A few weeks ago, Forbes had an article, "Newspapers confront the enemy within," that examined the changing relationship between the editorial and advertising departments — a relationship that I believe most B2B editors will agree changed a long time ago in our world. The gist of the article was that editors are having to take an active role in the money-making part of the business instead of just the content-producing side of things and how it's a difficult cultural leap.

And it is. Many of us went to journalism schools in which the separation between editorial content and sales was a line that was drawn with blood and shall never be crossed. And that's true. Editorial is not in the business of selling ads, but there is no reason it should not be in the business of better educating its sales team on the value proposition of the product they are selling. Nor should it mean that editors and salespeople shouldn't brainstorm on ideas that might be beneficial to both advertisers and readers. The line is still there — a reader should easily be able to distinguish content that is editorially driven without advertiser input and ads or advertorials.

Which brings me to two semi-related items: Both Paste magazine and Bon Appetit recently tried two new ads out that seem to be straddling that line. In Bon Appetit's case, Starbucks purchased the masthead in the May issue, and alongside the masthead's names were quotes from that person about Starbucks products. The page was labeled promotion and was made to look like a Starbucks chalkboard.

The second is Paste magazine, which ran BMW ads down at the bottom next to the page number, in the place where normally a magazine's folio information would go. The ads featured a BMW and a fact that coincided with the page number that ad ran (i.e, on page 32: "Inches of legroom in the rear of the all-new BMW 1 Series Coupe.").

I wonder how comfortable any of you would be if approached by an advertiser to run this type of promotion or how you feel about working with your sales staff.

Labels: Advertising, Bon Appetit, editorial, Forbes, Paste magazine

The Chicago Headline Club, the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, will be offering a free program April 21 from 6 to 9 p.m. The subject is "Writing for the Web: How to Use Blogs to Establish Your Brand Online," and the agenda includes:
* Buying a domain name
* Setting up a Blog - Which platform is the right platform?
* Setting up basic site analytics
* How Blogs work* Writing for Blogs
* How Search Engines work and how they help your blog
* How to increase traffic to your blog
* Embedding video on your blog
* Using RSS Feeds to increase traffic

More information is available on the Chicago Headline Club's Web site.

Labels: blogs, Chicago Headline Club, establishing brand online

I recently left a print-centric job at a large B2B publisher.

I was good at my job but it was mostly print; I didn't want to become a journalism dinosaur so I started to find as many digital opportunities as I could. The ASBPE blogs were one outlet; digital freelance projects were another.

When I started walking into editorial meetings I wouldn't just think about the head and deck, I would also imagine the online possibilities. My boss could see I was really eager to do more in the digital forum but unfortunately my workload and my job responsibilities couldn't sustain that of a digital managing editor.

So I shopped my resume around to different publishers. I wasn't blatant about it and often would send my resume to see if I might be wait-listed for any future digital positions.

And then one of the companies I sent my resume to called me back.

After what felt like a dozen interviews later, I bid adieu to my print job and started fresh as a digital editor for a smaller B2B publisher.

My first couple of weeks felt like a hazing ritual deemed appropriate for print-to-digital editors -- Please post this with proper coding and image sourcing. I knew how to do it but I was a little rusty with my HTML.

Once I started coming into meetings with online ideas that my bosses and bosses' bosses liked, I felt like I'd made a good decision to move to digital. I even remembered how to code and finally started to feel like I was on top of things again. This transition -- from a print role to a digital role -- has prompted me to think of what skills I've found most beneficial. I'm sharing them with anyone who's considering making a similar move:

• Be passionate about digital media. Anyone can critique a website; it's how you consider the possibilities for changing it that will help you past muster in the interview chair.
  
  
• Learn enough HTML to be a little dangerous. I'm not talking programming an entire site yourself, but at least know what an "a href=" tag means and what you can do with it.
  
  
• Be a part of at least one social networking site. I've jumped on the bandwagon of Facebook and LinkedIn. I've caught up with old friends on both and have helped some folks get interviews just by clicking "accept" to an invitation. The fact of the matter is if you can't see the relevance in online social networking, then you're not likely to do well in the digital foray.
  
  
• Load up on your digital projects. If you're trying to turn a print job into a digital one but are not sure where to get digital experience, start small on on free projects. Offer to be the blog keeper or webmaster for your hobbyist group's blog or for your local ASBPE chapter.
  
  
• Get an RSS feed for as many web-improvement sites and blogs as you can stand. For me, I subscribe to The Blog Herald, Copyblogger, ProBlogger, just to name a few. While the content is repetitve at times, you'll get a gem of a post on SEO or analytics that will change the way you look at incoming web traffic.

These are just a few of the things I did but many who have walked the road ahead of me can probably offer even better ideas. Please post your suggestions in the comments below.

Labels: ASBPE Chicago chapter, online journalism

I bookmarked the article "When Journalists Aren't Happy, the Industry Isn't Happy," on Editor & Publisher's Web site when I first saw it, and I'm just now looking at the Web site it is about, AngryJournalist.com.

Was I surprised that there were that many angry journalists out there? Not at all, having been in this busy upwards of 10 years. What shocked me most is that a lot of the posts could have been written by the same person, as so many of them are similar. There's a lot of anger about the amount of work having to be done and the lack of resources in which to do it. There's also a lot of anger about the fact that the fate of their jobs rests on the people in positions higher than theirs, and many view those higher ups to be incompetent.

What's also interesting was something raised in the E&P article: There still seems to be a disconnect between the roles of the new media department and the editorial staffs, as evidenced by this comment: "The reporters don’t understand the Internet department and the Internet department doesn’t understand reporters. The worst part -- some of them aren’t even trying. These debates are important; no one has the answers yet. Let’s recognize that. Let’s be frank about that. Let’s talk honestly with our newsroom about the pressures of the online media landscape."

Thoughts on how we can bridge this gap?

Labels: angry journalists, Editor and Publisher, new media, online journalism