Now this is the sort of complaint I wouldn't mind hearing more of. Folio magazine's Tony Silber is upset that I don't publish this blog more often. It would seem that Tony thinks this blog (and one written by my friend David Shaw) are "excellent" but "way too infrequent."
I'll admit to having fallen behind in my productivity of late. Heck, I'll admit to having fallen behind in everything. Since the birth of my daughter a few weeks ago, I sometimes go the entire day without even washing my face. I'm learning the hard way that 47 is far too old to be a first-time father. So I wasn't even aware of Tony's remarks until my friend and fellow blogger Matt Mullen posted a comment to this blog to tell me about it. (It was Matt who graciously suggested that I could take an infrequency "complaint as a compliment, i.e. readers actually read your stuff and want to see more." And I decided to adopt Matt's glass-half-full interpretation.)
So what is the frequency of this blog? and does it matter?
A quick look at my publishing software shows that I've posted an average of 17 items a month to this blog since it began in late 2004. That's a pretty decent level of productivity, I figure. But those numbers have dropped considerably in recent weeks. In May I posted only nine items. In June I posted only seven.
Now I can argue that quality is more important than quantity in blogging. And some of the items in recent weeks have been pretty good, if I do say so myself. But user stats don't lie, and it's clear that the drop in frequency has an impact -- page views in the second quarter were 15.4% lower than in the first quarter.
David, Martha Spizziri and I will be speaking about blogging next week at the ASBPE National Conference. I'm sure that frequency will be among the topics we'll address.
In the meantime, I'm going to have to face one key fact -- I have too much going on these days. Something is going to have to give. But I promise it won't be this blog.
For David's reaction to the Folio piece, click here.
To see what Rex, who has no problems with frequency, said, click here.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Monday, July 10, 2006
Thursday, July 06, 2006
Even more congratulations are in order
Just a few hours after offering my congratulations to the B2B magazines that picked up nominations for ASBPE's Magazine of the Year awards, I find it's time to pat a few more folks on the back.
Trade, Association and Business Publications International, known as TABPI, has announced the winners of its 2006 Tabbie Awards.
Take a look at the complete list of winners here. And note that many of the publications that picked up a Tabbie -- Computerworld, Builder, CIO Decisions, etc. -- are also finalists for ASBPE's awards.
My congratulations to everyone involved.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Trade, Association and Business Publications International, known as TABPI, has announced the winners of its 2006 Tabbie Awards.
Take a look at the complete list of winners here. And note that many of the publications that picked up a Tabbie -- Computerworld, Builder, CIO Decisions, etc. -- are also finalists for ASBPE's awards.
My congratulations to everyone involved.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
More congratulations are in order
The American Society of Business Publication Editors has released the list of finalists for the Magazine of the Year awards.
It's no surprise to me that two of the 10 finalists in the large-circulation division, CIO and Computerword, and one of the 10 in the small-circulation category, CSO, are IDG publications. Nor am I surprised to see that CFO is also a finalist among the large-circ pubs. Longtime readers of this blog know that I'm a fan of much that IDG does. And regular readers also know I adore CFO. (FULL DISCLOSURE: IDG is a client of mine, and I once worked at the parent company of CFO.)
For the full list of finalists, click here.
Congratulations to all involved.
For my comments on last year's winners, click here.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
It's no surprise to me that two of the 10 finalists in the large-circulation division, CIO and Computerword, and one of the 10 in the small-circulation category, CSO, are IDG publications. Nor am I surprised to see that CFO is also a finalist among the large-circ pubs. Longtime readers of this blog know that I'm a fan of much that IDG does. And regular readers also know I adore CFO. (FULL DISCLOSURE: IDG is a client of mine, and I once worked at the parent company of CFO.)
For the full list of finalists, click here.
Congratulations to all involved.
For my comments on last year's winners, click here.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Friday, June 30, 2006
Celebrating change this holiday weekend
I was talking to an old friend earlier this week. This guy is a brilliant reporter, a gifted writer and a truly inspirational editor. He's in the big time...leading a team of journalists at one of the most prestigious newspapers in the world.
And he's depressed.
My friend is convinced that he will be "obsolete" within a few years. He's worried that there's just no room left in the business for someone who does what he does.
His fear, or course, is new media. And I wish I could be more sympathetic. But this fear that something dark and ominous is sweeping across the industry annoys me to no end. I know that change is coming. Heck, the change has already come. But the change is positive. Journalism is a far, far, far more interesting place to be now than it was just a few years ago. What was once a narrow field dominated by one-way lectures and single-medium storytelling has evolved into a bigger, more open, more participatory, more glorious place to work.
Besides, as I tried to tell my friend, there's nothing about new media that's difficult to learn. This ain't brain surgery. It's not even Biology 101. It's new media. And mastering the basics of new media is not an insurmountable task. It's fun. It's easy. And it will make you a better storyteller. And I promise you -- although print-only journalists will be obsolete soon, there will always be room in this industry for people willing to learn new skills, new styles and new ways of telling a tale.
A year ago this week, I suggested that the long holiday weekend was a good time to try and catch up with some of the changes in journalism. And I suggested that readers of this blog take some time over the July Fourth holiday to learn RSS.
If you're still unfamiliar with RSS, I don't know what to say. You're way, way behind. Try to catch up.
The same is true if you're one of those many journalists I meet who can't work in html.
Html isn't that hard. No one expects you to become a programmer. But you should be able to do some basic work on a Web page. How about digital photography? Or audio files? If your new media skills are lacking, take some time this weekend to poke around the J-learning site.
If you're already a multimedia master, I applaud you. But I would still suggest this is no time to rest. New media is about more than media, it's about a cultural shift. It's a fundamental change in how people interact with each other and with content.
As I tried to tell my friend, journalists need to do more than change the way we work. We need to change our minds. We need to change our lives.
So take some time this weekend to join a few social networking sites and virtual communities. Check out MySpace. Look at Friendster. Try Flickr. Sign up for Second Life, build an avatar, fly around, make a friend and buy a house.
And when the holiday has passed and you're back at your desk, find a new way to let your readers engage with you, your work and each other.
For more on fostering community and conversation, read this piece by Steve Outing and this piece by the Online Journalism Review at USC.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
And he's depressed.
My friend is convinced that he will be "obsolete" within a few years. He's worried that there's just no room left in the business for someone who does what he does.
His fear, or course, is new media. And I wish I could be more sympathetic. But this fear that something dark and ominous is sweeping across the industry annoys me to no end. I know that change is coming. Heck, the change has already come. But the change is positive. Journalism is a far, far, far more interesting place to be now than it was just a few years ago. What was once a narrow field dominated by one-way lectures and single-medium storytelling has evolved into a bigger, more open, more participatory, more glorious place to work.
Besides, as I tried to tell my friend, there's nothing about new media that's difficult to learn. This ain't brain surgery. It's not even Biology 101. It's new media. And mastering the basics of new media is not an insurmountable task. It's fun. It's easy. And it will make you a better storyteller. And I promise you -- although print-only journalists will be obsolete soon, there will always be room in this industry for people willing to learn new skills, new styles and new ways of telling a tale.
A year ago this week, I suggested that the long holiday weekend was a good time to try and catch up with some of the changes in journalism. And I suggested that readers of this blog take some time over the July Fourth holiday to learn RSS.
If you're still unfamiliar with RSS, I don't know what to say. You're way, way behind. Try to catch up.
The same is true if you're one of those many journalists I meet who can't work in html.
Html isn't that hard. No one expects you to become a programmer. But you should be able to do some basic work on a Web page. How about digital photography? Or audio files? If your new media skills are lacking, take some time this weekend to poke around the J-learning site.
If you're already a multimedia master, I applaud you. But I would still suggest this is no time to rest. New media is about more than media, it's about a cultural shift. It's a fundamental change in how people interact with each other and with content.
As I tried to tell my friend, journalists need to do more than change the way we work. We need to change our minds. We need to change our lives.
So take some time this weekend to join a few social networking sites and virtual communities. Check out MySpace. Look at Friendster. Try Flickr. Sign up for Second Life, build an avatar, fly around, make a friend and buy a house.
And when the holiday has passed and you're back at your desk, find a new way to let your readers engage with you, your work and each other.
For more on fostering community and conversation, read this piece by Steve Outing and this piece by the Online Journalism Review at USC.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Tuesday, June 27, 2006
Sites that work and those that don't
Bloomberg News this morning unveiled a redesign of its Web site. It's worth taking a look at, no matter what your beat. Bloomberg operates television and radio networks in addition to its signature "professional service," the subscription-only news and information service. And that makes them the king of convergence. Few companies produce more print, audio and video content (the BBC, perhaps? ) And certainly no one has done it better or more profitably. And it's always worth remembering that before there was Web journalism, Bloomberg was making money sending news to users' computer screens.
Regular readers of this blog know I'm a big fan of the professional service, and I've argued it serves as a useful guide for the next generation of user interfaces. But don't expect anything quite so grand from the Web site. Bloomberg offers very little for free. So the new and improved site is less than compelling.
However, B2B journalists should make note of two things about the redesign. First, Bloomberg is giving far more prominent space to its video content. Every journalist at Bloomberg is required to have some basic audio and video skills. And I expect that will soon be true of every journalist everywhere.
Second, the site features an unusual gold-on-black design. I love the look, which evokes computer screens of old. More importantly, the site is a welcome relief from the tiny-text, multiple-headline mess that I see on so many news sites.
Granted, the study is about B2B sites in general, not just B2B media sites. But take a look at this article on the report. Then look at your sites -- news, data, whatever -- and ask if you 're truly serving your users.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Monday, June 26, 2006
More bad news about B2B news
I've put off writing about this for a few days now. It's just too depressing to think about. But PR Week has published a story that will break your heart if you care about journalistic integrity. According to a poll by Manning Selvage & Lee and the magazine, nearly half of the marketing executives surveyed say they have paid to get news coverage.
PR Week keeps its material behind a password-protected firewall, so only subscribers can read the original article. But you can read the New York Times take here. Or check out Paul Gillin's blog for his opinion and links to other coverage by clicking here.
The article isn't solely about B2B. Rather it appears that marketers are paying to play in a variety of publications. And I think most folks in our industry assume that some genres -- particularly fashion and shopping magazines -- are filled with this nonsense.
And it's possible that the survey isn't an accurate representation of the truth. An optimist might say the marketers are simply bragging -- claiming to have influence that they don't actually have.
But I'm not much of an optimist. I've seen too many publications engage in shocking or cheap behavior. So I'm walking around today with my head hung low.
For a look at the ASBPE's rewritten ethics guidelines, read this earlier post.
For my advice on how to handle pressure to behave unethically, read this earlier post.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism education
PR Week keeps its material behind a password-protected firewall, so only subscribers can read the original article. But you can read the New York Times take here. Or check out Paul Gillin's blog for his opinion and links to other coverage by clicking here.
The article isn't solely about B2B. Rather it appears that marketers are paying to play in a variety of publications. And I think most folks in our industry assume that some genres -- particularly fashion and shopping magazines -- are filled with this nonsense.
And it's possible that the survey isn't an accurate representation of the truth. An optimist might say the marketers are simply bragging -- claiming to have influence that they don't actually have.
