October 28th, 2009

The Real Mother Jones Crowdsourcing News is the Rise of Advocacy Journalism

Posted by mjdavis

Crowdsourcing news from citizen journalists is so old-hat now that talking about it is boring. It’s still not easy to do, or efficiently done, but it’s been discussed so often that it’s become a cliche. Mother Jones, though, is crowdsourcing with a twist – the publication is using professional journalists. MoJo has decided that “climate change is the most important story of our time,” but is being covered “piecemeal” and therefore ineffectively. To rectify that problem, it’s “forging a collaboration with a range of news organizations—magazines, online news sites, nonprofit reporting shops, multimedia operations—because we each have different strengths, but working together we can cover this story better than any of us could on our own.” This initiative has resulted in some good press about this new kind of crowdsourcing. But I think focusing on professional crowdsourcing misses the really interesting aspect of the move – it’s more evidence of the rise of advocacy journalism.

Mother Jones is known for advocacy journalism, but it’s partners in this effort (with more, presumably, to come) really aren’t. Editor Clara Jeffery stated in the Ad Age story that participants “will likely include Slate, Grist, The Atlantic, Wired, Pro Publica, the Center for Investigative Reporting, MoJo of course, and maybe one or two others.” The audience for news seems to be clamoring for this kind of journalism, as evidenced by high viewership for Fox News and MSNBC, while ratings for CNN and the broadcast nets, the ostensibly unbiased networks, decline. It’s beginning to look more and more like this notion of an unbiased press, foisted on the public in the 1920’s, is crumbling. The press treats this as a bad thing, but why? A press with a mission isn’t the problem, as long as it has integrity. The problem is a press that lies about or omits facts. I’ll take a news organization that’s honest and tells me it’s political philosophy over an “unbiased” one any day.
October 24th, 2009

Should You Put Your CEO in Your Ad Campaign?

Posted by mjdavis

Today I came across a story in Slate by Seth Stevenson wondering if it’s smart to put your CEO in your ad campaign. An earnest Stevenson gets quite analytical over the question, but I could’ve saved him some time. The answer is, For the love of God, no!

So maybe this is one of my pet peeves, but unless you’re Frank Perdue, your CEO starring spot is awful. What these ads do is remind people how soft and flabby, and country club looking, corporate CEOs are. And how if they’re not wearing suits, they’re wearing suits with no ties (a truly ridiculous look if there ever was one). They’re usually horrible actors giving you the feeling you’re driving by a wreck on the side of the road that you just can’t look away from. When I see these ads, I can’t help but act out the marketing meeting in which it was decided that the CEO should star: “Yeah boss, that’s a great idea! You’d be great in that ad!”

One of the CEO ads Stevenson analyzes is the GM spot starring CEO Ed Whitacre. While admitting that Whitacre is “plainspoken, unapologetically uncharismatic,” he decides that “The ad is akin to a calm retail manager emerging from the back of the store to soothe a frustrated customer.” I guess, if the retail store is the Lansing Country Club gift shop. I have no idea what he’s saying because I can’t take my eyes off every little tick and eccentricity that Whitacre exhibits. The way his lips move when he talks, the way he carries his arms when he walks, and those odd glasses. Why does he snap his fingers once during his walk through the set? He can’t possibly be so strange in real life, can he?

Here in San Diego, my old employer, the Union-Tribune, is using the new publisher in radio ads. Yup, I’m holding my breath for the TV version!

(In case you missed it, here’s the GM spot.)

October 15th, 2009

With In-App Purchases in Free iPhone Apps, Tools Continue to Fall in Place for Paid Content Attempts

Posted by mjdavis
Apple today announced that in-app purchases are now allowed in free iPhone apps. This is great news for developers of all kinds of applications, from games to news, because it means the freemium model is alive on the iPhone.

If news organizations have any chance at charging for content it’s with a freemium model, and they now have the means to launch it on the leading mobile platform. While I’m skeptical of the viability of the paid model and the magnitude of the impact even if it’s successful, mobile must be a key component of any attempt.

(So I say again, isn’t it time to stop threatening and just go paid? We’ve been hearing all year about how News Corp is poised to begin charging for content – just do it already! If the industry really believes it’s the future, launching paid content is the only way to prove it.)

Also, doesn’t this make e-readers less attractive to news organizations? Why would a content consumer want to buy a separate device to consume that content on the go? E-readers may be the better choice for long-form content such as text books, but for news, I don’t see it. I can hear the “small screen” complaints now, but get over it, this isn’t newspaper delivery, it’s news delivery.

Just another reason for Hearst to rethink that e-reader launch.