Service of Straws and Camel’s Backs
December 5th, 2009
Categories: Advertising, Communications, Magazines, Marketing, Media, Newspapers, Public Relations
Straws have broken this very tough and loyal camel’s back four times, leaving me no choice but to resign and move on, twice from clients and twice from jobs.
Or maybe the straws didn’t break; they directed needed light on impossible situations.
I wonder what the editorial staff of the Dallas Morning News will do–will reporters stay at their jobs because there are so few jobs left in the industry, or will they walk? I’m getting ahead of myself, if you didn’t read Richard Pérez-Peña’s article, “Some Dallas Editors Will Report to Ad Sales,” in Friday’s New York Times.
I first heard about this situation from Carolyn Gatto on Thursday night. Carol’s always ahead of the curve. The co-founder and publisher of WeJustGotBack.com, an award-winning family travel resource, wrote the November 9 post “Service of Magazine Subscriptions” for this blog.
She sent me the link to the post in the Dallas News Blog, Dallas Observer, “At The Dallas News, a New ‘Bold Strategy’: Section Editors Reporting to Sales Managers,” by Robert Wilonsky.
Carol, who for some 25 years edited consumer magazines, summarized the situation: “The reporting structure has changed so that editors will be reporting to glorified sales managers. The latter will, no doubt, dictate what the former can and–more importantly–cannot write.”
She continued, “I have nothing against advertorials [material that simulates editorial and is paid for by an advertiser], as long as they’re properly labeled as such, but that Dallas newspaper is going to be nothing but advertorials. I’m shuddering at the thought. Times may be tough in the newspaper industry, but don’t they still have an obligation to be honest with readers? Or am I a Pollyanna?”
As a former magazine editor and longtime PR person who holds the media in high regard, this turn of events breaks my heart. It makes a mockery of what publicists do for a living when they take a client’s product or concept and point out its newsworthiness or give relevance and validity to a new and/or mature product with the objective of catching a reporter’s or editor’s attention to inspire editorial coverage and the third party endorsement it implies.
Why does this desperate measure remind me of what happened to retail when bean counters were put in charge of talented merchandisers? By tamping down creativity–God forbid anyone should spend a cent more than required–traffic and sales suffered, sounding the death Nell for department stores.
What good are restaurant, movie, theatre or travel reviews in which criticism is forbidden for fear of offending an advertiser? What if a reporter in the real estate section wants to write about a crooked mortgage scam, but the bank in question is an advertiser–does the public remain in the dark? If newspapers are having trouble attracting readers now, just you wait!
I have always honored the separation between advertising and editorial. If a publisher has suggested a quid pro quo, offering my client editorial space in return for advertising support, OK, but I would never suggest it.
What do you think of newspaper reporters whose bosses are in sales, not in editorial? Does collaboration between editorial and advertising bother you?
This is a really bad move.
Certainly, it could make sense for editorial and ad sales to work together — mainly in terms of editorial letting ad sales know when they’re working on topical sections, so the ad folks can try to sell relevant ads around it.
But the idea of the sales people calling the shots for editorial… horrendous.
Kiss The Dallas Morning News goodbye.
Ohhh, this really means the end is near….
See this post, from the Dallas Morning News blog…
http://blogs.dallasobserver.com/unfairpark/2009/12/at_the_dallas_news_the_latest.php
Jeannie — The shift in authority is a dangerous business, as the business side of publishing—newspaper OR magazine—is interested only in building revenue. What the Dallas Morning News has done, however, is make official what has been in practice in many arenas: giving consideration of one sort or another to advertisers.
Years ago, it was considered inappropriate for Ad Sales and Editorial staffs to occupy the same floor, and editorial content was considered so sacrosanct that not even a publisher was informed until it would be too late to do any tinkering.
Over the past ten years, procedures have changed, however, and Editorial is frequently (though perhaps still quietly) nudged in one direction or another by Ad Sales. In some instances, high-level sales personnel have been able to influence which cover image to use…or (worse!) what should be included in a particular cover image.
Interesting but perhaps irrelevant is the fact that, at least where magazines are concerned, readers usually make little distinction between what is advertising (or even labeled such) and what is editorial. This may be because editorial coverage has become showy and flashy…and many ad pages (or spreads) have been tailored to look like editorial.
I would hope that Dallas Morning News readers will rear up and holler bloody murder that editorial integrity is being overtly violated…but I bet they won’t. If truth…integrity…accuracy were really stellar considerations, most of today’s bloggers would be swept out of business, I think.
—Merv
Thanks, all, for your comments.
Should this become a trend, where will we get our news? Who will be our watchdogs? What would be as scary is for someone to take a poll of the public at large. My guess is that most people neither care nor know the difference. If history really does repeat itself, when apathy or numbness like this occurs, bad things happen.
Jeannie — Henry Luce is rolling over in his grave. The world is coming to an end. What is there to say.
Jeanne,
I have much sympathy for the point you, Carol and your other commenters make. Of course, you are all right. Freedom of the press depends upon those who report the news to be able to do so unencumbered by commercial considerations. But what the Dallas Morning News is planning to do is very much in line with the way newspapers in America have been managed from the early days of the republic even to now.
My namesake started in the newspaper business in 1846 when he was just 12, and by the time he was 18 he was the business manager of a New Haven daily. Then in his 20s he bought his own paper which he published in Connecticut for almost 50 years.
He made no bones about the way he ran his newspaper. He was out to make money. What he put in it either sold copies, made advertisers happy or got his pals elected to office. (Of course, what he printed wasn’t always exactly the truth, but so what.) Since he moonlighted as a lobbyist in Washington, his cronies made sure he was “taken care of” for his efforts, and indeed he ended up getting appointed to a juicy pork barrel job by President McKinley.
We are just going back to the way things used to be done in the newspaper business in this country,
Homer
That’s the truth. Hearst didn’t come out of nowhere, he came out of a tradition that started on Fleet Street and entered the new world in Colonial times. Real journalism came later, and it became the norm because people came to trust it and pay more for it. I believe the same will happen in our new eworld, but it will take time, just as journalism did. A lot of jobs and venerated titles will be gone by the time that happens, though.
Thanks for starting such a thought-provoking thread.