But I'm not much of an optimist. I've seen too many publications engage in shocking or cheap behavior. So I'm walking around today with my head hung low.
For a look at the ASBPE's rewritten ethics guidelines, read this earlier post.
For my advice on how to handle pressure to behave unethically, read this earlier post.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism education
Thursday, June 22, 2006
That which we call RSS, by any other word would smell as sweet
Jakob Nielsen, the Web design guru extraordinaire, thinks people like me should stop talking about RSS, because it's confusing to anyone who is not an obsessive information junkie. Nielsen tells the Wall Street Journal that one of his "real strong recommendations is to stop calling it 'RSS' and start calling it 'news feeds,' because that explains what it does."
Point taken.
So...I was reading news feeds in my news reader this morning when I saw that Jakob Nielsen, the Web design guru extraordinaire, prefers email newsletters to news feeds. Longtime readers of this blog know that I've grown less than fond of email news. And although I don't recommend that publishers exit the email-newsletter game -- there's still too much money to be made --I do suggest that they add news feeds now and prepare for the inevitable end of email news.
One interesting note -- in the Journal interview, Nielsen points to an example of the sort of targeted email newsletter that "people really look forward to getting." It's called "Your baby this week," and it serves new parents. And I have to admit that a newsletter like that does have an appeal to someone like me. Just days ago I became a first-time father. So my obsessive information gathering has taken on a new level of frantic energy. So I signed up for "Your baby this week," published by BabyCentre, even though it appears to be very similar to the email newsletter I already get from American Baby magazine.
Then I returned to my news reader, where I subscribe to a dozen news feeds for parents, including The Blogfathers and Older Father.
And that about sums it up: 12 feeds versus 2 newsletters. I apparently like news feeds about six times as much as I like email newsletters.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Point taken.
So...I was reading news feeds in my news reader this morning when I saw that Jakob Nielsen, the Web design guru extraordinaire, prefers email newsletters to news feeds. Longtime readers of this blog know that I've grown less than fond of email news. And although I don't recommend that publishers exit the email-newsletter game -- there's still too much money to be made --I do suggest that they add news feeds now and prepare for the inevitable end of email news.
One interesting note -- in the Journal interview, Nielsen points to an example of the sort of targeted email newsletter that "people really look forward to getting." It's called "Your baby this week," and it serves new parents. And I have to admit that a newsletter like that does have an appeal to someone like me. Just days ago I became a first-time father. So my obsessive information gathering has taken on a new level of frantic energy. So I signed up for "Your baby this week," published by BabyCentre, even though it appears to be very similar to the email newsletter I already get from American Baby magazine.
Then I returned to my news reader, where I subscribe to a dozen news feeds for parents, including The Blogfathers and Older Father.
And that about sums it up: 12 feeds versus 2 newsletters. I apparently like news feeds about six times as much as I like email newsletters.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Saturday, June 17, 2006
Can you Digg it? Hugo starts a new site for B2B
Digg is among the more interesting experiments in community journalism. If you aren't familiar with it, you should be. In brief, Digg is sort of new version of Slashdot, the online community pioneer. As remarkable as Slashdot was and is, Digg took things a little further by allowing readers to "rank" the importance of stories. Suddenly there was a news site where the "front page" was selected by readers, rather than by editors (like every publication you've ever seen) or algorithms (like Google News.)
Spinoffs emerged quickly. The most popular of those is probably Hugg, a Digg-like site about the environmental movement.
Now my friend and fellow B2B blogger Hugo Martin as created a Digg-like site about B2B media. Check it out. Read the stories. Submit new stories that you find interesting. Vote for the things you like. Share. Participate. Enjoy.
It's worth noting that AOL this week relaunched the Netscape site in Digg style. Check out Rex's thoughts on the change here.
For some of my ideas on building community online, see this earlier post.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, entrepreneurial journalism, standalone journalism
Spinoffs emerged quickly. The most popular of those is probably Hugg, a Digg-like site about the environmental movement.
Now my friend and fellow B2B blogger Hugo Martin as created a Digg-like site about B2B media. Check it out. Read the stories. Submit new stories that you find interesting. Vote for the things you like. Share. Participate. Enjoy.
It's worth noting that AOL this week relaunched the Netscape site in Digg style. Check out Rex's thoughts on the change here.
For some of my ideas on building community online, see this earlier post.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, entrepreneurial journalism, standalone journalism
Friday, June 16, 2006
Congratulations are in order
When I head to Chicago next month to speak at the American Society of Business
Publication Editors conference, I'll have to try and make a point to meet Anthony Fletcher and Natalia Thomson. They're the winners of this year's TABPI Young Leaders Scholarships -- an honor which wins them a ticket to the conference as well as my heartfelt admiration.
The scholarships are sponsored by ASBPE and Trade, Association and Business Publications International. And although I'm fairly sure that ASBPE has additional scholarships for U.S.-based editors. I haven't seen a list of those winners yet. But perhaps I missed an announcement. Regardless, details about the show can be found by following the links at the ASBPE site.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism education
Publication Editors conference, I'll have to try and make a point to meet Anthony Fletcher and Natalia Thomson. They're the winners of this year's TABPI Young Leaders Scholarships -- an honor which wins them a ticket to the conference as well as my heartfelt admiration.
The scholarships are sponsored by ASBPE and Trade, Association and Business Publications International. And although I'm fairly sure that ASBPE has additional scholarships for U.S.-based editors. I haven't seen a list of those winners yet. But perhaps I missed an announcement. Regardless, details about the show can be found by following the links at the ASBPE site.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media, journalism education
Tuesday, June 06, 2006
Bad news about B2B news
Today is not a good day for B2B journalism.
First there is the depressing study by research firm Outsell, which says that "press releases have surpassed trade journals as the leading source of information for knowledge workers."
I've long bemoaned that too many of our peers blur the lines between press releases and original reporting. But now, if the Outsell report is to be believed, readers in at least one B2B space are saying they use press releases more than they use our publications. And that is simply heartbreaking.
Certainly some of this can be traced to the immediacy of the Web. Companies that once needed us to distribute their press releases can now communicate directly with their target audience. And as I've said before, in a world where anyone can be a publisher, we must find a new role to replace that of gatekeeper.
The other piece of bad news today is that "Amusement Business" has closed down. It's almost always sad to see a magazine close. But the death of "Amusement Business" is particularly tough to swallow. The publication had a history, a significance, worth noting. "Amusement Business" debuted in 1894 as "Billboard Advertising." And like many a B2B publication, it morphed and grew, eventually spinning off one of the bigger names in our industry -- "Billboard" magazine.
Take a few minutes today to bow your head, mourn the loss, and read this story about the death of "Amusement Business" in BtoB magazine.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
First there is the depressing study by research firm Outsell, which says that "press releases have surpassed trade journals as the leading source of information for knowledge workers."
I've long bemoaned that too many of our peers blur the lines between press releases and original reporting. But now, if the Outsell report is to be believed, readers in at least one B2B space are saying they use press releases more than they use our publications. And that is simply heartbreaking.
Certainly some of this can be traced to the immediacy of the Web. Companies that once needed us to distribute their press releases can now communicate directly with their target audience. And as I've said before, in a world where anyone can be a publisher, we must find a new role to replace that of gatekeeper.
The other piece of bad news today is that "Amusement Business" has closed down. It's almost always sad to see a magazine close. But the death of "Amusement Business" is particularly tough to swallow. The publication had a history, a significance, worth noting. "Amusement Business" debuted in 1894 as "Billboard Advertising." And like many a B2B publication, it morphed and grew, eventually spinning off one of the bigger names in our industry -- "Billboard" magazine.
Take a few minutes today to bow your head, mourn the loss, and read this story about the death of "Amusement Business" in BtoB magazine.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
Thursday, May 25, 2006
Getting readers to do the writing
There's an interesting piece in Wired magazine about the rise of "crowsdsourcing," the Web-based phenomenon of "everyday people using their spare cycles to create content, solve problems, even do corporate R & D" for companies. Click here to read the article. And pay particular attention to the discussion of iStockPhoto, the marketplace for amateur photographers.
Publishers and editors should be familiar with iStockPhoto if for no other reason that that it can cut costs dramatically. This "massive collection of royalty-free images" is an alternative to pricier services such as the one run by Getty Images, which, by the way, bought out iStockPhoto three months ago. (iStockPhoto's user agreement on royalty-free images is here. And it seems clear to this non-legal mind that magazines are permitted to reproduce the photos.)
But I don't so much want to talk about iStockPhoto as I want to talk about what it represents -- a system of user-generated content that can supplement, or even replace, traditional content.
Yesterday I spoke to the publisher of a B2B magazine that covers a specialized section of the financial-services market. There's nothing unusual about the magazine other than that it has nice, round numbers that I want to use to illustrate a point.
According to the publisher, his magazine has a controlled circulation of 70,000. That gives the magazine almost exactly 70% penetration of a vertical market he estimates at 100,000.
Now consider the possibility of asking that audience to create content in the crowdsourcing model. If we assume a modest participation rate of just 1%, the magazine would be awash in user-created material. If 1% of the industry was willing to write something just once a year, that would generate 1,000 articles. If we stick with existing subscribers, a 1% participation rate would yield 700 articles a year -- more than two pieces a day.
Consider the possibilities here. These readers are, by definition, interested in and familar with the subjects covered by the magazine. Furthermore, the readers work in a highly competitive field where careers can be made by "fame." The best-known people get the most clients. So there's a built-in incentive to participate in something that can "get your name out there."
Most importantly, this particular magazine serves a professional and educated readership. We can assume that a good portion of these people are capable of creating at least moderately good material prior to editing.
I'm not talking about news here. News requires a commitment of time that most readers cannot make (although any single reader armed with the new publishing technology can become a news competitor.) I'm talking about analysis. I'm talking about essays, thought pieces, best-practices, how-I-landed-my-biggest-sale feature stories, etc.
Think about the power of such content. Think about the sheer volume of it.
And then ask this question: Can you say with any certainty that the efforts of the professional journalists at your magazine -- those three, four or five poorly paid writers -- would be superior in quality or quantity to the work produced by 1,000 readers?
For some magazines, certainly, the answer is yes. Publications that serve a less-educated audience would be hard-pressed to find talented content creators among the readers. If you work at "Bread Wrap, the monthly magazine serving the men and women who seal bread in plastic bags with twisties," you probably don't need to concern yourself with crowdsourcing. But if you work at "Industrial Baking Technician" or "Twistie Engineer," you may want to read that Wired article again.
(NOTE: I paid $3 to iStockPhoto for the photo at the top of this post. That's a great deal no matter how you look at it. But before you spend even that tiny amount, check photo-sharing site Flickr to see if any of the free content suits your needs.)
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, entrepreneurial journalism, standalone journalism
Tuesday, May 23, 2006
ASBPE releases new ethics guidelines
We are a better industry today than yesterday.
The American Society of Business Publication Editors has released its new set of ethics guidelines. I'm pleased by what ASBPE has done. I think all of us can be proud of what the guidelines say, and each of us should be honor-bound to adhere to them.
You can see the new "Guide to Preferred Editorial Practices" by clicking here. Take some time today to give the guide a quick look. Then, when time allows, make sure you read it in its entirety. Make sure that your coworkers read it too.
