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Sponsored news at the "Inquirer'
Dan Rottenberg
And now the news, brought to you by...
Or: Brian Tierney re-invents the wheel
DAN ROTTENBERG
When amateurs take over a business, the learning curve is often long and painful. Methinks I can perceive the outlines of such a curve at the Inquirer, which was acquired last July by a consortium of earnest local amateurs headed by public relations executive Brian Tierney.
Tierney recently implemented a couple of innovations that struck him as fresh and creative but were actually discarded by news organizations back in the Stone Age of journalism, for reasons that (let us hope) will soon become apparent to Tierney.
First, in March the Inquirer launched a daily news digest, called “Inquirer Express,” which is compiled by Inquirer journalists but sponsored by Commerce Bank. Then in April, the Inky began running a new column called PhillyInc, written by Inquirer reporters and editors for the front page of its business section and sponsored by Citizens Bank. The sponsor’s revenues will enable the paper to hire at least one new journalist to write the column, at a time when the Inquirer has laid off more than 100 from its newsroom staff.
Television in its infancy
If the notion of businesses sponsoring individual news columns or features— as opposed to simply buying ad space— doesn’t disturb you, you are either new to the business or too young to remember, say, the early days of television. As James L. Baughman helpfully reminds us in Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948-1961 (John Hopkins U. Press, $35), the Tierney model was adopted by TV in its infancy: That is, a single advertiser sponsored an entire program. Here are some of the exciting results when advertisers’ corporate personas were linked to specific programs:
Kodak made Ozzie and Harriet take more family vacations, so they could be shown taking more photographs. Tobacco companies pressured TV shows to present more characters smoking cigarettes and cigars. De Soto’s ad agency once forced a contestant on Groucho Marx’s quiz show to assume an invented name because his real name was Ford. Under pressure from U.S. Steel, Rod Serling recast the racist slaying of Emmett Till in Mississippi as the murder of a Jewish pawnbroker in New England. Ford Motor Co. yanked its sponsorship of the highbrow CBS show “Ford Star Jubilee” after several low-rated segments featuring Noel Coward, thereby tolling the death knell for highbrow TV programming for a generation to come.
To its credit, TV learned from these experiences and adopted what it called the “magazine concept” for advertising, meaning that stations and networks sold slots of time rather than entire shows. That way, any given program operated independently of any given advertiser— the very formula that self-respecting newspapers have employed for more than a century.
Time to ask the four questions
Bill Marimow, the Inquirer’s new executive editor, recently acknowledged to the New York Times that “Instinctively, as a reporter, I would have recoiled at the idea” of sponsored features, but added that he has come to terms with it. The editorial staff, he said, will have complete control of these features, independent of their sponsors.
Marimow is too smart to believe that. So let me raise the questions that he and his fellow journalists would rather not confront:
— If the Inquirer’s daily news digest is sponsored by Commerce Bank, what happens when Commerce Bank itself lands in the news? Specifically, how likely is the news digest to include such past Inquirer stories as “You thought Bill Gates’ house was huge?” (about Commerce Bank chairman Vernon Hill’s New Jersey mansion, Sept 17, 2000), “Commerce tries to fix tarnished image” (about the indictment of two top executives, July 14, 2004), “U.S.: Bank intended to sway Street” (about a Commerce loan to the mayor’s son, Jan. 19, 2005) and “Commerce weaves web in Pennsylvania suburbs” (about loans extended to government officials, apparently in the hope of attracting deposits, Sept. 23, 2005)?
— If a business column is sponsored by Citizens Bank, how can such a column ever credibly discuss Citizens Bank— or, for that matter, any of Citizens Bank's competitors?
— How are ambitious Inquirer journalists likely to reorder their professional priorities once they realize that attracting and keeping a sponsor for a column is a good way to maintain or advance one’s career at the Inky?
— If the paper’s editors believe independently that these features are worth running, will these features continue to appear if the sponsor withdraws and no replacement sponsor can be found?
Marimow is an old pro, and I’m sure he’s well familiar with these rhetorical questions, just as I’m certain Tierney isn’t. Tierney needs to learn the first law of the late Penn sociology professor E. Digby Baltzell: "Beware the unintended conseqeunces of virtuous acts." One shudders to imagine the unintended consequences of unvirtuous acts.
