Tag Archives: journalism

Media2010: Print, Web, blogs, ads, and The Wall

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On Wednesday I attended the “Media 2010 Summit” presented by the Albany Times Union. It featured a panel discussion with three of the TU bloggers and Greg Dahlmann, co-founder of popular local blog All Over Albany.

It took a while to get to some meat in the discussion, and it felt like time ran out just as we arrived there. The Times Union runs about 155 blogs on its site. A handful of those are written by TU staffers; the rest by unpaid volunteers from the community. Topics range from food to politics to dogs to parenting to religion.

I was most interested in hearing about how the TU is (or plans to) turning their stable of blogs into a revenue source for the paper — and what its plans are for more tightly integrating the news content on their site with blogs and being able to package and sell ads against all of their content.

We didn’t quite get there.

Panelist Kristi Gustafson, who writes the fashion/lifestyle blog for the TU, talked about “feeding the print product” and how they’re constantly trying to use blog content to drive people to the print newspaper. She repackages some of her most popular blog posts and features from the week for the Sunday print edition of the Times Union. To me, this seems backwards, as people continue to consume more content online and less in print.

The topic of “The Wall” (the traditional partition between editorial and advertising) came up, and Steve Barnes, a senior writer at the TU and author of its popular food/restaurant blog, made one of the more interesting statements of the night:

The revenue aspect completely not my concern. I build a brand because I know it brings more readers to the TU. I have no idea what they charge for ads. I don’t want to know. We have a department for that. We have people who go out and sell ads.

Steve is an “old-school journalist” with a great respect for editorial and journalistic integrity (and I respect him for that). But his statement is a bit contradictory. He wants to use his blog to bring readers to the TU, but doesn’t want to take the full step to equate those readers with dollars and that what he writes impacts that. In the Web world, readers = traffic. Traffic = ad revenue. I don’t believe it’s as decoupled as Steve thinks.

Journalists in the future, like it or not, are going to need to understand media business models better. While I’m certainly not suggesting that advertisers should directly impact content (be it “traditional” news content or blogs), driving traffic is what drives revenue (and let’s not get into that other Wall, the pay wall).

Journalists and editors need to figure out how to make the content/traffic/revenue marriage work. It may mean that journalists DO need to think about the revenue side of the house when writing. The Huffington Post does real-time A/B testing of headlines in the first few minutes a story is live and then makes a decision on the most effective one.

I certainly don’t want to see all news content devolve into keyword-optimized nonsense, but we can’t pretend that media companies can exist without revenue to support them. Consumers have so far shown that they’re unwilling to pay for news online. Advertising is, and always have been, what funds the editorial side of the house. I don’t think that one side of the house can afford to ignore the other.

I’ve been noodling on this since the event on Wednesday. Let me know what you think in the comments.

Why I’ve quit reading “social media blogs”

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I’ve spent the last year and a half reading and learning as much about social media as possible, going from a complete n00b with barely a Facebook profile to a recovering social media addict. I ravenously consumed blog posts about PR, communications and social media. But after awhile, a lot of the information begins to feel repetitive (and derivative). I get it at this point – it’s “about the conversation” and “engaging with people” and “being transparent.”

My reading habits have changed over the last month or so. I’m no longer looking for basic social media information or more social media Kool-Aid and so I’ve purged my Google Reader of feeds I haven’t been getting much value from. I’m reading fewer and fewer personal or individual PR bloggers and instead gleaning more insight from collaborative blogs or blogs at major media outlets. My goal is less about the nuts-and-bolts or “how to” of social media and PR 2.0 and more about understanding the big picture — trends and successes in media, social networking, and the Web, and looking at how all of it impacts the way we will continue to consume news and information.

Some blogs will always have a revered spot in my reader, because I’m always finding value and new ideas from them. However, a lot of what I’m reading now isn’t even necessarily PR-focused. I’m always open to discovering a post on someone’s blog that showcases great thinking or a new idea, and I still stumble across some of those via Twitter. But I’m being more discerning about which feeds make it into my RSS reader.

Here’s what’s been recently added to my reader or what I’ve refocused on lately:

Media Industry and Trends

Hyperlocal News

Social Media and PR 2.0 in Practice

Business and Technology Insight

It’s a lot of content, which wreaks havoc on my previous system of organizing Google Reader. I’m much better now about scanning headlines, using the “sort by magic” feature to see the best posts, and not agonizing anymore about trying to get to everything.

What sites are you finding value in these days? Share in the comments.

My new gig: inbound marketing at readMedia

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Forget the catchy lede. I’ve had this cat in the bag for a while now and it’s time to let it out: I have a new job!

Starting today(!), I’ll be heading up inbound marketing efforts for Albany-based readMedia. After seven years in corporate communications, I’m trading the manufacturing plant for a hip downtown office, the Blackberry for an iPhone, and the red tape of big company bureaucracy for an intimate start-up culture.

I’ve been working with readMedia as one of my consulting clients for the last several months and so when they offered me a full-time position, I already knew it would be a great fit. My new coworkers are fun, smart, and generally have good taste in beer (want to follow ‘em? Check out this Twitter list of readMedia employees I created).

So, what am I going to be doing? A lot of really cool stuff. I’ll be running the company’s paid and earned media campaigns, representing readMedia at trade shows and conferences, managing their social media presence and using inbound marketing to generate sales for the company. Right up my alley.

readMedia

A little background on my new company: readMedia is a software and media company whose platform allows organizations like governments, nonprofits, and schools to publish social media-enabled news releases online and distribute them directly to geographically-targeted media outlets. readMedia’s clients produced over a quarter of a million pieces of specialized, hyperlocal news content last year — like this story about a state worker selling drugs in the basement of the State Capitol. (Seriously. Only in New York. And maybe Illinois.)