In brief, you'll see that ASBPE is calling for a more transparent ethics system, urging publishers to "to make their ethical standards transparent both for its internal staff and externally for its readers, advertisers, and others in their markets." Since that pretty closely tracks what I have urged ASBPE to do in earlier posts such as this one, I'm particularly pleased.
Among the specific items that have gladdened my heart is a call for "full attribution of sources." The guidelines say "Sources should be identified for readers except in rare circumstances, for example, to protect the source from the repercussions of speaking to the reporter. If cited anonymously, use the most complete and accurate description of the source possible."
Readers of this blog know I've long bemoaned the way so many of us in B2B misuse anonymous sources. Now our rules on this have been made clear -- tell your readers as much as you can about the sources in your stories. Don't take shortcuts. Don't mislead. Don't say "sources said" when you mean "a source said."
The ASBPE guide doesn't address everything I would have hoped. For example, there is no clear requirement to label unedited press releases as press releases. Nor is there a call to do a better job of reporting on our own companies by ending the practice of running press releases from our own marketing departments as news. (Note, the guide does call for "full attribution to sources," which I interpret as exactly the sort of call to clarity that I want B2B editors to embrace.)
But I don't want to complain. There is so much that is good and praiseworthy in the guidelines -- calls for feedback mechanisms, clarity in online editorial rules, etc. -- that I cannot help but feel that B2B journalism has taken a remarkable step forward.
(DISCLOSURE: ASBPE was kind enough to seek my input on ethics several months ago. The suggestions I made to the association can be found by clicking here.)
For more on the new guidelines, check out the blog by the Boston chapter of ASBPE.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education, journalism ethics
The American Society of Business Publication Editors has released its new set of ethics guidelines. I'm pleased by what ASBPE has done. I think all of us can be proud of what the guidelines say, and each of us should be honor-bound to adhere to them.
You can see the new "Guide to Preferred Editorial Practices" by clicking here. Take some time today to give the guide a quick look. Then, when time allows, make sure you read it in its entirety. Make sure that your coworkers read it too.
In brief, you'll see that ASBPE is calling for a more transparent ethics system, urging publishers to "to make their ethical standards transparent both for its internal staff and externally for its readers, advertisers, and others in their markets." Since that pretty closely tracks what I have urged ASBPE to do in earlier posts such as this one, I'm particularly pleased.
Among the specific items that have gladdened my heart is a call for "full attribution of sources." The guidelines say "Sources should be identified for readers except in rare circumstances, for example, to protect the source from the repercussions of speaking to the reporter. If cited anonymously, use the most complete and accurate description of the source possible."
Readers of this blog know I've long bemoaned the way so many of us in B2B misuse anonymous sources. Now our rules on this have been made clear -- tell your readers as much as you can about the sources in your stories. Don't take shortcuts. Don't mislead. Don't say "sources said" when you mean "a source said."
The ASBPE guide doesn't address everything I would have hoped. For example, there is no clear requirement to label unedited press releases as press releases. Nor is there a call to do a better job of reporting on our own companies by ending the practice of running press releases from our own marketing departments as news. (Note, the guide does call for "full attribution to sources," which I interpret as exactly the sort of call to clarity that I want B2B editors to embrace.)
But I don't want to complain. There is so much that is good and praiseworthy in the guidelines -- calls for feedback mechanisms, clarity in online editorial rules, etc. -- that I cannot help but feel that B2B journalism has taken a remarkable step forward.
(DISCLOSURE: ASBPE was kind enough to seek my input on ethics several months ago. The suggestions I made to the association can be found by clicking here.)
For more on the new guidelines, check out the blog by the Boston chapter of ASBPE.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education, journalism ethics
Thursday, May 18, 2006
Attacking things you don't understand
Among my pet peeves are poorly reported pieces about how new-media makes for poor reporting.
And as more old-media types are forced to confront the future, I expect to see a lot more silly pieces such as this one by a journalism professor at Washington & Lee University.
Consider this quote: "The news person who is expected to update a breaking story throughout the day is doing so at the expense of reporting that would develop and deepen the story so that it's illuminating and satisfying to readers."
That's simply absurd. A story isn't updated in lieu of reporting, a story is updated BY reporting. In the 24-hour news operations where I've worked (CNN, Bloomberg), a journalist reports, writes/produces and then files a story. Then he goes deeper. He calls another source. Then another. When he gets something interesting, he updates the story. He starts compiling more source material and posts it to the Web. He starts editing the audio of those earlier interviews, looking for good soundbites and MORE information. Then he calls another source. Then another, ad infinitum.
That's not acting "at the expense of reporting." That IS reporting.
The rest of the essay by Edward Wasserman has similar flaws. Wasserman announces in stereotypical newspapers-first arrogance that few "print reporters are eager to become helpmates to TV news, which they regard as entertainment programming." He suggests that the converged newsroom is some sort of recent arrival that promotes "third-rate journalism," whereas even a casual observer who has ventured off a college campus since the Watergate scandal must realize that convergence has been a well-established practice at some of the giants of journalism for years. Hell, the Chicago Tribune has had cameras in the newsroom for something like 20 years.
As if the essay couldn't get worse, Wasserman ends with the following cry of anguish and outrage: "When do we hear from the professional journalists? Where is their independent assessment of how these powerful new technologies can be used, not to plant the flag in cyberspace, not to reclaim market share, but to provide great, meaningful journalism?"
Really, Ed. Are you kidding me? Those people are everywhere! Have you ever seen the work of Adrian Holovaty, creator of chicagocrime.org and now an editor at the Washington Post? Ever heard Rob Curley speak? He serves on the professional advisory board of College Media Advisers, the organization that helps folks like you understand the new world. Holovaty and Curley created the converged newsroom at the Lawrence Journal-World, perhaps the best new-media operation in the world.
How about Steve Outing, formerly of the Poynter Institute, the newspaper think tank. How about Amy Gahran? She does some writing for Poynter too. Speaking of Poynter, a search of that site yields 56 results for the phrase "converged newsroom." And sure enough, as I take a look at them, I find that many of them are written by professional journalists wondering how to create meaningful journalism.
Do you know Dan Gillmor? How about Canada's Fine Young Journalist? Have you followed the work of your peers at CMA? Speaking of your peers, do you know Doug Fisher at the University of South Carolina? How about Mindy McAdams at the University of Florida?
Ever hear of Tim Porter? (He knows you. He linked to you once.) Ever talk to him? Post a comment to his site? I mean seriously, Ed, could anyone who claimed to know anything about journalism write a piece about converged newsrooms without knowing about Tim Porter?
Jeez, Ed. Do some more reporting before you sit down and write.
For an earlier post that discusses the disconnect between new and old media at journalism schools, click here.
UPDATE: Given the nature of this post, I couldn't resist the urge to update with additional information. I'd guess that Ed knows all about the Poynter Institute now. Miami Herald executive editor Tom Fiedler used a Poynter forum to respond to Ed's essay. Tom kindly suggests that Ed had an off day and has "spent too much time lately in his Virginia classroom recounting journalistic history and not enough time in newsrooms plotting journalism's future."
My point exactly.
UPDATE2: Do you see how this works now Ed? I found another piece of information, so I'm updating again. This time I think the readers might want to know that Mindy McAdams has also weighed in on your piece. She's kinder than I have been, but she too thinks you're off base.
UPDATE3: OK. I'm just fooling around now. I don't have anymore updates.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
And as more old-media types are forced to confront the future, I expect to see a lot more silly pieces such as this one by a journalism professor at Washington & Lee University.
Consider this quote: "The news person who is expected to update a breaking story throughout the day is doing so at the expense of reporting that would develop and deepen the story so that it's illuminating and satisfying to readers."
That's simply absurd. A story isn't updated in lieu of reporting, a story is updated BY reporting. In the 24-hour news operations where I've worked (CNN, Bloomberg), a journalist reports, writes/produces and then files a story. Then he goes deeper. He calls another source. Then another. When he gets something interesting, he updates the story. He starts compiling more source material and posts it to the Web. He starts editing the audio of those earlier interviews, looking for good soundbites and MORE information. Then he calls another source. Then another, ad infinitum.
That's not acting "at the expense of reporting." That IS reporting.
The rest of the essay by Edward Wasserman has similar flaws. Wasserman announces in stereotypical newspapers-first arrogance that few "print reporters are eager to become helpmates to TV news, which they regard as entertainment programming." He suggests that the converged newsroom is some sort of recent arrival that promotes "third-rate journalism," whereas even a casual observer who has ventured off a college campus since the Watergate scandal must realize that convergence has been a well-established practice at some of the giants of journalism for years. Hell, the Chicago Tribune has had cameras in the newsroom for something like 20 years.
As if the essay couldn't get worse, Wasserman ends with the following cry of anguish and outrage: "When do we hear from the professional journalists? Where is their independent assessment of how these powerful new technologies can be used, not to plant the flag in cyberspace, not to reclaim market share, but to provide great, meaningful journalism?"
Really, Ed. Are you kidding me? Those people are everywhere! Have you ever seen the work of Adrian Holovaty, creator of chicagocrime.org and now an editor at the Washington Post? Ever heard Rob Curley speak? He serves on the professional advisory board of College Media Advisers, the organization that helps folks like you understand the new world. Holovaty and Curley created the converged newsroom at the Lawrence Journal-World, perhaps the best new-media operation in the world.
How about Steve Outing, formerly of the Poynter Institute, the newspaper think tank. How about Amy Gahran? She does some writing for Poynter too. Speaking of Poynter, a search of that site yields 56 results for the phrase "converged newsroom." And sure enough, as I take a look at them, I find that many of them are written by professional journalists wondering how to create meaningful journalism.
Do you know Dan Gillmor? How about Canada's Fine Young Journalist? Have you followed the work of your peers at CMA? Speaking of your peers, do you know Doug Fisher at the University of South Carolina? How about Mindy McAdams at the University of Florida?
Ever hear of Tim Porter? (He knows you. He linked to you once.) Ever talk to him? Post a comment to his site? I mean seriously, Ed, could anyone who claimed to know anything about journalism write a piece about converged newsrooms without knowing about Tim Porter?
Jeez, Ed. Do some more reporting before you sit down and write.
For an earlier post that discusses the disconnect between new and old media at journalism schools, click here.
UPDATE: Given the nature of this post, I couldn't resist the urge to update with additional information. I'd guess that Ed knows all about the Poynter Institute now. Miami Herald executive editor Tom Fiedler used a Poynter forum to respond to Ed's essay. Tom kindly suggests that Ed had an off day and has "spent too much time lately in his Virginia classroom recounting journalistic history and not enough time in newsrooms plotting journalism's future."
My point exactly.
UPDATE2: Do you see how this works now Ed? I found another piece of information, so I'm updating again. This time I think the readers might want to know that Mindy McAdams has also weighed in on your piece. She's kinder than I have been, but she too thinks you're off base.
UPDATE3: OK. I'm just fooling around now. I don't have anymore updates.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
Monday, May 15, 2006
Adrian Holovaty speaks to journalism grads
Longtime readers of this blog know that I've often sung the praises of new-media genius Adrian Holovaty -- the mash-up whiz who created Chicagocrime.org, the developer who helped the Lawrence Journal-World become one of the greatest newspapers of the Internet era, and now the "editor of editorial innovations" who leads the Washington Post's forays into digital journalism.
