Michael Moore says “good riddance” to newspapers

For whatever reason, while at the Toronto International Film Festival Michael Moore departed briefly from promoting his new film, “Capitalism: A Love Story”, to hold forth on the demise of newspapers in the U.S. Elsewhere in the world, he said, newspapers are supported first by the readers, then by advertising. Not in the U.S. Here, he complained, newspapers have allowed their greed for advertising revenue to trump quality journalism dedicated to a core audience willing to pay. The result: inflated newspaper enterprises with unsustainable distribution and too many customers that don’t care. And, then, the death spiral that starts with chopping-off reporting arms and legs, which leads to newspapers that are less relevant and valuable, etc, etc.

Says Michael Moore, “Anytime you say that the people who read your newspaper are secondary to the business community, you’ve lost.”

“Good riddance”, he says.

Well, minus the “Good riddance”, I’d have to agree, at least with the proposition that newspapers lost track of their core customer.  But don’t stop with newspapers. It’s true about most media, which have permitted the substitution of advertisers for consumers as the most important customer in their business model. It has led, in turn, to the steady erosion of relevancy in pursuit of lower common denominators in order to maximize reach.

There is something about all businesses that compels them to want to grow and that almost always, eventually, leads them away from core competencies and over the edge. That’s for another time and place. Media-wise, while I’m not in love with his stuff as a film maker, Michael Moore cuts close to the truth: fundamentally, newspapers (I’d say, all media) have lost track of their most important customer: the audience.

Moore goes on about Republicans and the Department of Education and I glaze over. We all must recognize that illiteracy is a serious problem, but newspapers aren’t suffering because of an illiterate population. There are still plenty of people to buy, read and comprehend newspapers. Newspapers and media are suffering from a habitual desire to stuff themselves. They are, simply, overweight – another greedy, cultural phenomenon of America to which Mr. Moore could have drawn parallels, but did not.

Never mind. His point is well-taken. Please watch Mr. Moore’s press conference and before his arguments fade please then point to TechCrunch.com to catch-up on the discussions that went on at the Tech Crunch 50 Conference (TC50) in San Francisco this week, specifically the panel called, “‘Creating scarcity, value and brand protection as we face limitless ad inventory”.

Nearly a continent away, panelist Ross Levinsohn of 5 to 1 channels the thoughts of Michael Moore and connects the dots: “In many ways”, he is quoted as saying on the panel, “I think the Internet has killed itself to a degree because there was a notion that I will just add another page without maximizing the premium spots.”

I think we’ve seen this movie.

The American Express “Take Charge” campaign delivers performance – for consumers

In a performance conscious advertising world its a wonder we don’t talk more about meeting the performance expectations of consumers. Indeed, those expectations are often held in open disregard. 

Fortunately, every now and then (as noted in this space on different occasions) advertising comes along that makes a fair bargain with consumers for their time and attention. The new spot from American Express for its “Take Charge” campaign is that sort of fair bargain. Frankly, I’m happy to watch it over and over. Maybe even to get a new card.

The Pentagon gives us a teachable, new media moment

The New York Times had a compelling piece by James Dao this week on military bloggers and social networkers that the ever-useful Around The Net in Online Media had the good sense to showcase.  This was a report on the tension inside the military regarding the presence of bloggers within the ranks and in the field. Some Generals think it’s a good thing. Other Generals aren’t so sure. Most are resigned that it would be almost impossible to shut-off the free flow of information among people in the Armed Services around an Internet world. But, the impetus for the article appears to be the Pentagon’s plans to issue new restrictions that will make a serious attempt to do just that: restrict access to social networking sites.

Good luck, right? Indeed, which is perhaps why it’s impossible for me not to detect a degree of sympathy for the blogging soldiers on the part of the New York Times, and the attending amounts of irony considering the impact that blogging and social networking have had on the news business. We might as well be talking about traditional media when the article reports:

To many analysts and officers, the debate reflects a broader clash of cultures: between the anarchic, unfiltered, bottom-up nature of the Web and the hierarchical, tightly controlled, top-down tradition of the military.

The quandary faced by the Pentagon gives us a teachable, new media moment when it’s possible to point-out the obvious - in this case, that the “anarchic, unfiltered, bottom-up nature of the web” is the real deal. It’s authentic. It’s journalism.

Says one soldier to the Times in the final paragraph of the report:

“What comes out of my blog is the experiences of a soldier right in the middle of all of this,” Mud Puppy (a nickname for military police), who recently returned home to Illinois, wrote in a recent e-mail message. “I think that people need to hear from us, more than they need to hear from the big whigs. War has a cost, and that cost is paid by soldiers.” 

