It's promotion, but is it news?
Am I alone in wondering why it's news that Time magazine's Canadian edition chose Prime Minister Stephen Harper as its newsmaker of the year? Canadian outlets have fallen over themselves (as they do every year) in breathlessly reporting this, a self-serving promotional gimmick that was tired a long time ago.
posted by D. B. Scott at
8:40 am
8 Comments:
In business, professional executives know that their marketing staff get tired of a slogan or promotional concept long before the public does. The smart ones resist the pressure for new logos, slogans and ad campaigns simply because some jaded, overstimulated marketing maven declares it "tired."
Given the media's interest in the story (and the number of comments I have heard and seen about Time U.S.'s decision to name "You" as Person of the year), I suspect this concept is not as tired as you think.
If you want to decry overkill, go after the NHL's Player of the Week?
Or Maclean's Parliamentarian of the Year?
Or anything to do with the Oscars.
Agreed; not news.
File it in the same not-news category as lottery winnings, "idol" "competitions", celebrity crotch shots, and a myriad of other banal topics.
Are you suggesting that celebrity crotch shots are NOT news?
The Forbes 500 List doesn't change much from year to year either. Magazines, even news magazines, are also in the entertainment business. If readers didn't respond favorably, I'm sure Time would stop doing it. Perhaps what has you upset this year is that Time is giving Harper some positive coverage, free of charge. Ask yourself, if Stephen Lewis was on the cover of Time, would you have posted this blog? Harper may be Conservative, but at least his government didn't cut PAP.
You know no more about my motives for writing the item than either of us do about whether readers respond favourably to such a feature. (I suspect that the Canadian edition went with Harper because it saved them the cost of putting the mylar window on those 'You' issues, as they did in the U.S.). The point of the item was to ask why other media in Canada fall all over themselves to cover this; part of the reason is probably that Time is an old campaigner and is good at landing the press release in the right laps.
Dear anon 8:38 p.m.,
Not suggesting it; stating it.
d. b. is correct. These items might have some place in the publishing pantheon, but reporting on the fact that they are being published elsewhere is like a snake eating its tail. It makes it difficult to gauge where reader interest ends and lazy journalism begins.
So the problem is that 1) Time is good at the PR game and 2) that the rest of the media are either lazy or are suckers for PR?
Ok...makes sense to me...on both counts.
I agree, it's nothing more than fluff.
Unless, of course, the news organization is reporting on my magazine naming our person of the year....
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