Well it turns out that my alma mater, the University of Missouri, had the good sense to ask Adrian to give the commencement address at this year's j-school graduation.
I'm thrilled that Mizzou did this. And I take back every nasty thing I've ever said about the old-media dinosaurs at that school.
You can read what Adrian told the next generation of journalists here.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
Well it turns out that my alma mater, the University of Missouri, had the good sense to ask Adrian to give the commencement address at this year's j-school graduation.
I'm thrilled that Mizzou did this. And I take back every nasty thing I've ever said about the old-media dinosaurs at that school.
You can read what Adrian told the next generation of journalists here.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
My newest gig in B2B
I've been so busy of late that I haven't had the time to share some exciting news about my career.
Access Intelligence has asked me to write the B2B boxscores column for the MIN B2B newsletter. If you're not familiar with the boxscores, you should be. Each week the newsletter analyzes advertising trends at trade publications. And if I do my job correctly, that analysis will be both insightful and fun to read.
I'm thrilled to death by the deal, and I filed my first column last week. However, MIN B2B is a paid-subscription product. So I won't be linking to my column from this blog. If you're interested, you can subscribe to MIN by clicking here.
(NOTE: Fans of Steve Smith have nothing to fear. Steve's new-media boxscores column will continue to appear in MIN B2B. I'll be writing the print boxscores only. And fans of this blog have nothing to worry about either. Although no one pays me to write this thing, I couldn't stop it even if I wanted to....it's too much fun.)
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
Access Intelligence has asked me to write the B2B boxscores column for the MIN B2B newsletter. If you're not familiar with the boxscores, you should be. Each week the newsletter analyzes advertising trends at trade publications. And if I do my job correctly, that analysis will be both insightful and fun to read.
I'm thrilled to death by the deal, and I filed my first column last week. However, MIN B2B is a paid-subscription product. So I won't be linking to my column from this blog. If you're interested, you can subscribe to MIN by clicking here.
(NOTE: Fans of Steve Smith have nothing to fear. Steve's new-media boxscores column will continue to appear in MIN B2B. I'll be writing the print boxscores only. And fans of this blog have nothing to worry about either. Although no one pays me to write this thing, I couldn't stop it even if I wanted to....it's too much fun.)
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
Friday, May 12, 2006
Finding our voice or falling silent
Businessweek has an interesting piece about Boeing's use of blogs as public-relations tools.
The airplane maker has "has learned to cede some control and expose itself to stinging criticism in exchange for a potentially more constructive dialogue with the public," the magazine reports.
I applaud such a move. Yet each and every time I see a company open itself to the joys and difficulties of conversational editorial, it pains me to remember how few B2B publications have been willing to take that risk.
If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you may remember that nearly a year ago I pointed to Boeing's first foray into the blogosphere and warned that in a "world where news sources can now be news publishers," journalism had much to lose. If our past was one of gatekeeping, what would we do in a world where our readers and our sources could open and close gates without us?
I believe the answer to that question is clear -- we must engage sources and readers alike in dialogue. We must surrender our belief that we are entitled to some monopoly voice in the marketplace, and evolve into something more open. We have to become less like arrogant lecturers and become more like gifted conversationalists.
For an interesting take on how trade magazines can make this transition, check out this post by Barry Graubart.
For more on my thoughts on conversational media, read this earlier post.
For a look at a new blog from one of my favorite non-publishing companies, click here.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
The airplane maker has "has learned to cede some control and expose itself to stinging criticism in exchange for a potentially more constructive dialogue with the public," the magazine reports.
I applaud such a move. Yet each and every time I see a company open itself to the joys and difficulties of conversational editorial, it pains me to remember how few B2B publications have been willing to take that risk.
If you've been reading this blog for awhile, you may remember that nearly a year ago I pointed to Boeing's first foray into the blogosphere and warned that in a "world where news sources can now be news publishers," journalism had much to lose. If our past was one of gatekeeping, what would we do in a world where our readers and our sources could open and close gates without us?
I believe the answer to that question is clear -- we must engage sources and readers alike in dialogue. We must surrender our belief that we are entitled to some monopoly voice in the marketplace, and evolve into something more open. We have to become less like arrogant lecturers and become more like gifted conversationalists.
For an interesting take on how trade magazines can make this transition, check out this post by Barry Graubart.
For more on my thoughts on conversational media, read this earlier post.
For a look at a new blog from one of my favorite non-publishing companies, click here.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Tuesday, May 09, 2006
ABM newsletter makes poor choice for name
The American Business Media trade association, which is hosting its annual Spring meeting in Arizona this week, says it's launching a monthly email newsletter covering the trade show and events industry.
That's a nice idea. And I may subscribe. But I can't help but be disappointed to see ABM is calling the new publication the "Face-to-Face Report." It seems to me that someone should have thought of a name that wasn't so close to "Face2Face," the blog about the trade show and meetings industry run by Sue Pelletier, an editor with ABM member Prism media. If I were Sue, or someone at Prism who writes the checks to ABM, I'd be livid.
But never mind. I don't want to talk about that anymore. Instead I want to take a moment to introduce my new trade association, American Business Mediums, or ABM for short. We represent the interests of psychics who work in the B2B press. ABM is holding its Spring meeting this week at the Coney Island resort here in Brooklyn. But members are predicting a light turnout.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
That's a nice idea. And I may subscribe. But I can't help but be disappointed to see ABM is calling the new publication the "Face-to-Face Report." It seems to me that someone should have thought of a name that wasn't so close to "Face2Face," the blog about the trade show and meetings industry run by Sue Pelletier, an editor with ABM member Prism media. If I were Sue, or someone at Prism who writes the checks to ABM, I'd be livid.
But never mind. I don't want to talk about that anymore. Instead I want to take a moment to introduce my new trade association, American Business Mediums, or ABM for short. We represent the interests of psychics who work in the B2B press. ABM is holding its Spring meeting this week at the Coney Island resort here in Brooklyn. But members are predicting a light turnout.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Monday, May 08, 2006
B2B moguls gather in Arizona
Folio magazine is publishing a daily newsletter from the ABM Spring Meeting in Arizona, where various bigwigs of the B2B world gather each year to cavort, golf, merge, acquire and generally do the things that bigwigs do. The Spring Meeting is an event as much as it is a meeting. Think of it as the biggest thing of the year for the smaller media moguls who don't get invited to Herb Allen's shindig in Sun Valley.
I'm not in Arizona today. I'm at home in Brooklyn. I'd given some thought to heading west to enjoy the meeting festivities, but I'm tied to the home front these days. My first child is due to arrive in just a few weeks! So I'm too nervous to wander far.
Remarkably, my absence from the ABM meeting is not mentioned in Folio's article entitled "Who's attending, and who's not," which makes note of the "notable exceptions" on the attendee list. I'm sure that Folio regrets the error.
Despite that grievous ommission, you may want to read the article and the rest of the newsletter, which is available in an electronic version here. There are some worthwhile items, including a look at vertical search and Penton's stock maneuvers.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
I'm not in Arizona today. I'm at home in Brooklyn. I'd given some thought to heading west to enjoy the meeting festivities, but I'm tied to the home front these days. My first child is due to arrive in just a few weeks! So I'm too nervous to wander far.
Remarkably, my absence from the ABM meeting is not mentioned in Folio's article entitled "Who's attending, and who's not," which makes note of the "notable exceptions" on the attendee list. I'm sure that Folio regrets the error.
Despite that grievous ommission, you may want to read the article and the rest of the newsletter, which is available in an electronic version here. There are some worthwhile items, including a look at vertical search and Penton's stock maneuvers.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Wednesday, May 03, 2006
Novel tells tales of B2B magazine sleaze
Years ago I had a friend who worked at a tiny B2B magazine in Washington, D.C. And it bothered him to no end that in our nation's capitol -- a place were "journalist" is a job with a considerable degree of caché -- he worked at a nondescript rag staffed by unskilled editors and unethical bosses. It wasn't that the job was so awful. It was that he was convinced he was missing out on the glamour of a life in another part of the media.
So he consoled himself by working endlessly on a script for a situation comedy about the nutty and charming characters at a trade magazine.
I thought about that guy recently when another writer at another trade magazine sent me a press release announcing the publication of his novel that "satirizes the compromised ethics at play in the fictional offices of American Tractor Times magazine."
Now I don't expect to live long enough for my old friend's B2B sitcom to appear on my television. But I wouldn't have thought I'd live long enough to see a humorous book about B2B publishing either. So anything is possible.
I'm not going to offer a review of the novel, which bears the-wink-and-a-nod-to-James-Frey title of "A Million Little Pieces of Feces." I can't. I haven't read it yet. But I have ordered the book. And you should think about doing so too.
Because even if it isn't funny, any book about compromised ethics in B2B may cause some embarrassment to the least ethical among us.
And that's worth $18.99 plus shipping and handling.
CORRECTION: The author of the book sent an email to tell me that his work is not a graphic novel, as I said in an earlier version of this post, but is rather "a traditional novel, all 90,000 or so words."
I regret the error.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
So he consoled himself by working endlessly on a script for a situation comedy about the nutty and charming characters at a trade magazine.
I thought about that guy recently when another writer at another trade magazine sent me a press release announcing the publication of his novel that "satirizes the compromised ethics at play in the fictional offices of American Tractor Times magazine."
Now I don't expect to live long enough for my old friend's B2B sitcom to appear on my television. But I wouldn't have thought I'd live long enough to see a humorous book about B2B publishing either. So anything is possible.
I'm not going to offer a review of the novel, which bears the-wink-and-a-nod-to-James-Frey title of "A Million Little Pieces of Feces." I can't. I haven't read it yet. But I have ordered the book. And you should think about doing so too.
Because even if it isn't funny, any book about compromised ethics in B2B may cause some embarrassment to the least ethical among us.
And that's worth $18.99 plus shipping and handling.
CORRECTION: The author of the book sent an email to tell me that his work is not a graphic novel, as I said in an earlier version of this post, but is rather "a traditional novel, all 90,000 or so words."
I regret the error.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
Saturday, April 29, 2006
Circulation accusations at PC World
A few days ago I had the chance to travel to Cambridge, Massachusetts, and speak to a group of senior executives from IDG about engagement and online communities.
It was tremendous fun, as it always is when I meet with IDG folks.
Shortly after my return, Folio magazine broke a story saying that Teletype Co., a software firm that has accused Laptop magazine and the Audit Bureau of Circulations of inflating circulation numbers, has filed a similar lawsuit against IDG's PC World.
Longtime readers of this blog know that IDG is more than a client to me. Long before I ever made a penny with the company, I was a fan of much of what the people there have done. In a world such as B2B publishing, where I find far too many people of slow wit and questionable ethics, IDG represents all that is good about our industry. I have no reason to believe that anyone at IDG would do anything unprofessional. And I trust that my trust in the people at that company is not unfounded.
Given that, as I said in a comment on my friend Martha's blog a few moments ago, "I'm going to reserve judgment, for now, I'll assume that nothing unseemly has happened. I'm going to act as if this is just a misunderstanding of some kind. And I'll hope that if my optimism is unfounded and someone at IDG has done something wrong, that they are fired promptly."
