Who Represents "The Truth" In MSM?

To say we are experiencing a transition in the world of "news" is the understatement of the century. I'm not sure across how many axes this transition - this war - is being played (print vs. online, blogs vs. MSM, free vs. paid, etc.), but suffice it to say that a big shakeout is afoot and a significant amount of brainpower and advertising dollars are being spent to shape the outcomes. Likely the most intriguing axis of debate - blogs vs. traditional MSM - was recently highlighted in two different stories concerning the New York Times and the Washington Post.

For those of you playing along, the NYT is in the midst of a big advertising campaign with a fresh, new tagline - "These Times Demand The Times." There was a big hoo hah over this campaign, and the NYT Investor Relations department put out a detailed release on this new initiative, some excerpts of which are below.

NEW YORK, Sept. 15, 2006 – The New York Times announced today its new branding campaign, “These Times Demand The Times,” focusing on the high-quality journalism produced by Times reporters in print and online.

“In these incredibly exciting, technologically fast-paced times, consumers and advertisers more than ever are searching for a trusted brand that reports the news with authority, accuracy and clarity,” said Alyse Myers, senior vice president and chief marketing officer, The New York Times Media Group. “Our new campaign speaks directly to these issues: these times absolutely demand The Times.”

The campaign will launch to coincide with the new fall television season. A 30- and 60- second TV commercial will illustrate, in reverse, the unfolding story of how news is reported, beginning with the finished paper in the reader's hands and working backwards to the reporter on the ground. The spots can be viewed at TheseTimesDemandTheTimes.com, a microsite specially created for the campaign. Other ads will highlight the path of several reporters, editors and columnists with vignettes of their personal stories and how they work as journalists. A special 24-page insert in the paper as well as radio, video and banners online, and targeted marketing on Yahoo! will also convey the message.

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“There may be more media choices than ever before,” added Ms. Myers. “But there is still only one brand that can give you all the news, analysis and opinion about everything that is important to your life … that respects your intelligence and helps you decide what really matters -- and for advertisers, that delivers the well educated, influential audience both in print and online that is second to none. That's why the focus of this new campaign is about the quality of our journalism.

“Journalism is everything to The New York Times and we wanted our new campaign to reflect that essential point of differentiation.”

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Whew, where to begin. And this, from the former employer of Jayson Blair. Come on, guys, get off the soap box and become a little more human, ok? Now, don't get me wrong. I read the NYT in both print and online. I think it employs many fine writers and believe it is a top-notch publication, most of the time. And while my friend Fred is perpetually pissed at them due to their Times Select model of keeping some of their best writers inside a walled garden, I think it is hard to argue with the fact that the NYT is one of the best written, most influential publications on the planet. Now that said, could they be any more pompous and self-aggrandizing? So let me get this straight - they think enough of the Internet medium to use it as a vehicle for advertising (so who exactly are they trying to reach on the Internet? A bunch of uneducated idiots?). And they claim to be the "...one brand that can give you all the news, analysis and opinion about everything that is important to your life..."

But somehow they have a hard time connecting the dots between an educated readership that is internet-savvy, critical, desirous of best-of-breed news, analysis and opinion, and other outlets that might provide a welcome complement to what they provide, i.e., blogs written by people who are every bit as influential, educated, and knowledgeable as NYT reporters? The feel one gets from the official press release is "Join the NYT family. We are all you need." I think that is a very, very bad message to send, and one that will not resonate with the bulk of their readership - assuming their readership represents the kind of following they really want - young, educated, insightful, critical and smart. It just so happens that when you combine these characteristics one other notable feature pops out - Internet-savvy. And these people will not settle for a single locus of knowledge. Because they know knoweldge is resident all over the place, and they will aggressively seek it out, wherever it may reside. Bottom line - yeah, I'll check you out, but if this is all you've got I'm outta here. Not a sustainable model for a rapidly changing world, in my opinion.

Now let's look at a little story concerning our friends over at the Washington Post. I think you'll see that their take on other forms of media - most notably bloggers - actually enhance the value of their work, the value of their property and up the game of their writers and editors. My feeling is that this is a somewhat more forward-looking attitude than that held by my friends at the NYT. Anyway, let me provide you some excerpts from an article quote Washington Post editor Len Downie, and you be the judge.

