Chapter 11: The Business of Producing Journalism
How Will News Be Produced? And Who Will Pay for It?
Philip Meyer, The Vanishing Newspaper (Columbia: University of Missouri Press, 2004), 10. Meyer attributes the theory of “harvesting marketing position” to Michael E. Porter, Competitive Strategy: Creating and Sustaining Superior Performance (New York: Free Press, 1998), 311.
Av Westin, Best Practices for Television Journalists (New York: The Freedom Forum’s Free Press/Fair Press Project, 2000). You can download the book here:
Jesse Holcomb and Amy Mitchell, “The revenue picture for American journalism and how it is changing,” Pew Research Journalism Project, March 26, 2014.
Related: Jeff John Roberts, “New York Times CEO calls digital pay model ‘most successful’ decision in years,” GigaOm, May 20, 2013.
Related: Kristen Hare, “Only about 10 percent of online readers pay for news,” Poynter, June 12, 2014.
Robert Kaiser, “The bad news about the news,” Brookings Institution, Oct. 16, 2014. A former managing editor of The Washington Postwrites a primer on the economic tension in journalism’s transition to digital. Contains interactive graphics.
Clay Shirky, “Last call: The end of the printed newspaper,” Medium.com, Aug. 19, 2014. The New York University professor analyzes the economic problems faced by the industry and reaches a grim conclusion.
David Boardman, “Hey, publishers: Stop fooling us, and yourselves,” Poynter, July 16, 2014. The president of the American Society of News Editors writes: “The seven-day-a-week printed newspaper – particularly in metropolitan areas – is terminally ill. … So, I say to publishers: Invest in a superb, in-depth, last-all-week Sunday (or better yet, Saturday) paper, a publication so big and rich and engaging that readers will devour it piece by piece over many days, and pay a good price for that pleasure.”
Response: Caroline Little, “Newspaper group CEO: We need to embrace all media including print,” Poynter, July 17, 2014. The president of the Newspaper Alliance of America writes: “Mr. Boardman’s focus on print publications doesn’t adequately show the changes and growth that are taking place. The reality is that the newspaper business is comprised of multiple platforms, reaching many audiences.”
Amy Mitchell, Mark Jurkowitz, Jesse Holcomb, Jodi Enda, and Monica Anderson, “Nonprofit journalism: a growing but fragile part of the U.S. news system,” Pew Research Center’s Journalism Project, June 10, 2013.
Nicholas Lemann, “A code of ethics for journalism nonprofits,” The New Yorker, Jan. 28, 2016. The former dean of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism reviews the ethical hazards faced by news organizations funded by donations. For example, insulating news-coverage decisions from the influence of donors.
Tom Rosenstiel, William Buzenberg, Marjorie Connelly and Kevin Loker, “Charting new ground: The ethical terrain of nonprofit journalism,” American Press Institute, April 20, 2016. “[T]he ethics of taking grants from foundations and gifts from donors to produce news is still evolving and not without controversy.” An in-depth study of the situation.
Paul Farhi, “Foundations fund L.A. Times’ education reporting. A conflict?,” The Washington Post, Oct. 29, 2015. Charitable foundations will pay $800,000 to the Times to expand coverage of local education, including the hiring of two more reporters. Farhi reports that some of the contributors “are among the most prominent advocates of public-education reform in Los Angeles.”
The Native Advertising Phenomenon
The Atlantic, “Sponsor content: David Miscavige leads Scientology to milestone year,” Jan. 14, 2013. The original ad can be downloaded from:
David Dobbs, “The Atlantic, Scientology and the theft of credibility,” Wired, Jan. 16, 2013. More comment on The Atlantic’s experience.
Paul Farhi, “Atlantic fiasco renews ethics concerns about advertorials,” The Washington Post, Jan. 15, 2013.
James Fallows, “The Scientology ad,” The Atlantic, Jan. 15, 2013. Contains the text of the magazine’s apology statement.
Jeff John Roberts, “What the Atlantic learned from Scientology: native advertising is harder for news brands,” GigaOm, Feb. 28, 2013.
Ginny Marvin, “73% of online publishers offer native advertising, just 10% still sitting on the sidelines,” MarketingLand, July 22, 2013.
Tracie Powell, “Native ads aren’t as clear as outlets think,” Columbia Journalism Review, Dec. 5, 2013.
Advertising Age, “Arguments fly during FTC workshop on native advertising,” Dec. 4, 2013.
Advertising Age, “Five things to know about The New York Times’ new native ads,” Jan. 8, 2013.