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
It was tremendous fun, as it always is when I meet with IDG folks.
Shortly after my return, Folio magazine broke a story saying that Teletype Co., a software firm that has accused Laptop magazine and the Audit Bureau of Circulations of inflating circulation numbers, has filed a similar lawsuit against IDG's PC World.
Longtime readers of this blog know that IDG is more than a client to me. Long before I ever made a penny with the company, I was a fan of much of what the people there have done. In a world such as B2B publishing, where I find far too many people of slow wit and questionable ethics, IDG represents all that is good about our industry. I have no reason to believe that anyone at IDG would do anything unprofessional. And I trust that my trust in the people at that company is not unfounded.
Given that, as I said in a comment on my friend Martha's blog a few moments ago, "I'm going to reserve judgment, for now, I'll assume that nothing unseemly has happened. I'm going to act as if this is just a misunderstanding of some kind. And I'll hope that if my optimism is unfounded and someone at IDG has done something wrong, that they are fired promptly."
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Friday, April 28, 2006
Poor use of rich data
Years ago when I worked at the shipping newspaper known as the Journal of Commerce, I was both fascinated and frustrated by the company's data product.
It was called PIERS. And it was full of information that made for compelling stories. But in one of those strange cultural disconnects that often happen at publishing companies, most of us in the editorial department weren't allowed to roam freely in the databases. We didn't have passwords. We couldn't get them.
Instead we had to submit a request to folks in the PIERS department, who would pull up the data we needed.
The end result, of course, was that we didn't ... couldn't ... take full advantage of PIERS. If we knew what we were looking for, we could request it. Thus our stories tended to have lots of good lists -- top imports at certain ports, etc. But we couldn't roam through the database itself. We couldn't play. We couldn't investigate. Thus we never "found" stories. We never stumbled serendipitously on to news.
I have a vague memory of asking for PIERS training and passwords and being told that the company didn't like to distribute the knowledge because of security concerns. Apparently the risk that someone could steal some of the data outweighed the chance that a reporter would use it.
Even more remarkable, I remember getting into an argument with someone at the company who didn't want to send copies of the transportation directories the company published to my office in Chicago. As much as I needed those lists of names and phone numbers to work my beat, this guy was worried about the postage. (I eventually convinced another reporter to steal a set and mail them to me.)
Years later I found myself working at Bloomberg News, where I found a very different situation. Bloomberg, wisely, made sure that every journalist in the company knew how to operate in the company's endless databases of financial information. And nearly every story ended with a "tour" -- a series of on-screen charts and graphics generated from Bloomberg data.
The result, of course, was that the staff produced more valuable work using material that competitors couldn't duplicate.
(It's worth noting that Bloomberg has its own security paranoia. Staff is banned from using Web sites that offer e-mail, for example. Internet use is monitored. And e-mail is blocked if it contains foul language.)
In recent weeks I've heard a lot of talk among B2B publishing executives about "rich data," the new buzzword for the databases owned by many a B2B magazine. And each time I hear the phrase, I wonder how many B2B journalists are able to access the data they need.
What are the policies at your company? Are reporters free to roam the Web? Does everyone have passwords to the company's databases? Does anyone have a password to competitors' databases? Does the company offer journalists the same training it offers data customers?
For a look at a piece about one of my fondest hopes, take a look at this post in which I predict that some wise B2B publisher will soon let people "mash up" the company's data to create all-new products.
For a look at what guest columnist Russell Perkins has to say about B2B and rich data, take a look at this piece on Magazine Enterprise 360, the site I produce with magazine legend Hershel Sarbin.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
It was called PIERS. And it was full of information that made for compelling stories. But in one of those strange cultural disconnects that often happen at publishing companies, most of us in the editorial department weren't allowed to roam freely in the databases. We didn't have passwords. We couldn't get them.
Instead we had to submit a request to folks in the PIERS department, who would pull up the data we needed.
The end result, of course, was that we didn't ... couldn't ... take full advantage of PIERS. If we knew what we were looking for, we could request it. Thus our stories tended to have lots of good lists -- top imports at certain ports, etc. But we couldn't roam through the database itself. We couldn't play. We couldn't investigate. Thus we never "found" stories. We never stumbled serendipitously on to news.
I have a vague memory of asking for PIERS training and passwords and being told that the company didn't like to distribute the knowledge because of security concerns. Apparently the risk that someone could steal some of the data outweighed the chance that a reporter would use it.
Even more remarkable, I remember getting into an argument with someone at the company who didn't want to send copies of the transportation directories the company published to my office in Chicago. As much as I needed those lists of names and phone numbers to work my beat, this guy was worried about the postage. (I eventually convinced another reporter to steal a set and mail them to me.)
Years later I found myself working at Bloomberg News, where I found a very different situation. Bloomberg, wisely, made sure that every journalist in the company knew how to operate in the company's endless databases of financial information. And nearly every story ended with a "tour" -- a series of on-screen charts and graphics generated from Bloomberg data.
The result, of course, was that the staff produced more valuable work using material that competitors couldn't duplicate.
(It's worth noting that Bloomberg has its own security paranoia. Staff is banned from using Web sites that offer e-mail, for example. Internet use is monitored. And e-mail is blocked if it contains foul language.)
In recent weeks I've heard a lot of talk among B2B publishing executives about "rich data," the new buzzword for the databases owned by many a B2B magazine. And each time I hear the phrase, I wonder how many B2B journalists are able to access the data they need.
What are the policies at your company? Are reporters free to roam the Web? Does everyone have passwords to the company's databases? Does anyone have a password to competitors' databases? Does the company offer journalists the same training it offers data customers?
For a look at a piece about one of my fondest hopes, take a look at this post in which I predict that some wise B2B publisher will soon let people "mash up" the company's data to create all-new products.
For a look at what guest columnist Russell Perkins has to say about B2B and rich data, take a look at this piece on Magazine Enterprise 360, the site I produce with magazine legend Hershel Sarbin.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Thursday, April 27, 2006
AOL moves into microbeats
I've been pushing the idea of the microbeat for awhile now. I love the idea of reporters using blogs as a way to dive deeper into a subject -- creating a "publication" that covers an issue or company in a way that no traditional product could.
Standalone journalists have led the way, creating blog-based products that cover a single company rather than an entire industry. Check out this early trendsetter about Netflix, for example.
Some magazines have launched similar microniche products. For example, I'm a big fan of what Wired magazine has done in this area.
Today comes word that AOL is moving into the microbeat world in a major way. Take a look at BloggingStocks.com, a series of blogs that cover single companies.
I have to offer my congratulations to AOL on this. I expect these new blogs will generate a sizable audience. Few issues generate as much passion as investing. And personal-finance sites have a history of attracting active users.
That's not to say I'm thrilled with what I've seen in the first few posts at BloggingStocks. AOL has adopted a team approach to the beats. And I much prefer single-writer blogs. Nonetheless, AOL deserves congratulations for this. And I'll keep checking in to watch how the beats develop.
(Click here to take a look at what Businessweek says about the new AOL blogs.)
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Standalone journalists have led the way, creating blog-based products that cover a single company rather than an entire industry. Check out this early trendsetter about Netflix, for example.
Some magazines have launched similar microniche products. For example, I'm a big fan of what Wired magazine has done in this area.
Today comes word that AOL is moving into the microbeat world in a major way. Take a look at BloggingStocks.com, a series of blogs that cover single companies.
I have to offer my congratulations to AOL on this. I expect these new blogs will generate a sizable audience. Few issues generate as much passion as investing. And personal-finance sites have a history of attracting active users.
That's not to say I'm thrilled with what I've seen in the first few posts at BloggingStocks. AOL has adopted a team approach to the beats. And I much prefer single-writer blogs. Nonetheless, AOL deserves congratulations for this. And I'll keep checking in to watch how the beats develop.
(Click here to take a look at what Businessweek says about the new AOL blogs.)
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Wednesday, April 19, 2006
Online journalism pioneer Don Fitzpatrick dies
Some bad news today for anyone who appreciates online communities and user-generated content.
Don Fitzpatrick, the television headhunter who became a pioneer in citizen journalism and Web-based communities, has died at the age of 56.
Don started his career helping people such as Meredith Vieira, Leeza Gibbons and John Tesh find jobs in television.
But it's the work he did online that was most revolutionary.
In 1983, he launched ShopTalk, one of the first newsletters to be distributed by email (he used a database system called "the Source.") Years later he started TVSpy Watercooler, an online community in which users could post comments about the television industry.
Don sold TVSpy to the Vault in 2001, and both that community and the ShopTalk brand live on. Click here to visit TVSpy. Read Don's obituary and the tribute from some of the people he worked with. And if you like, take a look at the discussion boards and post a comment...remembering that it was Don and a handful of other pioneers who made that simple act of communicating with an online audience possible.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Don Fitzpatrick, the television headhunter who became a pioneer in citizen journalism and Web-based communities, has died at the age of 56.
Don started his career helping people such as Meredith Vieira, Leeza Gibbons and John Tesh find jobs in television.
But it's the work he did online that was most revolutionary.
In 1983, he launched ShopTalk, one of the first newsletters to be distributed by email (he used a database system called "the Source.") Years later he started TVSpy Watercooler, an online community in which users could post comments about the television industry.
Don sold TVSpy to the Vault in 2001, and both that community and the ShopTalk brand live on. Click here to visit TVSpy. Read Don's obituary and the tribute from some of the people he worked with. And if you like, take a look at the discussion boards and post a comment...remembering that it was Don and a handful of other pioneers who made that simple act of communicating with an online audience possible.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Thursday, April 13, 2006
Improving your publication through murder
Hey, you know that "print' guy in your newsroom?
You know the guy I'm talking about? He can't edit an audio file. He can't upload a digital photo. He doesn't know html. He doesn't know what a title tag is. He can't insert a link. He's ever-so-fond of his writing style, and he's not exactly sure what it means to "repurpose" content or to "write for the Web."
You know that guy?
I want you to take a look at this piece on the Teaching Online Journalism blog. Then I want you to follow the link to the memo that went out yesterday to the staff of the Miami Herald. Then I want you to print that memo. Then wrap it around a baseball bat.
And then beat that guy with the bat until he is, at long last, dead.
And you know that delusional journalism student? The silo student? The guy one without a single new-media skill on his resumé? You know the guy I'm talking about. He wants to be a newspaper man. He wants to be a Writer with a capital "W"? Take that same bat and hit him a few times too. But don't kill him. Maybe just hit him across the knees. Folks like that are too young to die, but may not be too young to save.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
You know the guy I'm talking about? He can't edit an audio file. He can't upload a digital photo. He doesn't know html. He doesn't know what a title tag is. He can't insert a link. He's ever-so-fond of his writing style, and he's not exactly sure what it means to "repurpose" content or to "write for the Web."
You know that guy?
I want you to take a look at this piece on the Teaching Online Journalism blog. Then I want you to follow the link to the memo that went out yesterday to the staff of the Miami Herald. Then I want you to print that memo. Then wrap it around a baseball bat.
And then beat that guy with the bat until he is, at long last, dead.
