Transparency in the three-legged race with our advertisers

First, Gentle Reader, a confession: I've been blogging around on you.

You might have guessed from the slowdown in posting. I know, we've had this nice, exclusive little chat. But I needed something more intimate.

Last week we started an internal blog, to enhance communication on the projects we're currently trying to execute, many of which would either be uninteresting to the wider world or are related to things we can't discuss in public.

I'll still post here regularly on the bigger-picture stuff, so take your finger off the unsubscribe button. Meantime, there will be occasions where I want to share a discussion from the internal blog. Here's one of them:

It started with a question on how we manage the market perception that a pay-for-performance ad model compromises our content even more than the mainstream model. The short answer is Transparency. The long answer (copied in the continuation due to saltier language than I generally use in public) inadvertently touches on a lot of other things that drive my philosophy, so I thought I'd share:

[Peg's] unified theory of media and life, part the first

Jeff and I were having a preso-based discussion..., that led to a question as to whether our unusually close symbiosis with advertisers in the PFP model could become a liability in terms of our credibility..

The answer to this is, I think, a key to understanding what I hope is the world-changing opportunity before us. It's something I've said before to all of you in bits and pieces, but let me try to pull it together:

Let me preface by saying that, contrary to appearances, I have no inherent spiritual belief in journalistic integrity, per se. It's not that I disavow it -- it's just that my long-held beliefs below make it a moot point for me.

Here's how I believe the world, or this aspect of it, works:

• Even in old-model advertising, what advertisers are buying is access to readers/viewers. (In our model, that's doubly so, although that is manifest in reader action rather than theory.)
• From the dawn of time, people-- in the long haul-- only spend their time on news and information that they find credible.
• Ergo, the most precious asset you have is your credibility. Credibility = readers = advertisers = profit. There's no other way to do it. No shortcuts. No dodges.
• You can't fuck with your credibility. That's not because it's wrong (which I suppose it is), but because you WILL get caught. Immutable law. It WILL happen. Cheat once and you'll get caught twice.
• You might be able to short-circuit some of the above over a short haul, but it will catch up with you. I'd say that in recent years, technology and the information society have dramatically accelerated that cycle. Jeff can tell us a bit about that.
• You can't depend on pure ethics to do the job, because humans are inherently flawed. It has to make inherent sense in the Business Model.

Where media folks go wrong is when they get afraid (of pissing off an advertiser) or greedy (by ignoring the above in the wooing of an advertiser). They find themselves in those positions often, particularly based on the existing "I know half of my advertising is wasted, but not which half" model.

See, when you're wooing, that means that you're trying to pull some wool. Hey baby -- I'm a tender guy; I promise I'll pull out; The check is in the mail.

I believe that if we can make the PFP model work, we can extract ourselves from being placed in that position. We're not wooing. We're offering to drive business in return for a piece of the action. Don't want to work with us because we didn't write about you? That's cool. 'Cos if the model works, someone else will.

I plan to have a hard and fast rule that ad reps who break bread with clients go Dutch. The message is: We're not taking you to lunch, 'cos we're not trying to fuck you. We're partners in trying to make money the smart way.

And, even if the PFP model doesn't work, the physics still stands. I've believed this for a long time. They aren't rules -- they're just the way the world works. It's the Natural Law of media.

So, to more directly address Jeff's question: It is my belief that because our success in the PFP case is a pure mathematical function of the advertiser's sales, it actually makes things cleaner for us. That may seem counterintuitive, so I'll add some corollaries:

• Unless you're going to jail, all press is good press. It may not feel like it, but it is.
• People who are smart enough and care enough to read can see through pap copy whether it's labeled advertorial or not.
• There are two ways to compromise yourself in covering advertisers: One is to mention them when they don't bear mentioning. But, in an online driven long-tail environment, there are relatively few space constraints to keep their groundbreaking or service award out of the news. So that problem's mostly gone.
• The other is to bury their misdeeds. The DMN is notorious for this. Again, I believe that if you do this, particularly in this day and age, you WILL get caught.
• Also, don't forget that our users will be able to post comments; and some will even have blogs or blog-esque pages. They will be able to call our bullshit.

There's a scene in one of my favorite movies, A Face in the Crowd, where the furniture store advertiser on the local TV station wants to fire Lonesome Rhodes (who was doing his ads in his variety show) because Rhodes made fun of him in the ads. He's livid. Pull the advertising right now!

He relents, grudgingly, when he sees the business the ads drove in.

Rhodes gets even rawer with the next ad, The store owner says: I don't give a damn about the sales -- kill the contract. Then he walks out into the store and sees the mobs of shoppers and relents again. This time permanently.

I really believe that is how the world works.

It may not be that dramatic every time, but that's the way it works.  I've worked in media long enough now to have that belief tested. And it stands.

I make this pledge now. You can hold me to it. I'll put it on the home page of the site, and in the paper if you like:

I don't care who it is.

I don't care if it is one of you.

I don't care if it's our largest investor.

I don't care if it's me, or [Mrs. Peg] or one of our children (TK).

If you fuck up in a way that is news --even "long-tail" news-- we will cover it and cover it vigorously. On the home page. On the front page. If there is any chance that someone on our staff can't cover it fairly, then we will hire the nastiest muckraking sumbitch we can find from outside to do so.

Not necessarily just because it's "right" ethically, mind you. But because it's smart business. It accords with Natural Law. Because that's what it takes to preserve Our Most Precious Asset.

Now, this may make us all warm and fuzzy, but Jeff raises a valid point about outside perceptions, distinct from our internal practices. My only answer there is that it's something that we'll largely have to earn over time. I think that we can somewhat get the point across by being candid and up front in everything we do.

(As a side matter, there's been some discussion among some of us over time about having the neighborhood reporters hand out advertising information. If you've read the above and still think that's a good idea, let me know. I think I've made my mind on that one.)

One of our early tasks is going to be writing down clear, coherent guiding principles to make sure that everyone from the receptionist; to the distributors; to us -- gets it and that it is such an endemic part of our culture that we don't even have to think about it.

Looking back over this, it could have been more linear and coherent, so if I'm not getting the point across, or seem full of it, please push back. (This is what comes of passion and multiple writing sessions). I'm a hopeful cynic, I suppose.

Jeff is right that this is a crucial matter. But what I believe we are doing by making advertising increasingly based on performance is logistically commoditizing it and taking the temptations out of the system. If that becomes a model for the industry, we can usher in an era of heretofore unimagined transparency and comprehensiveness in media.

And that's pretty fuckin' cool.

---

After all that, in the further discussions, the answer became clear:

Transparency.

Comments

[Peg]

The irony of my anonymity and the fact that we have a private blog, wrapped into a post on transparency is not lost on me, BTW.

I've covered the anonymity at length. And, as to the transparency, I'm referring to transparency with our community, not our potential competitors ;P