What we used to call editorial...
“All of our content-providers—what we used to call editorial people—will become medium-agnostic.”-- Brian Segal, CEO Rogers Publishing Ltd.
Mastheadonline has a report on Segal's speech yesterday to the Canadian Marketing Association' national convention and trade show
posted by D. B. Scott at
11:19 am
8 Comments:
Ick. rogers is the inspiration killer.
Terribly good of Brian to report back from a tour inside the heads of editorial employees. Barring some sort of improbable brainwash scheme, it's likely that they *won't* become media agnostic. They aren't now.
Just as salespeople push harder for print sales than they do for online (better commissions), so editorial types will regard ink-on-paper as the A-level medium while online continues its uphill battle for prestige, authority and a tangibility that will forever elude it.
All righty, here's an opinion one might not expect: I don't think being "media agnostic" is necessarily a bad thing. Storytelling skills are storytelling skills. Packaging skills are packaging skills. It's not a bad thing to be able to look at a story and think "Which medium is best suited to telling this story? What's the best way to tell it in this or that medium? Can I tell the story or communicate the information more richly by doing it in more than one medium?"
The problem isn't being multi-platform or media agnostic or brand-o-licious or whatever we're calling it this week. The problem is being editorial-anorexic--not devoting adequate resources to allow an editorial department (oops, content production department) to tell stories and communicate information in a rich and fresh and smart way. Instead, what seems to be happening is that the "con-pro" depts are often being pushed to have the same number of bodies deliver twice or thrice the amount of content. And that's when you get tired, recycled, unimaginative pablum. Not good for user engagement--no matter what medium you're operating in!
Really? Forever? Shortsighted surely! But then again Segal has been such a proven visionary with many successful launches under his belt, er.. wait.. scratch that. Hello! I was distracted by the smell of Chocolate for a minute.
Brian Segal is what we used to call the guy in charge of a whole bunch of profoundly mediocre Canadian magazines who obviously gets some of his big ideas from bigger, more important executives south of the border. No, wait a second, that's what we still call him.
"Content providers"?
Sounds depressingly ghastly.
And the phrase unnecessarily obfuscates, which (I presume) is exactly why Segal employs editors rather than writing his magazines' content himself. (Maybe he should have asked an editor to copy-edit his speech?)
Whether you're on telly, the web, radio, newspapers or magazines, each of those platforms* have "editors". Why do we need a new term for the editorial role? And particularly a term that evokes the image of an underground factory where all the humans have been replaced by robots?
Anyone can "produce content". That doesn't make them a writer, or a journalist, or an illustrator, or a photographer, or a videographer, or a columnist.
"Where will strong print brands be five years from now?" I'd guess: Probably not producing content for whichever advertiser paid to have "content provided" for them. Call me foolish, but I would like to believe the average reader is looking for "content" that was written with the reader in mind, not the advertiser.
There's a difference between "custom publishing" and "strong print brands".
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* "Platforms" (a word that Segal also used) is another ick-word; what was wrong with "media"? I'm surprised he didn't squeeze "learnings" into his speech (i.e. what the rest of us call "lessons) ... or maybe he did and that bit wasn't quoted because it was too loathesome.
The "forever" reference was to tangibility only; you can't thwack a mosquito with an online feature by Conrad Black called "Things I Learned While Doing Time." When that appears in a clever magazine, you can. Quite tangible. Online will never be able to crush a single mosquito.
Well said Conrad.
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