Business Storytelling

Dear Abby? Not Quite.

I thought it was a joke when my co-worker first told me. Ashley Dupre, the call girl embroiled in last year's sex scandal involving then New York governor Eliot Spitzer, is the New York Post's newest advice columnist. No, really. 

In her weekly "Ask Ashley" column, Dupre will share her expertise on all things related to love and sex. I'm sure you won't be surprised to see that the column is accompanied by a color photo of Dupre in a low cut blouse, doing her best sexy librarian pose.  And I'd be remiss if I didn't also point out the catchy "Spitzer's babe answers your love questions!" line.  I know the newspaper industry is in big trouble, but come on...really?

Dupre's introductory column featured this note from the editor: "Sure, she's made some mistakes. But now, the former escort who brought down Gov. Eliot Spitzer is sharing what she's learned in her new sex, love and relationship column -- exclusively in the New York Post. Is your husband cheating? Is your daughter on a dangerous path? Our readers asked -- and Ashley fired back with her no-nonsense advice." 

Here's *my* question: what woman in her right mind would ask a former escort for marital advice? But I digress.

Dupre's new column is yet another sad reminder of how desperate some media entities have become. What message are we sending when some of the country's best journalism school graduates can't find work, yet a former call girl is given her own column in a New York daily?  "I used to be on the front page of the New York Post," brags Dupre in a video on the newspaper's website. "Now I'm writing for it."   

I asked my friend, media analyst Steve Safran, for his take. "The New York Post has never pretended to be a model of journalism," Safran says. "This hiring shows just how low they will go to sell newspapers."  Indeed. Safran says he's not surprised by the paper's choice to make New York's most famous escort its newest star, but hopes it isn't a trend copied by other news outlets.  "There are plenty of problems facing the news industry,”  Safran adds, "but I hope they can come up with better content solutions than this titillating but dubious offering."

Only time will tell. We'll have to wait and see whether Ashley Dupre becomes the next Abigail Van Buren, solving the world's relationship problems one email at a time.  I have my doubts, but you never know. 

- Contributed by Amy Erickson. Follow her @amyerickson

You Say You Want a Google-ution…

By now, you’ve probably heard News Corp.'s, Rupert Murdoch’s complaint that Google, and other high profile search engines, are making money by stealing his content.  The first question that comes to many peoples mind is, Mr. Murdoch, do you know how Google works?

It’s no surprise that the Internet is continuing to climb as the preferred way for people to get their news.  According to an article in the New York Times, “Web Passes Papers as a News Source,” even though 40 percent of Americans get most of their news from the Internet, this number doesn’t represent an actual decline in the popularity of newspapers – or even getting news via the television.

The funny thing is that Google doesn’t force Web sites to be included in its search listings, and in fact, it’s very easy to remove yourself from its listings.  For instructions on how to do this please see the blog post on Newsweek, “Rupert Murdoch Says Google Is Stealing His Content. So Why Doesn't He Stop Them?”

With the ability to find news articles and new publications/blogs from a simple search on Google, I find that I’m not only reading more, but that I'm also following numerous sources (rather than just one). Google does a great job of letting you choose the sources you want to read, so isn't it silly to think that making content less search-able will be good for business – especially online newspapers?

Let’s face it, we’re all a little bit curious about what would happen if Murdoch declined free traffic to his sites from Google.  Is it possible that publications like the Wall Street Journal have built up enough credibility that we’d still read the stories AND pay for them without being directed to them from our innocent Web searches? 

If you take Google out of the equation, exactly what is Mr. Murdoch's plan to drive Web traffic?  This will be interesting to watch.

- Contributed by Chantal LeBoulch.  Follow her @cleboulch

Journalism's New I-Team

The New York Times this week announced plans to eliminate 100 additional newsroom jobs. That’s a whopping eight percent of the newsroom staff. While we’ve (sadly) gotten used to hearing these kinds of announcements from smaller papers across the country, this one really stings. As a former reporter, I can't help but wonder how many more layoffs it will take before journalism as we know it ceases to exist.

