A Newspaper Owner’s Vision:
Tribune Co. owner Sam Zell addresses the staff of the Orlando Sentinel:
“My attitude on journalism is very simple. I want to make enough money so I can afford you. It's really that simple. You need to in effect help me by being a journalist that focuses on what our readers want and therefore generates more revenue. We understand unequivocally that the heart and soul of this business is the editorial side of the business. That's our content. But if we don't have the revenue, it doesn't really matter.
Q: But what the readers want is puppy dogs. We also need to inform the community...
“I'm sorry, I'm sorry...You're giving me the classic what I would call journalistic arrogance of deciding that puppies don't count. I don't know anything about puppies. What I'm interested in is, how can we generate additional interest in our product and additional revenue so we can make our product better and better. And hopefully we get to the point where our revenue is so significant that we can do puppies and Iraq. OK? F**k you.” 2008
(See video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDy7vn7-LX4)
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Obviously, Zell doesn't know that it's a slow, slow process of getting and keeping an audience, and it doesn't change overnight. It's kind of like wanting to get that girl you've been interested in to be interested in you. The best way to do that is by earning her trust and being there when she needs you, and be willing to earn it over and over again. Trying too hard to get her to notice you usually backfires.
ReplyDeleteIn our business, the parallel to that is getting news that impacts the readers, which the readers may or may not care about when the piece is published. Covering remote rural areas as well as city hall every day is the way you earn trust. That happens over time.
Getting the spouse of your dreams doesn't happen overnight, nor does getting additional readers. Obviously, judging from his approach, Mr. Zell won't succeed at either.
There was a time that evil press barons at least pretended an air of civility and professed a desire to serve the public good--not just the public appetite (discerned through dowsing and chicken entrails, no doubt).
ReplyDeleteEven some of the most rapacious press lords of the 1800s enunciated some sense of responsibility. James Scripps founded the Detroit Evening News in 1873, saying, "Nineteenth Century Americans need not have their opinions molded for them by the newspaper press. Give the public the facts and arguments on both sides, and they will quickly determine the right or wrong in each case as it occurs. The vox populi, in the long run, will pretty certainly be found to be the vox Dei."
His little brother, E.W., launched the Cleveland Penny Press in 1878 with similar confidence in the unwashed: "The newspapers should simply present all the facts the editor is capable of obtaining, concerning men and measures before the bar of the public, and then, after having discharged its duty as a witness, be satisfied to leave the jury in the case – the public –to find the verdict."
Zell expresses a a parallel trust in the public market--stories about puppies, if that's what it takes to keep the customer satisfied. But it's about revenues, not a sense that vox populi will equate to vox Dei....