Sam Kirkland, “Sulzberger: ‘Our readers will always know that they are looking at a message from an advertiser,’ ” Poynter, Dec. 19, 2013.
Jeff Sonderman and Millie Tran, “Understanding the rise of native content,” American Press Institute, Nov. 13, 2013.
Joshua Benton, “What would David do?,” Nieman Reports, Summer 2014, 50-1.
Edward Wasserman, “ ‘Sponsored content’ gets a new push for legitimacy,” Unsocial Media, Aug. 5, 2013.
Lewis DVorkin, “Inside Forbes: Journalism requires new models for both editorial and ads,” Forbes.com, March 4, 2013. DVorkin, an advocate of “native advertising,” explains: “Marketers want a bigger voice. The media business needs revenue. The digital world demands change.”
Federal Trade Commission, “FTC issues enforcement policy statement addressing ‘native’ advertising and deceptively formatted advertisements,” Dec. 22, 2015. In this news release, the commission said it was stating “the general principles the commission considers in determining whether any particular ad format is deceptive and violates the FTC Act. The policy statement affirms the long-standing consumer protection principle that advertisements and promotional messages that promote the benefits and attributes of goods and services should be identifiable as advertising to consumers.” The release links to the FTC’s “Native Advertising: A Guide for Businesses,” which provides guidance on “how to make clear and prominent disclosures within the format of native ads.”
Erik Sass, “Consumers can’t tell native ads from editorial content,” MediaPost, Dec. 31, 2015. Reports on a study by researchers at Grady College in Georgia, published in Journal of Advertising. Sass’s story links to the researchers’ report.
Michele McLellan, “The Rise of Native Ads in Digital Publications,” Tow-Knight Center for Entrepreneurial Journalism, 2016. “This study describes and evaluates the best practices that have emerged for producing native ads and attempts to measure the success – financial and otherwise – of native-ad programs. Finally, it looks carefully at how media organizations are dealing with concerns from government regulators that native ads sometimes deceive news audiences into thinking that the ads aren’t ads at all.”
Questionable Ways to Raise Revenue
Andy Alexander, “The Post’s ‘salon’ plan: a public relations disaster,” The Washington Post, July 2, 2009.Related:David Carr, “A publisher stumbles publicly at The Post,” The New York Times, July 4, 2009.
John Morton, “Too steep a price: Newspapers must protect their integrity as they struggle to find new revenue streams,” American Journalism Review, August/September 2009.
Tim McGuire, “Let’s count to 100 and then decide we hate ads in news copy,” McGuire on Media, Nov. 7, 2007.
Society of Professional Journalists, “SPJ calls on news media to maintain clear separation of news and advertising,” Nov. 10, 2003.
Andrew Clevenger, “DNR pays for control of outdoor TV segment,” The Charleston (W.Va.) Gazette, March 28, 2008.
James Rainey, “On the Media: KCBS ads masquerade as news,” Los Angeles Times, April 21, 2010. On-air interviews appear to be news, but they are “added value” ads.
Lucia Moses, “USA Today puts itself under wraps with ad,” Mediaweek, July 12, 2010. The national newspaper wrapped its news section with an ad.
Abigail Goodman, “Eye-opener with a pitch: TV news program tries product placement as a revenue source,” Las Vegas Sun, July 21, 2008.
Deborah Potter, “For sale,” American Journalism Review, April/May 2006.A Wisconsin radio station sells the naming rights to its newsroom.
Erik Wemple, “The Huffington Post cannot ethically handle its corporate partnerships,” The Washington Post, May 24, 2016. Wemple raises questions about The Huffington Post’s series of parent-child videos sponsored by Unilever, saying one episode’s content is “in fact … a commercial for Unilever and its chief executive, Paul Polman.” Wemple objected to the lack of “clear signage” and to the “use of editorial talent to whip up what is in effect an advertisement for a sponsor.” A Huffington Post spokeswoman said the entire section “is sponsored by Unilever which is clearly indicated in the top banner.”
Liz Spayd, “Reviewing toaster ovens, and selling them, too,” The New York Times, Oct. 28, 2016. The public editor reports on an emerging practice of reviews of products that include links that consumers can follow to place an order. Is it a reader service (as well as a revenue source), or a blurring of the line between editorial content and advertising?
How Newsrooms Are Coping With Hard Times
Rick Edmonds, “Newspaper industry lost another 1,300 full-time editorial professionals in 2013,” Poynter Online, July 29, 2014.
David Cay Johnston, “Honoring the word police,” The National Memo, Jan. 3, 2014.