Over and out.

A “personal” invitation from Newt Gingrich

I just received a fax from Newt Gingrich inviting me to a private dinner at the National Republican Club of Capital Hill in Washington on October 7th. The fax is from Joe Gaylord, actually, whose political consulting company is obviously working to support Newt’s bid for the Presidency when the campaign season roles around next, which I guess is now.

Evidently, Joe Gaylord and I have met along the way because he uses my first name, Jarvis, in the fax. I don’t remember that meeting. I also don’t remember entering into an “established business relationship” (EBR) with Joe or his consulting company, Chesapeake Associates, or, for that matter, Newt, which is the requirement the FCC makes of anyone using a facsimile (fax) machine to send unsolicited emails. To wit (from the FCC web site):

Amended Fax Rules and Established Business Relationship Exemption

The rules provide that it is unlawful to send unsolicited advertisements to any fax machine, including those at both businesses and residences, without the recipient’s prior express invitation or permission. Fax advertisements, however, may be sent to recipients with whom the sender has an EBR, as long as the fax number was provided voluntarily by the recipient.

I did not provide the fax number voluntarily – that is, I don’t think so, unless I was drunk one night, in which case it’s possible Joe and I could have met then and that he asked me for my fax number at the end of the evening.

But, there’s more from the FCC site:

Specifically, a fax advertisement may be sent to an EBR customer if the sender also:

• obtains the fax number directly from the recipient, through, for example, an application, contact information form, or membership renewal form; or
• obtains the fax number from the recipient’s own directory, advertisement, or site on the Internet, unless the recipient has noted on such materials that it does not accept unsolicited advertisements at the fax number in question; or
• has taken reasonable steps to verify that the recipient consented to have the number listed, if obtained from a directory or other source of information compiled by a third party.
• If the sender had an EBR with the recipient and possessed the recipient’s fax number before July 9, 2005 (the date the Junk Fax Prevention Act became law), the sender may send the fax advertisements without demonstrating how the number was obtained.

That will be it then: I’m a registered Republican. By the FCC’s standards my declared party affiliation would constitute an EBR. But Joe Gaylord still had to connect a lot of dots to send me my personalized fax. He had to connect my name and party affiliation that I provide presumably where I vote (home) with a fax number at my company address. I’m not sure how he did that. I quick scan of our corporate web site and I can’t find our fax number. And I haven’t really been that drunk since, or before, 2005 when the regulations changed such that I wouldn’t remember a stranger asking me for my fax number.

Honestly, I’m not trying to make a big deal out of this. It’s fine, really. I understand everybody’s doing their job and Joe is not stalking me and Newt isn’t going to notice when I don’t show-up at the party in October and no hard feelings all the way around. It’s marketing. Presidential politics is big business.

But I work in the online advertising sector which has been the poster child for privacy advocates. That’s a miscalculation, I believe, that fails to recognize we remain far more vulnerable to invasions of personal space offline.

We have privacy rules offline. As we’ve just demonstrated, those rules are porous. I’m not sure I’d advocate changing them for the reasons that commerce – including Presidential commerce – might be severely disrupted, but I have never had the occasion to take personal offense to online advertising as much as I have to Joe Gaylord’s flippant fax invitation.

Shredding Joe’s invitation will take only a fraction longer than deleting unwanted emails, or navigating away from irritating online advertisements. I’ll still be left with the bad taste in my mouth that he called me Jarvis and treated me like an idiot, which is really the penalty of bad marketing, not poor privacy regulations. Mostly, however, I’ll be left with the feeling that comes from knowing you’re surrounded by pretense; that you are involved in a charade;  that when the email finally comes from the Cabinet Secretary of the Homeland Department of Privacy it will begin, “Dear Jarvis.”

Sports abbreviating

DirectTV appears to be a heavy sponsor of the U.S. Tennis Open with commercials for its NFL Sunday Ticket™, which gives subscribers access to any football game they want on Sundays. Many DirectTV customers/die-hard football fans probably already know, but there’s also a program that can be purchased (additionally, I guess) called the “Red Zone Channel” that allows subscribers to feast on only the most exciting, inside the 20-yard line bits from all games going on around the league. That’s the subscriber program I’ve been thinking about since watching the commercials this weekend.