WASHINGTON Speaking at the Online News Association's annual convention in Washington, D.C., Friday, Washington Post editor Len Downie looked back on the changes in newsgathering and production over the past decade, and listed some of what he thought would be the biggest challenges for news organizations in the near future.

Downie said that when it first became apparent that the Internet would change the news business, executives and editors worried that its influence would erode the quality of journalism, increase competition, and become a distraction for the reporters and editors working on the print edition of the paper. But he said instead that the increased focus on the Web has "improved journalism a lot, way more than we could have expected."

He said that the 24/7 news cycle has changed his newsroom for the better, with reporters always tuned in to what's happening and constantly trying to find stories to report for the Web site -- and that reporters could add more detail because the Web had "unlimited newshole."

"I was known for writing long as a reporter, I edit long, and now there's a place to put it all," he said.

Reporters love newsroom blogs, said Downie, because they put writers in better touch with their readers: "Everyone in our newsroom wants to be a blogger."

And the blogs that pick apart every article that the Post produces are a good thing, said Downie, because they "keep the paper honest" and, even if their commentary isn't positive, bring people to the site.

"Blogs are not competitors and not problems," he said. "Instead we have a very interesting symbiotic relationship. Our largest driver of traffic is Matt Drudge."

While it's true that competition for print media has increased tremendously due to the Web, the Washington Post's overall audience has now become huge compared to what it once was, Downie added. And instead of weakening the paper's brand, as he said it was feared, it has strengthened it and made the Washington Post well known around the world.

Listing some main challenges for the future, Downie worried that as people's attention spans become shorter due to the Web and more readers access news from mobile plaforms on the go, the "contemplative" features of journalism would suffer; he wondered whether online ads would eventually make up the difference from lost print revenue, and whether the results would pay for the kind of professional journalism that people expect; he asked whether edited and verifiable content -- and branded content in general -- would continue to be important.

Downie speculated that perhaps in the future content sharing between old media and new media would be less of a one-way street, with print media taking cues and integrating ideas from multimedia integration and blogs.

I'm not sure what to say here except to say that Len Downie and the Washington Post truly get it. It's not about saying "We're the best, we're it, we're Alpha and Omega and there is nothing in between," it's about saying "We're in a changing world, there is stuff we can learn, our people dig it and we can up our game by embracing change." The thing that is so amazing to me is his recognition of the symbiotic relationship between MSM and the blogosphere.  I had written about this "reflexive" relationship in a post about Lonelygirl15, and this same dynamic is at work here. Embracing change is scary. And hard. And the outcomes are uncertain. But Len isn't afraid. He knows it is more scary and dangerous to stand still, to protect the status quo (see my last post on CEO bloggers and the push-back from the wire services - big surprise) than it is to embrace change.

Between the messaging of their latest ad campaing and their Times Select strategy, it is clear that the NYT has taken a different approach. We'll see who wins. My bet is on the folks looking forward - not those intent on protecting their backside.

Comments

[Roger]

Au contraire, Bill. I think you and I agree on most points. I do think that it is hard for the "establishment" MSM to "get it." No doubt about that. But not impossible, at least in my (maybe overly) optimistic opinion. If MSM is able to accept that it is economically rational for them to give greater emphasis to the WHAT rather than to the WHOM, then they will eventually embrace (if not joyfully at least by necessity) a relationship with the blogosphere.

I can imagine a world where content flows freely from the blogosphere to MSM back to the blogosphere for greater detail and amplification and on and on. At least to my simple-headed mind this seems like a viable value proposition for MSM, as media consumption, like Wall Street applications, does not like sharp changes in workflow.

I can see MSM's online presence as a portal that takes relevant information from all over, uses this information to augment their organic reporting and editorial content in order to deliver a powerful, high-value venue chock-a-bloc with opportunity for ad revenue.

I think MSM can and will have enduring value - provided they incorporate the content you so clearly referenced from online sources - in order to deliver a better, richer, more relevant product. Otherwise, they will be road-kill over time. I hope they wake up. For the good of all news consumers.

