content – Memphis Flyer

Unless a settlement of the Hollywood writers’ strike emerges soon, you can expect to be watching reruns of many of your favorite television shows, starting this week.

The first casualties will be the late-night comedy shows, such as The Daily Show, Late Night With David Letterman, and The Tonight Show With Jay Leno. Those programs need fresh humorous takes on news events every day. Without writers coming up with new jokes, those shows are dead in the water.

At a time when writing is often considered by corporate media to be merely “content” to be monetized, it’s not surprising to see writers standing up and demanding their share of the pie. Without them, after all, there is no content. As funny as Jon Stewart might be, he’s nothing without a script, and those scripts come from a roomful of funny folks thinking up jokes and one-liners. As wonderful as that Macy’s sale may be, no one’s going to pick up the paper to read that full-page ad unless there’s something compelling to read.

It’s one of the ironies of this Internet and electronic age that writers — practitioners of one of mankind’s oldest forms of communication — have become more important than perhaps ever before.

Websites and television shows — and, yes, newspapers and magazines — have a never-ending need for material, content that provokes and amuses and challenges readers and viewers. No one goes to a website or a publication just to read the ads. The story is still everything. And the storytellers are beginning to realize it.

Football and ADA

From the Detroit News comes word that the University of Michigan has run afoul of the U.S. Department of Education for violating wheelchair access rules at its famous 109,000-seat football stadium.

The issue is compliance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) — the same issue that confronts Memphis at Liberty Bowl Memorial Stadium.

According to the newspaper, the “scathing report” came eight years after an investigation was launched by the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights. The so-called Big House was built in 1927 and has been expanded and renovated several times.

Are there similarities between the Big House and Our House? Michigan’s stadium has 88 wheelchair seats, far fewer than the 1 percent, roughly 1,000, that ADA compliance requires. But the university says it has accommodated every ticket holder who has required an accessible seat. The other U of M up north stands to lose millions of dollars in financial aid to students, according to the newspaper report.

Let’s hope the federal government takes a reasonable view of the Liberty Bowl. Michigan’s stadium is almost always sold out. The Liberty Bowl is almost always about half full. There would appear to be enough accessible seats or places to add them if there are not.

But ADA compliance should not be an excuse for tearing down a pretty good stadium and building a new one at taxpayer expense. How many people in wheelchairs are being turned away because of lack of access or seating? When that question is answered and the University of Memphis starts filling the house and tickets become scarce, it will be easier to take the worst-case view of ADA compliance seriously.

It started with two little words: “sponsored by.”

Those words appeared in tiny type above a small Boyle Investment Company logo and a collection of short news items about commercial real estate in the Sunday business section of The Commercial Appeal two weeks ago.
The column is called “Done Deals.” Many readers probably paid little or no attention to the sponsorship. But the issue of sponsored news, or “monetizing content” as the CA calls it, is sending a shock wave through the newsroom at 495 Union.

Sources at the CA say sponsorship of an upcoming series of stories about Memphis and world business was scratched after the writer, editor, and other reporters objected. A staff meeting was scheduled for Wednesday, October 17th.

The reporter, Trevor Aaronson, and the editor, Louis Graham, declined to comment. Flyer sources said as many as 50 newsroom employees signed a petition expressing their concerns about sponsored stories. The story is about business in China and was to be sponsored by FedEx.

CA editor Chris Peck declined to comment about the FedEx sponsorship or the series, which has not yet been published. He did comment about “Done Deals” and the general issue of sponsored news.

“The Commercial Appeal, like most newspapers these days, is looking for ways to monetize content,” Peck wrote in an e-mail. “This is part of the new business model that will support journalism in the future. The Web is way ahead of newspapers on this. Online, many ads already are linked directly to particular content.”

Peck said there was no expectation by Boyle or the CA that the sponsorship would influence content. “Advertisers clearly understand the value of having their paid messages associated with independently reported, relevant content,” Peck wrote. Some newsroom employees apparently do not share that view.

Flyer sources say Peck, Graham, and Aaronson had what is sometimes called a “frank exchange of views” about the proposed sponsorship of Aaronson’s series, which involved considerable investment in time and travel expenses by the newspaper. Representatives of the Poynter Institute, a journalism school and resource center in Florida, were called in.

“Two of us on the Poynter faculty, myself and Butch Ward, have had telephone conversations with individuals at The Commercial Appeal,” said Bob Steele of Poynter. “We play this role as a guide on ethics issues hundreds of times every year.”

Poynter’s input was confidential, Steele said. Flyer sources say Poynter sided with the employees who objected.

Three weeks ago Peck and Rob Jiranek, vice president of sales and strategic planning, sent employees a three-page letter on “monetizing content guidelines.” The main message was that “we are in a new world of newspaper survival” and looking for ways to “attach ads in print and online to specific stories, features, and sections.” The memo said “no longer are there thick, impenetrable walls between the newsroom, advertising, and circulation departments.”

“Survival” apparently means big profits. The Commercial Appeal is owned by E.W. Scripps, a publicly traded media company based in Cincinnati. In 2006, its newspaper division, with papers in 17 markets, earned $196 million on revenue of $717 million, for a profit margin of 27 percent. The CA’s share of that was not disclosed. On Tuesday, Scripps announced that it is splitting into two separate companies, one focused on lifestyle media, such as HGTV, and the other on local newspapers and television stations.

“The proposed separation is not expected to have a material effect on the day-to-day lives of employees,” the company said.

Sponsorship is a relatively new wrinkle in a murky area that includes “special sponsored sections” and “advertorials,” or text-heavy advertisements that look like news stories. Such sections have long been a staple of business at the Flyer, Memphis magazine, and national publications. Targeted ad placement, where an ad appears near or next to a particular story or type of story, is also commonplace.

But most newspapers maintain separate advertising and editorial staffs. That is sometimes referred to as a mythical “10-foot wall.” Advertisers, of course, are free to complain about sensitive stories, and they sometimes withdraw ads. Sponsorship of specific news reports goes back at least to the 1950s when Gillette and Camel cigarettes were big on sports. The Philadelphia Inquirer has a business feature sponsored by a bank.

Most reporters, however, are comfortable with their employer being sponsored by a collection of advertisers but not their specific reports or stories. Many newspapers, including the CA and the Flyer, are quite strict about what perks their reporters can accept. Bob Levey, a former columnist for The Washington Post who holds the Hardin Chair of Excellence in Journalism at The University of Memphis, said, “News columns should never be for sale or for lease.”

Internal CA Monetization Memo