The continued cuts at newsrooms throughout America presents a myriad of problems, not the least of which is the stress being placed on those reporters lucky enough to still have jobs. NYT Executive Editor Bill Keller acknowledges this, saying “I won’t pretend that these staff cuts will not add to the burdens of journalists whose responsibilities have grown faster than their compensation.”

Think about it – in the “old days,” each beat had its own reporter. One person covered crime exclusively, another handled healthcare, while someone else wrote about business and so on. Because they “specialized” in a specific area, they were the resident experts on that topic, be it criminal trials, public policy or education. In this “new journalism,” reporters are saddled with anything and everything, and often expected to handle subject matter they know little or nothing about.

Sure, employing fewer reporters saves money, but at what cost? When assignment managers and editors heap story upon story onto the shoulders of already-stressed journalists, something has to give…and more often than not, that something is accuracy. Saddling reporters with more assignments than they can handle means less time for fact-checking and interviewing, and we’re seeing the results of that daily in our newspapers, in broadcast and on the web. Rushed, inaccurate reporting can quickly tarnish a news outlet’s image and empty its proverbial pockets through expensive libel lawsuits.

But here’s the good news. We, as PR professionals, can help.  The days of dedicated investigative reporters may be gone, but we can make ourselves the new “I-team.” We can work with journalists to make sure accuracy doesn’t suffer. We can share the burden of doing the research, compiling background and lining up the right people to interview. Sure, in a way it’s self-serving, since our basic motivation is getting coverage for our clients, but I’d argue that in most cases, we’re also helping journalists do their jobs, and do them well. If we can convince reporters to see us as partners rather than flaks, everyone wins – the client, the PR pro, the reporter and maybe even journalism as a whole.

As always, we welcome your thoughts.

-Contributed by Amy Erickson. Follow her @amyerickson

Reporters on the Payroll?

Much has been made about the shrinking state of the media, both on this blog and in countless other outlets. Newspapers and magazines are folding and/or downsizing at a staggering rate and reporters are tasked with covering multiple beats, often for less pay, all while worrying about what the future holds for their industry. As a result, many outlets simply don’t have the time or resources to cover evergreen features in the extensive manner they once did.

This situation poses a variety of challenges for companies. California professional hockey team the LA Kings has come up with an interesting solution—hiring its own fulltime reporter, Rich Hammond, to cover the team’s games at home and on the road for its Web site. Hammond previously covered the King for the Los Angeles Daily News and, in his new role, has been given total autonomy to write whatever he wants to about the team, regardless of the fact that he is a salaried employee.

In his coverage of the announcement, New York Times reporter Richard Perez-Pena questions whether fans will continue to view Hammond’s articles as “news” or if the posts will be deemed PR spin because of his direct affiliation with the Kings’ management team. Hammond argues in the reverse, pointing out that he no longer needs to run his articles by an editor and thus will be producing more genuine content than when he wrote for the Daily News.  He told Yahoo! Sports, "There's no filter on it… It's not subject to any review. I'm not filing to any person; I'm filing to the Internet."

To date, the reporters-on-payroll trend exists fairly exclusively in the professional sporting world. But as the media landscape continues to evolve one has to wonder if other industries might soon join in. I have to admit I’m a little intrigued by the concept, but I wonder how impartial I would be were I in that situation. Can a reporter write concise, accurate copy if he or she is being paid by an organization that has a vested interest in positive coverage?

As always, we welcome your thoughts.

Submitted by Kate Finigan. Follow her @PRKateFin

Media World A-Twitter Over Washington Post’s Twitter Policy

Newspapers, the heralded vanguard of free speech, are currently embroiled in a heated debate about how that freedom applies to them.  About a week ago, The Washington Post responded to an editor’s Twitter posts with an organization-wide memo with guidelines on social media. 

Narisetti took down his Twitter account, but Google’s caching function lets one see what it looked like shortly before it was taken down.