[Bill a.k.a. NO DooDahs]

"It's just software." When a CEO uses a blog, he doesn't become a "blogger" in any meaningful sense. Similarly, "it's just hardware." When the NYT uses the internet, it doesn't make them NOT the NYT.

We possibly disagree on this, but I really feel that the LACK of "influence" and "authority" is what makes the medium of blogging so important and powerful, and I use that "lacking" as a key criterion in my definition of "blogger."

In a blog, the emphasis shifts just a little bit away from WHO you know, to WHAT you know, and it shifts just a little bit away from WHO is saying something, to WHAT is being said. It's nowhere near a meritocracy of ideas, but it's a damn site closer than the Main Stream Media would like it to be. It certainly does get outside the narrow band of discourse from time to time.

It's not that I think the NYT doesn't "get it." I think, by virtue of their position, they are INCAPABLE of "getting it."

I can read articles from Jang Group in Pakistan, Bloomberg, UPI, Reuters, the Herald Sun (Australia), Yahoo, Tamilnet, FT, BBC, the Independent, Haaretz (unfortunately they censor the articles published in English for foreign consumption, and sometimes I have to resort to getting a translated page from Hebrew), the World Peace Herald, IHT, the Peninsula (Qatar's leading English daily), etc., all on the web. I can get RSS feeds from most of them. I can be better informed on foreign policy issues in 15 minutes in the morning than most working at the White House. I can even read the opinions page from TurkishPress[dot]com.

Does Ms. Myers really think the NYT can give me all that news and analysis? I don't think so. Does anyone really think that a reader of the NYT is more cosmopolitan and well informed than someone who gets his news from the web? Puh-leeze.

Diversity of opinion and diversity of facts reported is the answer, and the only way to get that is through the web. If I were to read the "international section" of 15 different U.S. newspapers, I would get 15 different edits of the same story, which was probably run by the Times or the Post the day before. However, on the web, I can read not only the news as written by those who are international, but also get an uncensored opinion by someone who lacks "influence" and "authority" but someone who is THERE and can provide insight from a commoner's perspective, in their blog.

This is the value of the web – diversity of fact and opinion within easy reach. This is the value of bloggers – shifting the scale towards what is known and said and away from "influence" and "authority."

Nothing the mainstream media does with hardware and software will provide that value. Like the doppelgängers of folklore, the MSM's attempts to invade the space of the web and the blog can only portent ill.

[Roger]

Pretty tough to disagree with your reasoned cynicism, Habib. I hear you. It could indeed be incrementalism at work.

[Habib]

Maybe I am being too cynical, but I think this is an example of the Times, "telling the story that their readers want to hear." I think there is a critical difference between the readership they want and the readership they have. Every day the NY Times spits out (esp editorial) content that validates the passions and identities of the readers. And they own this market, from a traditional media perspective. Now, it would be logical to assume that the Times would want to broaden their appeal, but to do so might threaten their ownership of their current demographic- a demographic that has demonstrated its willingness and desire to burn heretics at the stake. It is possible that the Times knows this well, and is quietly moving to broaden its internet presence in mostly unrelated ways- ways that don't threaten the current franchise.

[Roger]

Habib, I pretty much agree with what you are saying. I just find the paradox you identified amazing and somewhat unbelievable. While politically the NYT may be in touch with their core constituency, my hypothesis is that if they perpetuate an insular attitude towards other forms of online media they will become divorced from this constituency in the long run. I may be wrong. But I may be right. I think they'll become progressively more open-minded over time, either out of necessity or out of a sense that it is the right thing to do. We'll see.

[Habib]

I would argue that the NY Times is arrogant from an editorial standpoint, and on the surface this violates some of the things we love about the internet-- but this does not mean they don't get the internet. The company has made aggressive bets, early on (about.com) on internet properties, and continue to make smaller acquistions in key verticals. An interesting paradox. And I don't think that the attitude of the Times is that out of touch with its core readership. The passionate left shows no sign of going out of style, and this appears to be a safe bet on their part.