And you know that delusional journalism student? The silo student? The guy one without a single new-media skill on his resumé? You know the guy I'm talking about. He wants to be a newspaper man. He wants to be a Writer with a capital "W"? Take that same bat and hit him a few times too. But don't kill him. Maybe just hit him across the knees. Folks like that are too young to die, but may not be too young to save.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
Tuesday, April 11, 2006
Improving your career by drinking
What are you doing next Tuesday?
If you're going to be in New York, you should consider attending the first "Young Editors" evening of "networking and cocktails," brought to you by the folks at ABM.
ABM is promising to "help you transition from hating the boss to being the boss" as "editors from some of b-to-b’s most successful publications discuss advancing in New York’s ultra-competitive media community."
As much as I would like to attend the event, I cannot. I have a previous engagement. Besides, although I share many of the best attributes of youth -- I am, for example, both attractive and pure of heart -- I cannot claim to actually be young.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
If you're going to be in New York, you should consider attending the first "Young Editors" evening of "networking and cocktails," brought to you by the folks at ABM.
ABM is promising to "help you transition from hating the boss to being the boss" as "editors from some of b-to-b’s most successful publications discuss advancing in New York’s ultra-competitive media community."
As much as I would like to attend the event, I cannot. I have a previous engagement. Besides, although I share many of the best attributes of youth -- I am, for example, both attractive and pure of heart -- I cannot claim to actually be young.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Mistaken email about Email Summit
I have a bit of an ego.
So I believed it when I got an email yesterday from MediaPost that asked me to attend the upcoming Email Insider Summit as a VIP guest. The email said the "cost of your airfare, hotel accommodations and conference registration will be paid for by MediaPost."
So I spent a few minutes thinking about the offer. The conference, scheduled for late May, conflicted with a few things on my schedule. I also wanted to know if I was being invited as a consultant, in which case I was happy to have MediaPost pay, or as journalist, in which case I wouldn't let them pay. So I didn't respond to the invitation, and instead made a note to call MediaPost and ask for details.
Then, a few hours later, I got another email from MediaPost. This one said: "We apologize if you received an email from MediaPost earlier today inviting you as our VIP guest to the Email Insider Summit," it said. "That email was intended to be sent to a list of 50 top brand marketers in the industry, that have already agreed to attend the event."
Now I'll confess that -- despite my ego-crazed belief that all conferences can benefit from my attendance -- I was a little surprised by the original invitation.
I don't know a soul at MediaPost, I've never done any business with them, and I've never been quoted in any of their publications.
But I was still flabbergasted to learn that the invitation was a mistake. And I'll admit that I -- who have made some pretty stupid mistakes in my day -- laughed out lout to find that someone would send the wrong email invitations to a conference about email!
I looked in vain through that second email for a sign that MediaPost found the whole thing funny. But there was no acknowledgment of the humor in the situation. MediaPost did "apologize for the confusion and inconvenience that error may have caused you." But it didn't say anything about how funny this particular error was. I think that's a mistake. I can't be the only person who got the wrong email and found the situation hilarious. I would think that the right way to handle the error would involve showing a sense of humor.
Nor, for that matter, did MediaPost offer me a discount on the Summit or offer some other form of restitution. And that's likely a mistake too.
The second email did tell me that attending the Email Insider Summit would cost me $2,495 plus airfare and accommodations. Needless to say, I won't be going. And that's too bad. Because I would like to know what the marketers who fork over $2,495 to learn about email think about the error and how MediaPost handled it.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
So I believed it when I got an email yesterday from MediaPost that asked me to attend the upcoming Email Insider Summit as a VIP guest. The email said the "cost of your airfare, hotel accommodations and conference registration will be paid for by MediaPost."
So I spent a few minutes thinking about the offer. The conference, scheduled for late May, conflicted with a few things on my schedule. I also wanted to know if I was being invited as a consultant, in which case I was happy to have MediaPost pay, or as journalist, in which case I wouldn't let them pay. So I didn't respond to the invitation, and instead made a note to call MediaPost and ask for details.
Then, a few hours later, I got another email from MediaPost. This one said: "We apologize if you received an email from MediaPost earlier today inviting you as our VIP guest to the Email Insider Summit," it said. "That email was intended to be sent to a list of 50 top brand marketers in the industry, that have already agreed to attend the event."
Now I'll confess that -- despite my ego-crazed belief that all conferences can benefit from my attendance -- I was a little surprised by the original invitation.
I don't know a soul at MediaPost, I've never done any business with them, and I've never been quoted in any of their publications.
But I was still flabbergasted to learn that the invitation was a mistake. And I'll admit that I -- who have made some pretty stupid mistakes in my day -- laughed out lout to find that someone would send the wrong email invitations to a conference about email!
I looked in vain through that second email for a sign that MediaPost found the whole thing funny. But there was no acknowledgment of the humor in the situation. MediaPost did "apologize for the confusion and inconvenience that error may have caused you." But it didn't say anything about how funny this particular error was. I think that's a mistake. I can't be the only person who got the wrong email and found the situation hilarious. I would think that the right way to handle the error would involve showing a sense of humor.
Nor, for that matter, did MediaPost offer me a discount on the Summit or offer some other form of restitution. And that's likely a mistake too.
The second email did tell me that attending the Email Insider Summit would cost me $2,495 plus airfare and accommodations. Needless to say, I won't be going. And that's too bad. Because I would like to know what the marketers who fork over $2,495 to learn about email think about the error and how MediaPost handled it.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
Monday, April 10, 2006
Hedes for bots
A few months ago I wrote a post about headline writing in the age of RSS. In brief, I suggested that there was a growing need "for expertise in all types of ultra-short writing. Certainly news organizations will look for writers who can create headlines to pull in RSS users. But advertisers will too. If text ads, paid links, etc. continue to grow, then the guy who can write a three-word phrase that generates a click is of value."
Today the New York Times suggests that there's another skill that writers need in the new era -- writing hedes that search engines like. You can read the Times piece here. And take a look at what Fine Young Journalist and the Poynter Institute have to say on the subject.
As for me...I still like the short and pithy concept. And I'd suggest that B2B journalists adopt the two-tiered approach used by the BBC. Use the hedes on the home page to attract humans, and use the hedes on the article page to lure bots. "Some news sites offer two headlines," the Times says. "One headline, often on the first Web page, is clever, meant to attract human readers. Then, one click to a second Web page, a more quotidian, factual headline appears with the article itself. The popular BBC News Web site does this routinely on longer articles."
And don't ignore an article's title tag, like the knuckleheads I mentioned in this earlier post did. Title tags are a great place to put the less-than-pithy phrases that bots love.
Today the New York Times suggests that there's another skill that writers need in the new era -- writing hedes that search engines like. You can read the Times piece here. And take a look at what Fine Young Journalist and the Poynter Institute have to say on the subject.
As for me...I still like the short and pithy concept. And I'd suggest that B2B journalists adopt the two-tiered approach used by the BBC. Use the hedes on the home page to attract humans, and use the hedes on the article page to lure bots. "Some news sites offer two headlines," the Times says. "One headline, often on the first Web page, is clever, meant to attract human readers. Then, one click to a second Web page, a more quotidian, factual headline appears with the article itself. The popular BBC News Web site does this routinely on longer articles."
And don't ignore an article's title tag, like the knuckleheads I mentioned in this earlier post did. Title tags are a great place to put the less-than-pithy phrases that bots love.
Friday, April 07, 2006
More on ethics and press releases
It appears that the problem I complained about a few days ago -- publishers pretending that press releases are news items created by staff writers -- isn't confined to B2B journalism.
Television news programs are suffering from similar shortcomings, according to an investigation by Free Press and the Center For Media and Democracy. In the TV business, press releases often come in a so-called video news release, or VNR, a sort of pretend story and/or B-roll background footage. And according to the investigation, at least 77 stations aired VNRs without attribution and branded them instead with the station's graphics. (You can read about the investigation here or here.)
One thing worth noting -- and worth applauding -- in the VNR scandal is how the Radio-Television News Directors Association reacted. The RTNDA issued this statement, urging stations "to review and strengthen their policies requiring complete disclosure of any outside material used in news programming." The RTNDA also reminded members that the organization's ethics policy prohibits such activity.
At present there are no such outright bans in the ethics policies of the ASBPE or ABM. But perhaps it's not too much to hope that one or both groups would consider addressing the issue.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
Television news programs are suffering from similar shortcomings, according to an investigation by Free Press and the Center For Media and Democracy. In the TV business, press releases often come in a so-called video news release, or VNR, a sort of pretend story and/or B-roll background footage. And according to the investigation, at least 77 stations aired VNRs without attribution and branded them instead with the station's graphics. (You can read about the investigation here or here.)
One thing worth noting -- and worth applauding -- in the VNR scandal is how the Radio-Television News Directors Association reacted. The RTNDA issued this statement, urging stations "to review and strengthen their policies requiring complete disclosure of any outside material used in news programming." The RTNDA also reminded members that the organization's ethics policy prohibits such activity.
At present there are no such outright bans in the ethics policies of the ASBPE or ABM. But perhaps it's not too much to hope that one or both groups would consider addressing the issue.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
Wednesday, April 05, 2006
More on silo students
I've said it before. And I'll say it again. If you're a journalism student without multimedia skills, I want nothing to do with you.
No one I know needs another I'm-willing-to-learn type. No one I know needs another I'm-a-print-sort-of-guy. No one I know needs someone who thinks he's a "writer."
Everyone I know needs journalists -- multimedia journalists.
If you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe Michael Vizard at Ziff Davis: "Today, when I hire, I'm looking for someone who can write and do audio/video content. If you show up and you're a great writer but you don't have multimedia skills, and another guy shows up who's not quite as good a writer but he can create audio and video, I'll hire the more versatile person."
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
No one I know needs another I'm-willing-to-learn type. No one I know needs another I'm-a-print-sort-of-guy. No one I know needs someone who thinks he's a "writer."
Everyone I know needs journalists -- multimedia journalists.
If you don't believe me, perhaps you'll believe Michael Vizard at Ziff Davis: "Today, when I hire, I'm looking for someone who can write and do audio/video content. If you show up and you're a great writer but you don't have multimedia skills, and another guy shows up who's not quite as good a writer but he can create audio and video, I'll hire the more versatile person."
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
Tuesday, April 04, 2006
Folio picks its 40 most influential people
Folio magazine has published its Folio: 40 list of the most influential people in publishing. And I'm just thrilled to see that Jon Udell of IDG's Infoworld has made the list.
I'll take a wee bit of credit for this. The folks at Folio magazine were kind enough to seek my input to the Folio: 40 this year. They asked who I thought "represented the state of the art in the new world of b-to-be edit." And Jon was the first person who came to mind.
If you're a B2B editor, Jon is the guy you should try to emulate. He does all the things that his peers do -- writing, reporting, editing -- and he does them better than most. He's also the creator of all-new forms of storytelling (screencasting) and content organization (Infoworld metadata explorer.) And as Folio points out, Jon's blog is "powerhouse of knowledge that incorporates information with video and audio, essentially the next generation in online communication resources."
Take a look at the rest of what Folio said about Jon here.
Take a look at the entire Folio: 40 list here.
And while you're at it, check out this column, which quotes from an earlier post to this blog.
(DISCLOSURE: IDG is a client of mine. But I'm afraid I can't take credit for anything that Jon has ever done.)