To read a response, click here.
Or: Brian Tierney re-invents the wheel
DAN ROTTENBERG
When amateurs take over a business, the learning curve is often long and painful. Methinks I can perceive the outlines of such a curve at the Inquirer, which was acquired last July by a consortium of earnest local amateurs headed by public relations executive Brian Tierney.
Tierney recently implemented a couple of innovations that struck him as fresh and creative but were actually discarded by news organizations back in the Stone Age of journalism, for reasons that (let us hope) will soon become apparent to Tierney.
First, in March the Inquirer launched a daily news digest, called “Inquirer Express,” which is compiled by Inquirer journalists but sponsored by Commerce Bank. Then in April, the Inky began running a new column called PhillyInc, written by Inquirer reporters and editors for the front page of its business section and sponsored by Citizens Bank. The sponsor’s revenues will enable the paper to hire at least one new journalist to write the column, at a time when the Inquirer has laid off more than 100 from its newsroom staff.
Television in its infancy
If the notion of businesses sponsoring individual news columns or features— as opposed to simply buying ad space— doesn’t disturb you, you are either new to the business or too young to remember, say, the early days of television. As James L. Baughman helpfully reminds us in Same Time, Same Station: Creating American Television, 1948-1961 (John Hopkins U. Press, $35), the Tierney model was adopted by TV in its infancy: That is, a single advertiser sponsored an entire program. Here are some of the exciting results when advertisers’ corporate personas were linked to specific programs:
Kodak made Ozzie and Harriet take more family vacations, so they could be shown taking more photographs. Tobacco companies pressured TV shows to present more characters smoking cigarettes and cigars. De Soto’s ad agency once forced a contestant on Groucho Marx’s quiz show to assume an invented name because his real name was Ford. Under pressure from U.S. Steel, Rod Serling recast the racist slaying of Emmett Till in Mississippi as the murder of a Jewish pawnbroker in New England. Ford Motor Co. yanked its sponsorship of the highbrow CBS show “Ford Star Jubilee” after several low-rated segments featuring Noel Coward, thereby tolling the death knell for highbrow TV programming for a generation to come.
To its credit, TV learned from these experiences and adopted what it called the “magazine concept” for advertising, meaning that stations and networks sold slots of time rather than entire shows. That way, any given program operated independently of any given advertiser— the very formula that self-respecting newspapers have employed for more than a century.
Time to ask the four questions
Bill Marimow, the Inquirer’s new executive editor, recently acknowledged to the New York Times that “Instinctively, as a reporter, I would have recoiled at the idea” of sponsored features, but added that he has come to terms with it. The editorial staff, he said, will have complete control of these features, independent of their sponsors.
Marimow is too smart to believe that. So let me raise the questions that he and his fellow journalists would rather not confront:
— If the Inquirer’s daily news digest is sponsored by Commerce Bank, what happens when Commerce Bank itself lands in the news? Specifically, how likely is the news digest to include such past Inquirer stories as “You thought Bill Gates’ house was huge?” (about Commerce Bank chairman Vernon Hill’s New Jersey mansion, Sept 17, 2000), “Commerce tries to fix tarnished image” (about the indictment of two top executives, July 14, 2004), “U.S.: Bank intended to sway Street” (about a Commerce loan to the mayor’s son, Jan. 19, 2005) and “Commerce weaves web in Pennsylvania suburbs” (about loans extended to government officials, apparently in the hope of attracting deposits, Sept. 23, 2005)?
— If a business column is sponsored by Citizens Bank, how can such a column ever credibly discuss Citizens Bank— or, for that matter, any of Citizens Bank's competitors?
— How are ambitious Inquirer journalists likely to reorder their professional priorities once they realize that attracting and keeping a sponsor for a column is a good way to maintain or advance one’s career at the Inky?
— If the paper’s editors believe independently that these features are worth running, will these features continue to appear if the sponsor withdraws and no replacement sponsor can be found?
Marimow is an old pro, and I’m sure he’s well familiar with these rhetorical questions, just as I’m certain Tierney isn’t. Tierney needs to learn the first law of the late Penn sociology professor E. Digby Baltzell: "Beware the unintended conseqeunces of virtuous acts." One shudders to imagine the unintended consequences of unvirtuous acts.
To read a response, click here.
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