At 10:05 PM 9/17/2001 -0700, you wrote:
>Sorry, but monetary considerations were and are secondary on a news story.
To the journalist, but not to the business managers.
>I've been a professional journalist for 15 years in all sorts of positions,
>including management and including two stints as publisher of small
>publications. I've also been a career-long member of the Society of
>Professional Journalists and a former president of the San Diego chapter (if
>you want to compare credentials).
>
>When a big story breaks, the news comes first. It's not greed. Yes, it's
>credibility -- you're credibility is at stake -- but it's not credibility
>aimed at increasing profits, it's credibility aimed at retaining viability.
>It's about quality. There's a nuance of difference between doing something
>because you think it might mean bigger profits down the road, and doing
>something because you want to retain reader and viewer respect, let alone
>your own self respect. Profitability and viability is only a by product of
>doing a good job.
If you aren't profitable and viable, you don't have the opportunity to do a
good job. If you do a good job, you become more profitable and viable. If
you do things in a way that increases your approval rating on grounds other
than doing a good job, you are also more profitable and viable, allowing
you to do a good job. This isn't a product of doing a good job, it is
intertwined with doing a good job. They are directly linked. They can not
be separated.
Your claim is that this is a generous act but it isn't. It is a semblance
of generosity that touches the heart-strings of the people. The journalists
have good intentions-- great. They aren't the ones making the decision to
run the broadcast with no commercials, overriding regular programming. That
decision is a business decision, being made by business managers. Don't try
to put it in the hands of good-intentioned journalists.
>Many of these newspapers that published special editions, including my own,
>have no direct competition, so they are not likely to lose readers if they
>don't roll the presses in the middle of the day.
No, but they impress readers with coverage that the readers want and the
readers go buy the updates in tomorrow's edition. You have to capture an
audience to keep it.
>And if all of the networks run continuous coverage, then there is no real
>advantage in one over the other. They are not going to gain any new viewers
>because of it. Sure, they might lose if they don't, but these are news
>organizations populated from top to bottom people who are life-long news
>professionals (I've met many of them, including icons such as Don Hewitt and
>Sid Mickelson).
It's the people that they will lose if they don't. Imagine that tomorrow
morning, three people are pulled out of the rubble alive. One station is
still running live coverage and another isn't. The station with live
coverage can switch over more quickly, being the one who breaks the story.
People learn to tune into that station because it is still there to see the
next group of people. This gives them credibility in the long run. Next
week when there are regular shows and commercials, people will still think
that news will come to them faster through the first station and will watch
that station.
>Yes, these news organizations (including mine, E.W. Scripps) are publicly
>owned and ultimately accountable to their stock holders, but they are
>accountable first (and this is certainly true of E.W. Scripps) to their own
>conscience.
And to the conscience of the audience. You are accountable to your
audience. You are writing for your audience. And if you can't convince your
audience that the coverage is credible and swift, you don't have an
audience anymore.
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