The guidelines, which were not initially made public, have since been posted on paidContent.org and focus primarily on preventing public announcements of bias, opinion or preference.  Excerpts include:

"When using these networks [Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and MySpace are mentioned], nothing we do must call into question the impartiality of our news judgment.  We never abandon the guidelines that govern the separation of news from opinion, the importance of fact and objectivity, the appropriate use of language and tone, and other hallmarks of our brand of journalism."

And:

"All Washington Post journalists relinquish some of the personal privileges of private citizens.  Post journalists must recognize that any content associated with them in an online social network is, for practical purposes, the equivalent of what appears beneath their bylines in the newspaper or on our website."

While the paper likely took action because it feared an outcry in response to Narisetti’s tweets (which most agree could be viewed as biased, or even offensive), it has been the response that has generated outcry.  Journalists, media pundits, PR folks and engaged readers alike have all jumped in to debate The Post’s response.

There’s an App for That—But Do You Want It?

It’s been a few years since I stocked up on notebooks and trapper keepers, but every September I find myself reminiscing about the excitement involved in going back to school. Maybe it was the whirlwind of shopping for new clothes, the thrill of seeing old friends and meeting new ones or the curiosity of what the new year might bring.

But I think a lot of my excitement revolved around getting new school supplies.

There was something so satisfying about filling up a brand new backpack with fresh ink pens, newly sharpened pencils and crisp notebooks. I loved getting textbooks for each class, thumbing through them to see who’d owned them in the past, the little thrill of excitement I’d get when I discovered that someone had filled in half of the answers in the algebra chapter.

But I’m starting to think that today’s school-aged children have a very different experience. TIME recently ranked the top ten back-to-school iPhone applications, including features like CourseSmart, which enable users to view more than 7,000 textbooks right from their handset. So much for the days of covering books in old newspaper to avoid damaging them and incurring your teachers’ wrath! Evernote is another app on TIME’s list that allows users to synchronize notes, photos and voice memos from their iPhone to the Web, to be archived and accessed at a later date. What about the flurry of writing down every word your teacher says at lightening speed, and then going back later and trying to decipher your scribbles?

In keeping with this technology trend Cushing Academy, a prep school here in Massachusetts, recently decided to dismantle their traditional library in favor of a digital version. The school plans to replace their collection of nearly 20,000 books with three flat-screen TVs that will project data from the Internet onto laptop friendly study carrels. James Tracey, headmaster of the school, told the Boston Globe, “When I look at books, I see an outdated technology, like scrolls…” Opponents of the plan worry that digitizing books in this manor will present a host of challenges, including the possibility that students will have trouble focusing on long works with the constant interruptions presented by e-mail, IM and various other apps on their devices.

Newspapers Look West. Good Idea?

The long standing national newspapers based in New York, the Times and the Journal, are looking to expand West Coast operations in an effort to win new readers and advertisers. It was recently announced that the two papers have plans to launch San Francisco editions to capitalize on the demise of the region's local publications.

Here at Greenough, we have a vested interest in the state of the media and we continue to blog about the struggles of publications like the Boston Globe and BusinessWeek. The New York Times reported that national newspapers sell better in the Bay Area than in almost any other part of the country, so the move west will help the outlets boost print readership - but is it all for nothing because online content is the future?  Newspaper Web site audience numbers continue to grow year after year, as more people get their news from online sources. So will a print edition focus in “The Golden State” prove to be a waste in the long run?

It’s probably too early to tell, but as The San Francisco Chronicle and The San Jose Mercury News suffer severe downsizing, it is possible for the two big guns from the East to swoop in and become the West’s go-to papers, leaving the area’s metro dailies well... non-existent. With feet on the ground in the east and the west, we'll be watching as the drama unfolds. 

What do you think?  Where's the news that's fit to print?

Contributed by Jena Coletti.  Follow her @jmcoletti

A Little Help, Please?

Are you suffering from information overload?  It seems to be a common plight in this day and age.  One of the things I love most about working in PR is the fast pace of the work, the way the ever-changing news landscape keeps me on my toes.  However, sometimes I feel just plain overwhelmed. There are endless possibilities of articles and blogs to read, outlets to explore, topics to research from just one more angle.   Every second, there is more information, more accessible, and changing more quickly than ever before.