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
I'll take a wee bit of credit for this. The folks at Folio magazine were kind enough to seek my input to the Folio: 40 this year. They asked who I thought "represented the state of the art in the new world of b-to-be edit." And Jon was the first person who came to mind.
If you're a B2B editor, Jon is the guy you should try to emulate. He does all the things that his peers do -- writing, reporting, editing -- and he does them better than most. He's also the creator of all-new forms of storytelling (screencasting) and content organization (Infoworld metadata explorer.) And as Folio points out, Jon's blog is "powerhouse of knowledge that incorporates information with video and audio, essentially the next generation in online communication resources."
Take a look at the rest of what Folio said about Jon here.
Take a look at the entire Folio: 40 list here.
And while you're at it, check out this column, which quotes from an earlier post to this blog.
(DISCLOSURE: IDG is a client of mine. But I'm afraid I can't take credit for anything that Jon has ever done.)
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Objecting to objectivity
There's an interesting piece in Slate that raises interesting questions about the future of journalism, and observes that objectivity "is less an ideal than a conceit."
Longtime readers of this blog won't be surprised to hear that I agree with Slate's Michael Kinsley on this. I've been talking about post-objectivity ethics and urging folks to read the work of Dan Gillmor for quite some time.
Kinsley goes on to say that "No one seriously doubts anymore that the Internet will fundamentally change the news business. The uncertainty is whether it will only change the method of delivering the product, or whether it will change the nature of the product as well."
And although I agree that there is uncertainty among many of the journalists I know, I would argue that this uncertainty is misplaced. To me it seems obvious that online media -- particularly blogs -- will change the way journalism is practiced. Certainly objectivity is growing less important. But I'm far more interested in the other changes that new media brings.
Hang on to your objective style as long as you like. It won't bother me. But please -- please -- accept that you must adopt the core practices of blogging-- external, agnostic links; feedback functions and conversation; and multimedia storytelling -- if you want to continue to keep working in this industry.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Longtime readers of this blog won't be surprised to hear that I agree with Slate's Michael Kinsley on this. I've been talking about post-objectivity ethics and urging folks to read the work of Dan Gillmor for quite some time.
Kinsley goes on to say that "No one seriously doubts anymore that the Internet will fundamentally change the news business. The uncertainty is whether it will only change the method of delivering the product, or whether it will change the nature of the product as well."
And although I agree that there is uncertainty among many of the journalists I know, I would argue that this uncertainty is misplaced. To me it seems obvious that online media -- particularly blogs -- will change the way journalism is practiced. Certainly objectivity is growing less important. But I'm far more interested in the other changes that new media brings.
Hang on to your objective style as long as you like. It won't bother me. But please -- please -- accept that you must adopt the core practices of blogging-- external, agnostic links; feedback functions and conversation; and multimedia storytelling -- if you want to continue to keep working in this industry.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media
Monday, March 27, 2006
Where B2B falls short
If you work in B2B journalism, then you know we have a respect problem. Our peers in the mainstream press often think we're hacks. Our brothers in the ad department sometimes think we're whores. The companies that we cover think we're part of their industry, not part of the media, and expect us to take on a cheerleading role.
B2B publishing can be a lonely place for reporters and editors who push for excellence. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard talented and ambitious journalists say they wish they worked for a "real" magazine," wish they were "real" reporters.
And the awful truth is that they often have good reason to be embarrassed.
Take a look at this press release from the National Instruments company. Note that the press release is clearly a press release, and that the BusinessWire tag appears at the start.
Then look at this "story" at Desktop Engineering magazine.
The two pieces are the same. Only Desktop Engineering removed the BusinessWire tag and added the phrase "written by DE editors."
Visit the DE news section. Open any story. Copy some text. Paste the text into Google and search. You'll find that the pieces that DE labels as "written by DE editors" are press releases written by someone else.
I sent an email to the editor of DE several weeks ago voicing my concern, but have not received a reply.
Now DE has clearly crossed a line by saying things are "written by DE editors" when it's more accurate to say they were "copied and pasted by DE editors." But it's not fair to single out DE over this issue. Although not everyone in our industry struggles with the meaning of the phrase "written by," lots of B2B publications seem to struggle with the line between news stories and press releases. Regular readers of this blog know I've complained in the past about similar practices by PennWell. And regular readers know that I've lobbied ASBPE to address a related problem -- when a publication runs its own press releases as news -- in its new ethics guidelines.
I shouldn't have to say this, but perhaps I do: a press release often has value. I don't object to seeing press releases on a Web site or reprinted in a magazine.
But I don't understand why anyone would label a press release as news. Press releases are not the same as news stories (although they are often the starting point for news stories.) And by not drawing a distinction between the two we tell readers that there is no distinction. When we label a press release from an outside company as news we confirm the worst suspicions that people have of us -- that we don't "report" the way "real" journalists do, that our "news" is nothing more than regurgitated public-relations material and that our news judgment is determined by how easy something is to do or how much someone pays us to print it.
I know I'm not alone in my concern. John Brady wrote an interesting column for Folio a few weeks ago in which he listed "the tell-tale signs of a magazine that had fallen into the easy marketing arms of PR." If you're interested in excellence, ethics or even just not being half-assed, take a look at his piece.
And if you want to see what folks in the public relations industry think of B2B editors who run press releases as news, check out the comments to this earlier post.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
B2B publishing can be a lonely place for reporters and editors who push for excellence. I've lost track of the number of times I've heard talented and ambitious journalists say they wish they worked for a "real" magazine," wish they were "real" reporters.
And the awful truth is that they often have good reason to be embarrassed.
Take a look at this press release from the National Instruments company. Note that the press release is clearly a press release, and that the BusinessWire tag appears at the start.
Then look at this "story" at Desktop Engineering magazine.
The two pieces are the same. Only Desktop Engineering removed the BusinessWire tag and added the phrase "written by DE editors."
Visit the DE news section. Open any story. Copy some text. Paste the text into Google and search. You'll find that the pieces that DE labels as "written by DE editors" are press releases written by someone else.
I sent an email to the editor of DE several weeks ago voicing my concern, but have not received a reply.
Now DE has clearly crossed a line by saying things are "written by DE editors" when it's more accurate to say they were "copied and pasted by DE editors." But it's not fair to single out DE over this issue. Although not everyone in our industry struggles with the meaning of the phrase "written by," lots of B2B publications seem to struggle with the line between news stories and press releases. Regular readers of this blog know I've complained in the past about similar practices by PennWell. And regular readers know that I've lobbied ASBPE to address a related problem -- when a publication runs its own press releases as news -- in its new ethics guidelines.
I shouldn't have to say this, but perhaps I do: a press release often has value. I don't object to seeing press releases on a Web site or reprinted in a magazine.
But I don't understand why anyone would label a press release as news. Press releases are not the same as news stories (although they are often the starting point for news stories.) And by not drawing a distinction between the two we tell readers that there is no distinction. When we label a press release from an outside company as news we confirm the worst suspicions that people have of us -- that we don't "report" the way "real" journalists do, that our "news" is nothing more than regurgitated public-relations material and that our news judgment is determined by how easy something is to do or how much someone pays us to print it.
I know I'm not alone in my concern. John Brady wrote an interesting column for Folio a few weeks ago in which he listed "the tell-tale signs of a magazine that had fallen into the easy marketing arms of PR." If you're interested in excellence, ethics or even just not being half-assed, take a look at his piece.
And if you want to see what folks in the public relations industry think of B2B editors who run press releases as news, check out the comments to this earlier post.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media
Thursday, March 23, 2006
Award winning B2B magazines
I'm back in New York today, but I didn't get a chance to attend the Neal Awards. So I just learned the results a few minutes ago when I checked my feeds.
The big winner was Farm Journal magazine. The veteran monthly picked up the Grand Neal award for a series that the judges called a "masterful blending of science, consumer reporting, and passion." I'm pleased by Farm Journal's win. I've worked with a lot of agriculture publications over the years, and Farm Journal has always been a worthy competitor. And the magazine has managed to excel in what has become one of the most competitive spaces in B2B media.
IDG picked up three awards. And that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who reads this blog. I'm a bit of an IDG groupie. I just adore much of what that company does, and I use them often as an example of excellence. (FULL DISCLOSURE: IDG is a client of mine.)
Take a look at the complete list of winners here. (BtoB magazine has a story here. And check out what my friend David Shaw has to say about the winners here.) You'll see that some of the very best products in trade publishing are represented.
But as longtime readers of this blog would guess, I'm perplexed by Porkmag.com's victory as best small Web site. When the Vance Publishing site was nominated two months ago, I made note of just how poor a choice I thought that was. Porkmag, I said, has "no interactivity -- no links, no feedback functions. The news section is just a news feed. The magazine material isn't repurposed and there's nothing original that I see." I have to confess....I don't see anything worth praising at the site. And I'm shocked that ABM found the product worthy of an award.
(FULL DISCLOSURE: I was once a senior writer at Vance.)
AviationWeek Intelligence Network won the Best Web site award for a mid-size product. I haven't the slightest idea if that site is any good. AWIN has the single most offensive registration process I've ever seen on a Web site. Take a look here. And if you're willing to hand over your phone number, someone will call you sometime in the next two days to let you sample the site.
ADDENDUM: I had to chuckle as I looked through the list of Neal Award winners again and saw that DVM magazine won an award for news coverage. Just yesterday I pointed to DVM as having the worst idea in B2B publishing for its silly policy of charging users $20 to email a story to a friend. DVM's award was for something called "The Long Road to Recovery."
If anyone out there has some extra cash, maybe they can send me a copy of the story.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
The big winner was Farm Journal magazine. The veteran monthly picked up the Grand Neal award for a series that the judges called a "masterful blending of science, consumer reporting, and passion." I'm pleased by Farm Journal's win. I've worked with a lot of agriculture publications over the years, and Farm Journal has always been a worthy competitor. And the magazine has managed to excel in what has become one of the most competitive spaces in B2B media.
IDG picked up three awards. And that shouldn't be a surprise to anyone who reads this blog. I'm a bit of an IDG groupie. I just adore much of what that company does, and I use them often as an example of excellence. (FULL DISCLOSURE: IDG is a client of mine.)
Take a look at the complete list of winners here. (BtoB magazine has a story here. And check out what my friend David Shaw has to say about the winners here.) You'll see that some of the very best products in trade publishing are represented.
But as longtime readers of this blog would guess, I'm perplexed by Porkmag.com's victory as best small Web site. When the Vance Publishing site was nominated two months ago, I made note of just how poor a choice I thought that was. Porkmag, I said, has "no interactivity -- no links, no feedback functions. The news section is just a news feed. The magazine material isn't repurposed and there's nothing original that I see." I have to confess....I don't see anything worth praising at the site. And I'm shocked that ABM found the product worthy of an award.
(FULL DISCLOSURE: I was once a senior writer at Vance.)
AviationWeek Intelligence Network won the Best Web site award for a mid-size product. I haven't the slightest idea if that site is any good. AWIN has the single most offensive registration process I've ever seen on a Web site. Take a look here. And if you're willing to hand over your phone number, someone will call you sometime in the next two days to let you sample the site.
ADDENDUM: I had to chuckle as I looked through the list of Neal Award winners again and saw that DVM magazine won an award for news coverage. Just yesterday I pointed to DVM as having the worst idea in B2B publishing for its silly policy of charging users $20 to email a story to a friend. DVM's award was for something called "The Long Road to Recovery."