The media landscape continues to change as newspapers shed the staff and resources that were traditionally devoted to covering local news — town board meetings, fundraisers and local events, students away at college being named to an honor society or making the dean’s list. But these types of stories are still important to local communities and form the original content that drives old, new and niche media stories within a community. readMedia gives its clients the tools to serve as their own beat reporters and publish high-quality, hyperlocal content online and to traditional media outlets.

I can’t even describe how excited I am to get settled in at readMedia and become a part of their team. I’ll still be organizing Social Media Breakfast Tech Valley (though likely with some more help) and blogging right here, but I’m stepping away from consulting to fully devote my time and brain waves to readMedia.

So many of you supported me throughout this past year by acting as mentors, sounding boards, collaborators, and friends. I’ll dispense with the Academy Awards-style mushiness, but I really do appreciate all of the great advice and input I’ve received as I transitioned from corporate communications to consulting and now to this new role. So simply, thank you.

Game on!

Can “sponsored journalism” really work?

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If you still even subscribe to your local newspaper, you’ve probably noticed that it’s getting thinner and thinner. What once would have passed for a phone book is now, at best, a placemat. Even if you consume your news online, news organizations are having a harder time keeping reporters on staff as they struggle to cover overhead and stay afloat.

So it’s perhaps not a surprise that some organizations are taking matters into their own hands, as the Los Angeles Kings hockey team did earlier this week. According to the New York Times, the team has hired a reporter to write (autonomously) for its Web site. I encourage you to read the full article and noodle on it for a bit.

Is it any different than providing your own corporate content?

I’ve struggled internally with whether this approach is good, bad or even sustainable. Obviously the Kings recognized that its fan base is hungry for news but that traditional outlets no longer have the means to provide it. So the Kings have decided to create news for themselves.

Initially, this may not appear any different than having an internal communications person develop and produce news stories for an organization. It reminds me a bit of what Lee Aase has been doing at Mayo Clinic: Don’t just pitch the media, BE the media.

However, that’s not exactly what’s happening here. Rich Hammond is not employed by the Kings to tout the company line and craft messages that are complimentary to the organization. He supposedly has complete editorial control over the content. Essentially he’s a “sponsored reporter.”

But I question how successful this approach can be. If Hammond’s stories are too complimentary or give the Kings a pass too frequently, will readers write him off as “working for the man” and simply regurgitating the party line?

Could you square off against the organization that’s your livelihood?

Is he really going to feel comfortable taking a hard tack against the organization that provides his paycheck each week? What happens if Hammond uncovers evidence of cheating, doping or other foul play within the organization? Will readers trust that he’s reporting the full story and not covering up details at the behest of the organization that pays him?

The New York Times piece suggests that readers are smart enough to distinguish between reporting and public relations. I don’t doubt that’s true, but I do wonder if it will mean that Hammond’s “reporting” is slightly less forceful than it would have been at an indpendent news organization. Hammond himself claims he’ll continue to write just as he would if he were a reporter.

It’s one thing for a company to internally produce content (blog posts, news releases, video, podcasts, etc.). Readers know that this content specifically comes from within the organization and can judge for themselves how much “messaging” is included in this content.

But in the case of the LA Kings, that line becomes blurred. Hammond isn’t strictly a corporate communications professional working with the best intrests of the organization in mind, but he’s also not strictly a reporter who doesn’t rely on the organization he covers to pay his bills and feed his family.

What do you think about this hybrid model? Will readers trust it – or even be able to distinguish reporting from PR? Could it work for certain types of organizations but not others?

Let me know your thoughts in the comments – I’m still working this one out…

Michael Arrington isn’t a journalist

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Twitter Boxing GlovesIf you’ve been obsessed with the Tour de France and haven’t been checking any other media outlets this week (raises hand), you may have missed the Internet scandal/dust-up/spat of the week between Michael Arrington at TechCrunch and the boys at Twitter. It’s been blogged to death, so I’ll keep this one short.

The :20 second summary is that a hacker got access to Twitter’s corporate Google accounts, got hold of a bunch of confidential documents about Twitter’s strategic plan and financials, e-mailed them to TechCrunch, and Arrington published (some of) them. Ev, Jack and Biz at Twitter cried foul and are getting lawyers involved. Many people have denounced Arrington’s decision as unethical. He’s keeping some of the documents suppressed (for now) at Twitter’s request.

Guy Kawasaki (seriously, this is the most name-dropping post I’ve ever written) slapped up a copy of the Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics up on his Posterous page last night, circling the following tenet:

Journalists should avoid undercover or other surreptitious methods of gathering information except when traditional open methods will not yield information vital to the public. Use of such methods should be explained as part of the story

But, let’s all remember that bloggers, like Arrington, aren’t journalists. They don’t operate under a professional code of ethics. they don’t report to an editor or publisher who tells them what to write about or what they can or can’t reveal. Many of them are ethical, many of them are former journalists, many of them would have chosen not to publish the documents.

Credibility is what’s keeping traditional media alive. Readers respect and trust publications and news outlets that do operate under a code of ethics like SPJ’s. This may be a short-term win for Arrington, but over time stunts like this are going to erode (what’s left of) reader’s respect for TechCrunch.

From the standpoint of a PR professional or a corporate communicator, we can’t forget that bloggers operate under their own rules. They aren’t necessarily motivated by the truth or by serving the public or by being objective.

We can’t count on them doing the right thing.

Image via Flickr user KayVee.INC