People say this is what’s killing the newspaper, but I see opportunity.  Whether it’s the right opportunity for newspapers to take, well, that’s up to them.  I have two needs:
-          Analyze what’s most important
-          Summarize the pulse of the masses so I don’t miss anything.

As Tom Hayes and Michael S. Malone pointed out in a recent Wall Street Journal op-ed, The Ten-Year Century, “When a computer chip goes through as many computations in a single second as there are human heartbeats in 10 lifetimes, a 10-year year century seems positively pokey. But we humans have a slower metabolism, which will make this rapid fire of events ever more difficult to comprehend, much less manage.”

Microsoft’s recent series of Bing commercials does a great job of humorously portraying the hazards of information overload.

When technology – Web sites, blogs, twitter, social networks, and the like – churns through news like a chip going through computations, what’s the value of a daily paper?

For those of us with a more sluggish metabolism, I believe it could be a lot.  I say could, because I don’t think we’re quite there yet.  Perhaps it’s because newspapers – like the rest of us,find it hard to keep pace with change, or perhaps the information overload hasn’t become as bad as it soon will.

The Ongoing Drama of Boston.com

The Boston Globe recently announced its new plan to increase revenue. The publication has been struggling since the New York Times Co. threatened to close it down (see our post on the topic), and it’s in need of cash -- fast.  After a long, cost-cutting process that resulted in a reduction of the salaries and benefits of Globe employees, the publication will strike again and will soon charge Bostonians to read the news on its Web site, Boston.com. 

The Globe is not the only publication trying to make it through tough times. The New York Times recently reported on how the Seattle Times resorted to cutting jobs and increasing the paper’s price as a means to stay afloat as the city’s only surviving daily paper. Robert Murdoch’s News Corp Web sites including the New York Post, The Times of London, The Sun and The Wall Street Journal will also be taking the “cash for content” approach.

Boston.com content runs the gamut from a house fire in Quincy to President Obama’s view on the healthcare debate.  Personally, it’s my one-stop-shop for local, national and global news. I’m a fan of other news sources that are popping up around town like Xconomy.com, a hub of business and technology information, but each have a specific focus.  I’d rather pay the price and have the news I need in one place. What would you do?

There is no information as to how much a subscription will cost, but how much are you willing to pay for Boston.com content?  Or, are you willing to pay at all?  Given today’s economy, do you think people will turn to the Herald as the go-to for Boston news?  Will we remain a two-paper town?

- Contributed by Jena Coletti.  Follow her @jmcoletti

Is where you read more important than what you read?

As newspapers struggle to reinvent themselves (read: re-monetize), one idea put forth by Loose Wire blog is that newspapers should change the way they write content to fit with today's always on-the-go society – short and to the point. The author recounts an experience about trying to read a Wall Street Journal article on his Blackberry while sitting in the back of a cab. The article in question is long and wordy and Loose Wire blog concludes that, "The language of journalism, in short, needs to catch up with the fact that we consume it now in dozens of different ways" and suggests the newspapers should write for the mobile audience.

This idea scares me. I hate the idea of only getting the "news." I want to know why, what happened before, and what people think might happen next. There's a difference between news articles, feature articles, and news feature articles. News features paint pictures, give historical context and offer multiple sides to an issue. To me, cabs are not the place to read anything I need to think about (given that you're probably simultaneously giving directions, fumbling for change, all while fearing for your life as the driver weaves in and out of traffic). There are certainly mobile phone applications to get headlines – but I don't want just headlines. I want a print paper I can read on the front porch with a cup of coffee. I also want the article online so I can click on links for the accompanying photo slideshow, or look up details to an unfamiliar historical event.

That said, newspapers do need to make sure they're not losing the mobile audience to bloggers, who can often update news faster (though, not always more accurately, the New York Times reports: ). It's a matter of augmenting content – mobile editions, headlines only – not, losing the adjectives and interpretations that build loyalty among readers.

- Contributed by Sue Ferranti.  Follow her @sueferranti