If anyone out there has some extra cash, maybe they can send me a copy of the story.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Wednesday, March 22, 2006
The worst idea in B2B publishing
This may be the worst idea I have ever seen in B2B publishing.
Take a look at DVM, an Advanstar publication that covers veterinary science. Follow the links to the news page.
Look at any story. Pick this one, for example, and open it. You'll find a rewritten press release about the 90th anniversary of Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. Now imagine that you had a friend who graduated from that school. And imagine that you wanted to send him this story to let him know about the anniversary.
Click on the little blue box at the top of the story and you'll get a pop-up message that tells you that sending that story to your friend will cost you $20.
Just think about that for a second. DVM is telling its readers that it will charge them for the right to do word-of-mouth marketing on DVM's behalf. DVM wants its customers to pay every time they try and get someone to check out DVM.
Now I'd find this idea laughable under any circumstances. But DVM goes beyond the absurd. It's trying to collect these charges for press releases that are available in dozens of other places and that DVM doesn't hide behind a password-protection wall.
Given how unlikely it is that people are silly enough to pay such fees, I can't imagine that DVM actually generates any revenue from this. But I'm quite sure that the damage to customer relations as well as the loss of free marketing is sizable.
I've seen similar schemes elsewhere in B2B. And I'm left speechless by them.
I'd love to know what these folks are thinking. And for the low, low price of $20, they can post a comment and tell me.
ADDENDUM: 3/24/05. About a day or so after this post was published, DVM changed its system. Read the comments to this post for more details.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Take a look at DVM, an Advanstar publication that covers veterinary science. Follow the links to the news page.
Look at any story. Pick this one, for example, and open it. You'll find a rewritten press release about the 90th anniversary of Texas A&M University College of Veterinary Medicine & Biomedical Sciences. Now imagine that you had a friend who graduated from that school. And imagine that you wanted to send him this story to let him know about the anniversary.
Click on the little blue box at the top of the story and you'll get a pop-up message that tells you that sending that story to your friend will cost you $20.
Just think about that for a second. DVM is telling its readers that it will charge them for the right to do word-of-mouth marketing on DVM's behalf. DVM wants its customers to pay every time they try and get someone to check out DVM.
Now I'd find this idea laughable under any circumstances. But DVM goes beyond the absurd. It's trying to collect these charges for press releases that are available in dozens of other places and that DVM doesn't hide behind a password-protection wall.
Given how unlikely it is that people are silly enough to pay such fees, I can't imagine that DVM actually generates any revenue from this. But I'm quite sure that the damage to customer relations as well as the loss of free marketing is sizable.
I've seen similar schemes elsewhere in B2B. And I'm left speechless by them.
I'd love to know what these folks are thinking. And for the low, low price of $20, they can post a comment and tell me.
ADDENDUM: 3/24/05. About a day or so after this post was published, DVM changed its system. Read the comments to this post for more details.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Friday, March 17, 2006
Students, teachers and visionaries
The annual convention of College Media Advisers is here in New York this week. And if I finish this post and a few other items in a timely fashion, I may make another trip in to Manhattan to hear some lectures and talk to some of the roughly 1,500 college journalists who attend the convention.
I was at CMA earlier this week (I'm on the association's professional advisory board.) Last week I visited Northwest Missouri State's new media program (I'm on a similar board there.) So I've been giving a lot of thought of late to the next generation of journalists.
And much of what I've been thinking hasn't been positive.
Perhaps the strangest thing I've run into is what I've come to think of as the silo student. Kids keep handing me resumes that look like they were written 20 years ago. They mention the student newspaper, the yearbook and the college literary magazine. But they don't mention Web sites, blogs, email newsletters, podcasts, html skills, citizen journalism projects, video, etc. And when I ask the students about their online experience, I get these weird responses. Lots of them tell me "I only want to work for a newspaper." Lots of them say things like "I'm going to be a writer, not anything else." Some seem genuinely perplexed and ask me if I think "most newspapers have Web sites?" or if "reporters need to do things on the Web?"
When I asked teachers what they thought about this, I found that they were as upset as I was by their students' disconnect from the realities of media today.
Teachers told me over and over again that their students were adamantly opposed to converging news operations at their schools. The print kids don't like the TV kids; the Web kids don't like the print kids, etc. The "cultures" don't mix, so the products don't mix and the students don't develop multimedia skills. Remarkably, as one teacher pointed out, few print students actually "lived" in the world of old media. They all owned iPods. They snap photos with cell phones, communicate with Instant Messenger and join social-networking sites. Yet they expect to work in some sort of old-fashioned land of ink and paper.
A number of teachers blamed the disconnect on their peers in college journalism programs. Many programs are dominated by older, established teachers who haven't worked in the press for decades and have an open contempt for newer forms of media. And no doubt such elitist dinosaurs are helping to create a new generation of unemployable followers.
If you take a look at what I wrote on this blog a year ago today, you'll see that the silo student is not a new phenomenon.
And longtime readers of this blog know that I still find silo professionals as well -- veteran journalists who have failed to develop new media skills -- and that I urge publishers to fire them.
I take a similarly harsh stand with students. As I told the folks at CMA, I have no interest in even talking to a student who has neither the curiosity to acquire basic new-media skills nor the common sense to understand that the industry is changing.
The person I did want to talk to -- the king of new media skills, the visionary who has taught us much about change -- wasn't around. Rob Curley is also on the professional advisory board, but he didn't make the meeting. Although I'm a fan of Rob's, we've never met in person. And I had been looking forward to being as star-struck as this guy was.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
I was at CMA earlier this week (I'm on the association's professional advisory board.) Last week I visited Northwest Missouri State's new media program (I'm on a similar board there.) So I've been giving a lot of thought of late to the next generation of journalists.
And much of what I've been thinking hasn't been positive.
Perhaps the strangest thing I've run into is what I've come to think of as the silo student. Kids keep handing me resumes that look like they were written 20 years ago. They mention the student newspaper, the yearbook and the college literary magazine. But they don't mention Web sites, blogs, email newsletters, podcasts, html skills, citizen journalism projects, video, etc. And when I ask the students about their online experience, I get these weird responses. Lots of them tell me "I only want to work for a newspaper." Lots of them say things like "I'm going to be a writer, not anything else." Some seem genuinely perplexed and ask me if I think "most newspapers have Web sites?" or if "reporters need to do things on the Web?"
When I asked teachers what they thought about this, I found that they were as upset as I was by their students' disconnect from the realities of media today.
Teachers told me over and over again that their students were adamantly opposed to converging news operations at their schools. The print kids don't like the TV kids; the Web kids don't like the print kids, etc. The "cultures" don't mix, so the products don't mix and the students don't develop multimedia skills. Remarkably, as one teacher pointed out, few print students actually "lived" in the world of old media. They all owned iPods. They snap photos with cell phones, communicate with Instant Messenger and join social-networking sites. Yet they expect to work in some sort of old-fashioned land of ink and paper.
A number of teachers blamed the disconnect on their peers in college journalism programs. Many programs are dominated by older, established teachers who haven't worked in the press for decades and have an open contempt for newer forms of media. And no doubt such elitist dinosaurs are helping to create a new generation of unemployable followers.
If you take a look at what I wrote on this blog a year ago today, you'll see that the silo student is not a new phenomenon.
And longtime readers of this blog know that I still find silo professionals as well -- veteran journalists who have failed to develop new media skills -- and that I urge publishers to fire them.
I take a similarly harsh stand with students. As I told the folks at CMA, I have no interest in even talking to a student who has neither the curiosity to acquire basic new-media skills nor the common sense to understand that the industry is changing.
The person I did want to talk to -- the king of new media skills, the visionary who has taught us much about change -- wasn't around. Rob Curley is also on the professional advisory board, but he didn't make the meeting. Although I'm a fan of Rob's, we've never met in person. And I had been looking forward to being as star-struck as this guy was.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, conversational media, business media, journalism education
Tuesday, March 07, 2006
The long march of March
March is my favorite -- and often my busiest -- month.
This is the month of my birth. And everyone who knows me well knows I never work on my birthday. But it seems like every other day of the month is packed with work and travel.
I'm on the road starting tomorrow for most of the next few weeks. I'll be flying to Kansas City to see friends and associates. I'll be visiting Northwest Missouri State, where I'm on the professional advisory board of the Mass Communications Department. I'll be back in New York for the convention of the College Media Advisers, where I'm also on the professional advisory board. After that I have trips planned to D.C., Boston and possibly Florida.
Things should settle down again next month.
In the meantime, I'll keep posting to this blog when the mood strikes me. But I expect things will be more sporadic than usual for a few weeks.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
This is the month of my birth. And everyone who knows me well knows I never work on my birthday. But it seems like every other day of the month is packed with work and travel.
I'm on the road starting tomorrow for most of the next few weeks. I'll be flying to Kansas City to see friends and associates. I'll be visiting Northwest Missouri State, where I'm on the professional advisory board of the Mass Communications Department. I'll be back in New York for the convention of the College Media Advisers, where I'm also on the professional advisory board. After that I have trips planned to D.C., Boston and possibly Florida.
Things should settle down again next month.
In the meantime, I'll keep posting to this blog when the mood strikes me. But I expect things will be more sporadic than usual for a few weeks.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters, business media
Friday, March 03, 2006
RSS or Really Successful Syndication
I like to tell publishers that adding an RSS feed is the best easy thing they can do to serve readers and improve their online offerings.
But until I read Matt McAlister's blog yesterday, I failed to notice just how easily one company has managed to become the RSS provider of choice for some powerhouses of the press.
As detailed on Matt's blog, Feedburner is conducting "a systematic conquest of publishers' RSS feeds."
Certainly part of Feedburner's success is due to the product itself. RSS is about the simplest function in publishing. And Feedburner has made it even easier. For example, I'd guess that I spent all of about five seconds creating my Feedburner feed, and that is about 1/1000th the time it took me to learn to operate my cable TV remote. Combine ease of use with upside potential and you have a product that any publisher would like.
But the most interesting thing about Matt's post is his comparison of Feedburner to IndustryBrains, the ad-serving network used by IDG, Slashdot, eWeek, Investors Business Daily and others.
Check out what Matt has to say here.
Or you can read some of my earlier thoughts on RSS here.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters advertising, business media
But until I read Matt McAlister's blog yesterday, I failed to notice just how easily one company has managed to become the RSS provider of choice for some powerhouses of the press.
As detailed on Matt's blog, Feedburner is conducting "a systematic conquest of publishers' RSS feeds."
Certainly part of Feedburner's success is due to the product itself. RSS is about the simplest function in publishing. And Feedburner has made it even easier. For example, I'd guess that I spent all of about five seconds creating my Feedburner feed, and that is about 1/1000th the time it took me to learn to operate my cable TV remote. Combine ease of use with upside potential and you have a product that any publisher would like.
But the most interesting thing about Matt's post is his comparison of Feedburner to IndustryBrains, the ad-serving network used by IDG, Slashdot, eWeek, Investors Business Daily and others.
Check out what Matt has to say here.
Or you can read some of my earlier thoughts on RSS here.
tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, newsletters advertising, business media
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