Hold on to that magazine!

Yesterday I gave some of my arguments for why trade magazines will survive and thrive amid changes in the media. The Magazine Publishers of America association -- no surprise -- thinks that all print mags will endure.
But their argument seems to be that in the future we'll need something "real" to hang on to in our floating bathtubs.

Bad news at Penton

There's bad news at Penton, and it's the sort of thing that can leave folks worried about layoffs. The Cleveland-based publisher of such B2B titles as "Air Transport World" and "Baking Management," said it will restate earnings for all of 2002, 2003 and 2004. The problem involves deferred tax assets. Correcting the errors will cost some $72 million.

On death and dying in the media

One of the more common topics discussed on media blogs is the death of print media. And there's always an argument to be had in predicting that one form of the medium will perish, while another will thrive.
I have my opinions on the subject too. I worry that the newspapers of my youth may not be around by the time my grandchildren are old enough to read. But like my friend Douglas Fisher, I'm not convinced that all is lost. And I tend to feel quite positive about the outlook for community newspapers.
I don't see blogging as a competitive threat to traditional forms of journalism; I see blogging as a long-overdue response by the consumers of traditional journalism. Bloggers are journalism's audience, journalism's partners, journalism's opportunity to understand itself.
I'm fascinated by the spread of citizen journalism into audio, but I don't expect that podcasting will destroy radio.
And I'm least worried about the print versions of B2B media -- which puts me in a different camp from Rafat Ali of Paidcontent, who says his "pessimism is mainly about trade mags."
Here's why I'm optimistic:
First, much of the B2B press has the advantage of controlled circulation. When it's time to cut the media clutter, the free stuff in my mailbox is not where I'll look first. Second, the B2B press publishes (or at least tries to publish) information that is needed. People are less likely to stop reading things that can bring them money than they are to stop reading things that cost them money. Third, trade publishing is about information distribution. Smart publishers will find multiple ways to get information to users and make money from it. B2C publishing is about the "package"-- selling indistinct, commodity-like pieces of information in a single magazine. It's going to be difficult for Vogue or Seventeen to find a way to sell a single piece of content about lipstick directly to readers. But price information, market-share data, competitive analysis -- the cores of B2B information -- can sell with or without the rest of a trade mag.

Publishers' policies on blogs

I've been impressed with how some mainstream newspapers are embracing the participatory journalism movement. The Greensboro News & Record, for example, is generating considerable attention from other mainstream media outlets for its use of blogs and its embrace of transparency. But I have yet to come across a B2B publisher with a similar level of interest in how online journalism is evolving.
Much of the foot-dragging is based in fear, it seems. When I mention blogs to many B2B journalists, I tend to run into a lot of paranoid pontificating about amateurs pontificating in pajamas. I've said it before ... and I suspect I'll say it again ... trade publishers have to look again at the community journalism movement. Those people in pajamas are not your competition, they are your audience. They are not your enemy. They are the key to all your opportunities.
The pajama people are also often your coworkers.
And one specialty publisher has created a set of rules on employee blogging that may prove a workable template for any B2B publisher. The rules are evolving, according to Rexblog, because the company is listening to feedback from bloggers! Check out the most recent version of the rules here.

Custom publishing: growth and ethics

Few things have gotten the business side of trade publishing companies as excited in recent years as the revenue potential from custom publishing. Companies such a Cygnus and Penton have even started separate units to create and market vanity publications for clients.
Now comes word that corporate spending on custom publishing rose 19% last year to $35.5 billion. Certainly that's good news for the bottom line of many a B2B publisher. But it does leave me wondering about the nature of custom publishing, and some of the ethical risks.
I remember there was considerable debate about a decade ago when it was still fairly routine for publishers to ask journalists to write for custom publications. I don't think you'd find a serious journalist anywhere who doesn't have a problem with that. And today I'd be surprised to find anyone other than the most amateur of operations failing to use a separate staff or freelancers to produce custom pubs.
American Business Media's "Editorial Code of Ethics," the latest version of which I blogged about earlier this week, specifically condemns the use of editorial staff "in the preparation of custom publishing."
What I'd like to know is if this is still the issue it was a few years ago. I'd love to hear from any editorial staffers who have been pressured to write for a custom publication, corporate Web site or similar product.

More on transparency in journalism

Shortly after I finished my earlier post about journalism ethics and transparency, I came across an interesting piece about transparency and branding. There's a link at the end of this post, and I'd urge everyone to take a look.
My experience has been that journalists remain too elitist, too enamored of their insider information and connections to appreciate the need for openness. The hidden histories of the mainstream press are widely known among journalists, but not among news consumers. How many Americans know Andrea Mitchell is married to Alan Greenspan? How many folks know NPR congressional reporter Cokie Roberts is the daughter of two members of Congress (a fact that is omitted on her NPR bio.)
I'd argue that the lack of transparency is an even larger problem in trade journalism, particularly in the use of anonymous sources. Few B2B publishers have rigid rules on sourcing. And ABM's ethics guidelines don't discuss the issue. As a result, the B2B world is full of the weakest of all journalism phrases: "according to sources." When I question B2B reporters about that phrase I often find they are being misleading -- using the plural "sources" when they've only talked to one, favored source. And sometimes they aren't talking about sources at all, but instead use the phrase as a sort of catch-all attribution for things that "everyone" knows.
Here's my prediction: the push for transparency in journalism is about to gain strength, but not from journalists, bloggers, academics or Dan Gillmor. This change will be driven by folks on the business side who are eager to protect their brands.

tags: journalism, b2b, media, trade press, magazines, advertising, newsletters, business media, journalism ethics