It’s similar to how I’d like to subscribe to basketball – only the last two minutes. Unlike basketball, however, we could actually play all football games inside the red zone by agreeing to a few rules changes that skip the pre-requisites and simply spot the ball at the 20. For starters, I’d propose that if a team scores while playing offense inside the 20 they get the ball again, re-spotted at the 20. Only failure to score from within the 20 turns the ball over (or fumbles, or interceptions, of course, in which case the recovering team starts-in at the 20 yard line. Going forward, we will only need football stadiums with 20 yards of scrimmage area either side of a single goal post in the center of the field).

Soccer uses penalty kicks to decide games that are still tied after overtime. There’s less excitement watching a penalty kick than a series of plays from inside the 20 in a football game, but  a soccer match could be reduced to alternating penalty kicks. If a match continued to feature an hour of playing time soccer scores could climb astronomically. Games could finish with the score 45 – 44, meaning soccer might finally catch-on in the U.S.

Without thinking too much more deeply about this (there is real work to do) almost any team sport qualifies for an “inside the red zone” short-cut designed to cater to Mr. or Ms. Hurry-up. Baseball, unfortunately, is no exception, though there is certainly a great deal that would be missed if the game were to dissolve into home run derbys. In contrast, there’s nothing that would be missed in football about watching a run up the middle for four yards that forces a punt situation - except to a discerning fan, and there don’t seem to be too many of those these days.

It’s troublesome all this sports abbreviating. Someone might do us a favor and just check to see how much sports abbreviating was going on at the time of the fall of the Roman Empire.

In the meantime, you have to respect the flexibility DirectTV is giving to their customers. With it, they offer a pretty good example of new media at work, which is tremendous access to desirable and relevant content (even if it sometimes reveals our impatience with everything but the action sequences in life).

Ad Age poll finds industry divided on support for political cable shows. But, seriously.

In the wake of the Glenn Beck fiasco Ad Age has asked in its weekly poll if the political talk shows on cable TV have run their course. In response to the question, “Do you think more advertisers will pull out of political cable shows,” 55% appear to have answered yes, and 45% no. The industry is divided.

I want someone to ask a follow-up question: “Do you take political cable shows seriously?” I expect results to reveal that only 20% say yes, and 80% say no.

Therefore, what sort of industry people in the Ad Age poll - making up 45% of the total - believe advertisers will still pony-up for spots on those programs in view of the fact that nobody really takes them seriously?

The possibilities include the following:

1. Industry people that believe the political cable shows represent quality entertainment (if not serious political programming) and are valid advertising opportunities for that reason;

2. Industry people that believe political cable shows represent entertainment on a par with reality TV and are still a valid advertising opportunity for that reason;

3. Industry cynics that believe advertisers could care less, frankly, and they’ll be back as soon as the fury dies down and as long as the ratings remain;

4. Staunch First Amendment supporters within the industry that believe advertisers should be defending the rights of political cable shows by resisting calls to disengage;

5. Direct response people that are thrilled to think advertisers are abandoning political cable show inventory.

I suspect the 20% in our model that take political cable shows seriously are included among the people that click on all the ad banners. So, perfect, there is a silver lining at the end.

Important and unimportant imbalances in the world

This is interesting: MediaPost referred to a report in the Digits Blog of the Wall Street Journal yesterday that says of 53,000 qualified respondents who said they contribute to Wikipedia only 6,814 of them – 13% - were women.

A commenter to the blog, Drew, made this observation:

“This is significant because Wikipedia is in the top 10 most visited sites on the Internet, meaning that lots of people are going there to get their information. The beauty of Wikipedia is that it’s neutrality on subjects is ideally balanced by an editing population that reflects the actual population of the Earth. With such a gender imbalance, the perspective of a significant part of the world’s population is being marginalized.”

I have a feeling that the perspective of the world has been at risk of imbalance throughout history. It is unlikely that the digital world has done anything to change the ratio of men vs. women chronicling all our endeavours and discoveries.

The explanation is easy: women are too busy. Plus, they’re not quite as caught-up in themselves. They don’t derive the satisfaction that men do from sitting around in their shorts, swilling swill and swapping war stories. Another commenter alluded to their practical side:

“If Wikipedia would allow payment for the type of skills it requires to actually get through the complicated procedure of publishing accurate articles on their site, maybe they could utilize the amazing workforce of women out there who are struggling to compensate their husband’s dwindling incomes and 401k’s by working from home.”

This is precisely the sort of clear-thinking that has pushed the world to its great endeavours and accomplishments. The men then cozy-up to the fire and write about it. The women continue on by making 80% of the world’s purchase decisions.

Such are the important and unimportant imbalances that ultimately matter to the real world.