Hollis R. Towns, “We’re creating a newsroom of the future,” Asbury Park Press, Aug. 6, 2014.
Will Bunch, “It’s a true fact!!! People who edit things no longer neeeded,” Philadelphia Daily News, Aug. 11, 2014.(News databases)
DelindaFogel, “ ‘Catch the typos’ contest kicks off 2014,” The St. Augustine Record, Jan. 19, 2014.
John McIntyre, “Accept no substitutes,” The Sun, Jan. 27, 2014.
Monica Anderson, “At newspapers, photographers feel the brunt of job cuts,” Pew Research Center, Nov. 11, 2013.
Related:Robert Feder, “Amid more layoffs, Sun-Times rehires four photographers,” RobertFeder.com, March 4, 2014.
Related, with video: On CNN, Howard Kurtz interviews a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer who lost his job at the Sun-Times.
Deborah Potter, “Doing it all: having the same person report and shoot the stories may save money, but at what cost?,” American Journalism Review, October/November 2006, 94.
Jodi Enda, Katerina Eva Matsa, and Jan Lauren Boyles, “America’s shifting statehouse press,” Pew Research Center, July 10, 2014.
John Sullivan, “PR industry fills vacuum left by shrinking newsrooms,” ProPublica (co-published with Columbia Journalism Review), May 2, 2011. Sullivan writes that, as the number of journalists has declined, the number of public-relations professionals has grown. “The dangers are clear. As PR becomes ascendant, private and government interests become more able to generate, filter, distort, and dominate the debate, and do so without the public knowing it.”
Paul Farhi, “A local TV trend: And now, the identical news,” The Washington Post, Nov. 27, 2012. At least a dozen stations around the country carried “the same lightweight story about restaurants cooking up candidate-inspired drinks and dishes.” Farhi’s research found that the story was produced by an “affiliate service,” CNN Newsource: “Stations not only get prepackaged footage from such services, but a script that introduces the footage, as well. Stations then ‘localize’ the canned package by having one of their anchors read the one-size-fits-all copy.”
Related: Zaid Jilani, “Hilarious and depressing video exposes how phony local TV news has become,” Alternet, Feb. 14, 2014. “ ‘Ripping and reading’ – a nickname for the practice of taking a press release and reading it on air – is a disturbing trend … on local newscasts. In December [2013], comedian Conan O’Brien took on the practice in a hilarious segment featuring a spree of local news anchors reading the same words from a news release about Christmas gifts.” Links to the O’Brien video.
Neil Henry, American Carnival: Journalism Under Siege in an Age of New Media (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2007), 149-165. Discusses video news releases(VNRs), in which businesses and institutions provide video for television stations.
Related:Robert Pear, “U.S. videos, for TV news, come under scrutiny,” The New York Times, March 15, 2004.
Related:Deborah Potter, “Virtual news reports,” American Journalism Review, June/July 2004.CNN and local TV stations were accomplices in allowing a government-produced VNR on the air.
Video: Examples of VNRs, provided by a watchdog group:
Paul Farhi, “Speak no evil,” American Journalism Review, October/November 2011. “While news organizations demand full disclosure from everyone else, they often resort to euphemisms and sugarcoating when they report on their own downsizing.” Farhi writes that staff reductions often go unreported at all, and when they do, the reductions may be characterized as part of a strategy that will result in better news coverage.
David Carr, “Risks about as reporters play in traffic,” The New York Times, March 23, 2014. “[T]here is a growing trend in many corners of journalism to tie the compensation of journalists to the amount of Web traffic and/or articles they generate.”
Related: Catherine Taibi, “Journalists fight system that requires them to write 2.5 stories a day,” The Huffington Post, Aug. 15, 2014. The Chicago Newspaper Guild objected to a quota system at Sun-Times media.
Christopher Weaver, “Is it OK for Pfizer to pay for reporters to learn about cancer?”, health blog for National Public Radio, Aug. 24, 2010. The drug company paid all expenses for 15 reporters to attend a four-day cancer seminar in Washington, D.C.
AnjanSundaram, “We’re missing the story: The media’s retreat from foreign reporting,” The New York Times, July 25, 2014.
Video: Sports agent Drew Rosenhaus does a television commercial for ESPN, which frequently covers him.
Edmund Lee, “More publishers trying outsourced information,” Advertising Age, April 28, 2010. “Established news shops [are] running articles from pool of freelancers for as little as $5 a story.”
Related: Nicholas Spangler, “In demand: A week inside the future of journalism,” Columbia Journalism Review, November/December 2010. Spangler (joined by other journalists, in the appended comments) tells about his experience producing “commercial content.”
