Consider this a Kool-Aid Alert. I'm detecting a major new buzzword spreading across Gannettland. A Gannett Blog reader says editors met recently to talk about ways to "monetize'' more of the newsroom's offerings. Then today, News Division honcho Phil Currie, writing in this week's edition of News Watch, says (threatens?):"We see this coming year as one in which the success we have had in the Information Centers will be refined and built upon, moving us ahead even more and increasing monetizing opportunities in the process.''
Oy. I'm sure we're all looking forward to the mandatory meetings to discuss that! Now, can we please just fast-forward to 2009 already?
Heard your editors using this buzzword? Know any others? Use this link to e-mail examples, please. See Tipsters Anonymous Policy in the sidebar, upper right. Or leave a note in the comments section, below.
Monetizing newsroom content ... how different is that from just saying "advertorial"?
ReplyDeleteWhy, they are the $ame thing!
ReplyDeleteAudience monetization is not the same as advertorial. Wake up and join the 21st century.
ReplyDeleteI noticed a link to your blog today and decided to stop by and read since I am an ex-Gannettoid.
ReplyDeleteI was rather hopeful when I read this in your self-description: "I'm chronicling the fall and rise again (hopefully!) of the biggest newspaper publisher in the United States, and one of the nation's largest private employers."
Refreshing to see someone hoping that Gannett succeeds. But then I started reading your posts. What a disappointment.
This post is a case in point. Whether you like it or not, Gannett has to find a way to make money online. You sit here and act like you care about those thousands of employees whose salaries need to be paid, yet all you do is sneer at the people trying to make it happen.
Thank you for stopping by. I am sorry you are disappointed.
ReplyDeleteYou're absolutely correct when you say that Gannett must find a way to make money online. But I'm still a traditionalist: I think the business side is chiefly responsible for figuring that out. Now, the newsroom has a role, too, and I might even concede that the newsroom has to take a bigger role.
But I absolutely cringe when I read people like Phil Currie, who I think of as an editor, using language like this. And I believe many, many Gannett employees feel as I do.
That said, I do strive for balance in posting about the bad AND the good. And as always, I pay close attention to what readers such as you say in e-mails and comments.
Monopoly media is dead.
ReplyDeleteNewsrooms not being involved in, and making and understanding strategic business considerations is a luxury only monopoly media can afford.
Being a traditionalist while the train is running off the rails is no badge of honor -- not if you believe in the value and civic need for quality journalism.
Journalist must simply learn to look at their jobs within the wider business concerns.