Flexability — so hot right now
This is probably old news to at least some of you, but I just read this interesting IBJ piece on the Indy Star's quashed effort to get its news writers to produce ad copy.
Personally, I'm with the management on this one. The newspaper business is at a serious crossroads. All options need to be on the table if anyone is going to figure out a viable business model for the twenty-first century. To see workers scoff at the notion that they must expand their skillsets and deliver more value is disheartening, though not surprising.
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Props to my company - go IBJ!
Ray, though, I disagree with the management. If you want your journalists to have credibility, you can't have them mixing their writing with adversorials and true editorial content. Maybe I'm being hopeful in thinking the average reader would notice, but *I* would start to question whether a source they interview has bribed the company with ad copy for the article. (Which, is an adversatorial.)
I've written them before, but I was not on staff for the company and didn't write for the Star, just the Custom Publishing section.
Journalists are supposed to be impartial as possible and mixing marketing with true journalistic writing is a recipie for disaster. Why can't the star just hire freelancers to write the adversorials? It would be cheaper!
that's my two cents as a journalist.
I respect your opinion as a journalist and I agree that if you go too far over the line and lose credibility, you've screwed the pooch. But I do think the rules are changing and the line between advertising and editorial is coming down a bit WSJ just started offering ads on their front page, for example. The larger issue is really cost. Old media companies will need to get smaller to stay competitive so individual employees need to carry more weight.
Hey bad boy I got my shit working now, yeap yeap
Ray,
It's one thing to focus more on ads than editorial content, or accepting ads on the front page of a paper like the WSJ, but I doubt the WSJ is having any of their paid reportes write the ad copy. That's my point.
I totally understand that media is changing. Blogs and the internet are responsible for that. I just think reporters still need to stay out of writing ad copy, that's all. :)
After thinking about this issue some more, I'm not especially committed to my original position. But I do feel that everyone involved in an organization should be open to doing whatever it takes to help that organization deliver value. Reporters are wonderful storytellers, and are very skilled at boiling complicated issues down and making them accessible for their particular audience. I can imagine an advertising client coming to a newspaper in need of that kind of help when it comes to communicating their story (within an ad) to the paper's audience. Who else on staff can the paper turn to in such a situation but its writers? Especially since page designers and photographers are already routinely recruited to help work on ads. I guess it just gets me to hear of workers with a "no-can-do" attitude, especially in these turbulent times.
Ray,
It's not a "no-can-do" attitude like the reporters are better than writing ad copy, but hey, I shouldn't compromise my journalist integrity so Jillian's can have a fun ad.
I thought ad agencies had people on staff who created their ads - why can't they write the copy?
Or if someone on staff has to do it, why not the marketing staff?
Times are changing, that's for sure. The newsroom and ad staff aren't as separated as they were in the past. I just hate to see it when you tune in to the 6 o'clock evening news and see stories featuring advertisers that run during the newscast. Or see on the front page a feature story about local bakeries or a story about car dealers- all who happen to have advertisements in the same issue.
That's my point. You lose credibility, variety, and interest. Channel 6 has an excellent web site in my opinion, filled with local news; however, I hate going there now becuase ads drop down and block the news or pop up and you have to wait until they go away to read what you want. ugh. :P
BTW, a statement in my previous post seems misleading. I forgot a couple words - the remark about news agenicies just featuring sources who are advertisers, I meant to say I'd hate to see that be the case, not that it is the case now. (at least, I hope not!)
Upon reading only the title of this blog entry "Flexibility- so hot right now" I, naturally, assumed that it was about some sort of deviant sex thing. After i read it i was so dissapointed! Not to imply that the content contained herein isn't interesting, it is actually very much so, only to say that when one is expecting the kama sutra and gets journalism it's a bit of a let down.
Story of my life!
[...] readers of this blog may remember my dismay at Indianapolis Star writers balking at the idea of sometimes writing ad copy as a way to stymie the bleeding in the newspaper business. And while that particular initiative [...]