. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
on April 19, 2008 at 1:03 pm Matt Waite wrote:
You have not lost your soul. I would argue that there is no greater love for journalism than to be willing to work to save it. And so long as journalism is a business and requires money to continue, it means that people — inside the newsroom and out — need to be thinking of how to make money doing journalism. Chinese walls and lines we’re uncomfortable crossing and “not my job” are all luxuries of the old business model. It’s more than just that old business model that’s imploding. The choices are becoming quite clear: cling to the old business model and ride it all the way to the unemployment line, or recognize that the news business has forever changed and change with it.
We in newspapers don’t sell advertising. We sell an audience to an advertiser. So, what exactly is wrong with a journalist building something that attracts an audience — provides information that people find useful enough to come back again and again to — that we can then sell to an advertiser? No one is advocating for journalists to start selling ads themselves. But is it so bad to think about what our readers want or might want and then build that for them?
on April 19, 2008 at 1:07 pm Wynn wrote:
thanks, Matt. I wanted to plug Politifact, too, because I think it exemplifies this point. You’re in St. Pete. You cover St. Pete. The advertising market, there, I’d reckon, is pretty well served by you and the three dozen other news orgs in the area.
PolitiFact used the good ol’ Internets to move FAR beyond that — it delivered a national audience to a local market. And you didn’t compromise your journalistic integrity to do it.
So, there… consider PolitiFact pluged.
on April 19, 2008 at 8:44 pm Teaching Online Journalism » ‘At what point does this become our problem?’ wrote:
[...] (From Matt Wynn, the data editor at the Springfield [Mo.] News-Leader.) This entry was posted on Saturday, April 19, 2008, at 10:44 pm and is filed under future, advertising, journalism, business. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. [...]
on April 20, 2008 at 9:34 am Matt King wrote:
Hey Matt, (there seems to be a theme in this thread).
As someone straddling the CAR and multimedia world (with one shaky leg in each), I’ve been pushing for the data dorks to hang out with the multimedia nerds because I think there’s huge potential for turning spreadsheets and databases into cash.
check out wiredjournalists.com. There’s a ton of expertise there and more important, it’s about doing, not whining.
Simple things like restaurant inspections draw huge traffic (at least at my site http://www.recordonline.com). Imagine what some innovation in presentation could accomplish in bringing even more and getting readers actively involved with the data.
Making all that stuff useful is a true service we can offer, much better than rehashing the minutes of a council meeting. I like your ideas about subscriptions and ad or no-ad choices, but to me it all comes down to solving one problem - how to get anyone to pay for anything online.
on April 21, 2008 at 9:46 am admin wrote:
Hey King,
“…I’ve been pushing for the data dorks to hang out with the multimedia nerds because I think there’s huge potential for turning spreadsheets and databases into cash.”
It is so comforting to hear that. Honestly, just about any sentence structured this way, “(Actual journalistic goal) because (some talk of a financial end)” is comforting. Enough folks start adding the financial end portion to their already journo-wired brains, and there might just be a news industry in 20 years.
On the topic of getting people to pay for online — I don’t think it’s going to happen. That would have to be some wicked good content; not even ESPN (upwardly mobile, freakshow audience and all) can make their Insider product worth buying. They CAN, however, turn a profit on the cell phone deal, more proof that’s the direction we should be headed at full speed.
-Matt