Michael Schudson and Katherine Fink, “The algorithm method: Making news decisions in a clickocracy,” Columbia Journalism Review, January/February 2012. “If algorithms come to dictate news decisions, how does that change what we read, and what sort of democracy we might have or want to have?”
Mervyn Block, “TV consultant tells clients to make news sound urgent,” Television Newswriting Workshop, 2013. Block compiles a list of phrases that anchors use to hype the news – phrases like “breaking news,” “developing news,” or “happening now.”
James “Bert” Robinson, “Some changes to our editing and production procedures,” April 22, 2016. In this memo published on jimromenesko.com, the managing editor/content of Bay Area News Group explains in detail how staff reductions will necessitate “eliminating a layer of valuable editing.”
Deron Lee, “What a Kansas professor learned after interviewing a ‘lost generation’ of journalists,” Columbia Journalism Review, Sept. 7, 2016. Scott Reinardy of the University of Kansas produced a book, Journalism’s Lost Generation: The Un-Doing of the US Newspaper Newsrooms, in which he “collected data on job satisfaction and heard stories of uncertainty, anxiety and burnout.” This article is a Q&A with the author.
Relations Between News and Business Staffs
Philip Meyer, The Vanishing Newspaper, 206-207.
Jack Fuller, News Values (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 197.
Lori Robertson and Rachel Smolkin, “John Carroll bows out in L.A.,” American Journalism Review, August/September 2005.
Related: James Rainey, “A media match plagued by a clash of cultures,” Los Angeles Times, Nov. 10, 2006. Discusses problems at LA Times after its purchase by Tribune Co.
Davis Merritt, Knightfall (New York: American Management Association, 2005), 67.
Radio Television Digital News Association, “Guidelines for balancing business pressures and journalism values.”
Michael Sebastian, “Time Inc. shakeup: editors to report to business side, editor-in-chief Martha Nelson exits,” Ad Age, Oct. 31, 2013.
Related:Jim Romenesko, “Time Inc. CEO says editors are happier reporting to business side,” jimromenesko.com, June 20, 2014. The article refers to a transcript provided by Bloomberg TV.
Related:Hamilton Nolan, “Time Inc. rates writers on how ‘beneficial’ they are to advertisers,” Gawker, Aug. 18, 2014.
Mashable, “The full New York Times Innovation report,” May 16, 2014.
Involvement of business executives in matters that affect news/editorial decisions:
Jim Brunner, “Seattle Times Co. launches ad campaigns for McKenna and gay marriage, draws criticism,” The Seattle Times, Oct. 17, 2012. The company invested $75,000 to $80,000 in advertising leading up to the November general election. Some of the ads supported Rob McKenna, the Republican governor candidate; other ads supported the legalization of gay marriage in a referendum. (McKenna lost; gay marriage was approved by the voters.) The advertising decision was made by the corporate side of the newspaper and was “completely separate from the journalism functions of the newspaper,” a business executive said. Brunner’s posting quoted journalism and political experts who said the ad campaigns threatened to damage the credibility of the newspaper’s reporting.
Related:Jim Brunner, “Seattle Times news staffers protest company’s political-ad campaign,” Oct. 18, 2012. More than 100 signed a letter to the publisher in which they said the ad campaign “threatens the two things we value the most, the traits that make The Seattle Times a strong brand: Our independence and credibility.”
Related:David Boardman, “A vow to continue impartial reporting,” The Seattle Times, Oct. 20, 2012. In a column, the paper’s executive editor asks readers to trust the paper’s news staff and reiterates that “no one in the newsroom, including me, had any involvement in this project.”
Jim Romenesko, “Lexington Herald-Leader endorses Obama, publisher endorses Romney,” Oct. 31, 2012. Publisher Rufus Friday wrote a statement laying out his reasons for dissenting in the editorial board’s vote. Editorial page editor Vanessa Gallman said in an email to Romeneskothat there are five people on the McClatchy paper’s editorial board and that Friday “was the only supporter of Romney and did try to sway others.” She said, “He did not threaten to veto the edit and did not demand rewrites.”
Related:Jim Romenesko, “Pittsburgh Post-Gazette endorses Obama, its owner backs Romney,” Nov. 4, 2012. “The long letter to the right of the Post-Gazette’s Obama endorsement is written by Allan Block, chairman of the Post-Gazette’s parent company. He argues that Mitt Romney ‘can create a safe, strong, growing economy that benefits all Americans’ and ‘can bring this country back’.” Romenesko noted that Block’s letter also ran in his family’s Toledo Blade, which endorsed Obama.