Is good journalism bad business? It’s a topic I have been obsessed with since college and why not? The topic is as relevant today as it was many years back. The owners of many media houses have always had tough time dealing with credible journalists. The question boils down to this. If company X is one of the prime advertisers with a magazine or newspaper, should the journalist be stopped from writing a negative story about it? Should company X get even an iota of special treatment? The answer clearly is a NO in all caps and bold. Alas, many of those in the business feel the answer should be YES.
There is no denial that revenues are important to sustain a media house or a publication. The big question here is: Will partiality towards company X bring in the required profit? The answer is No. Readers are quick to decipher what’s real news and what’s an advertisement or an advertorial or a PR gimmick. They read a publication because they trust the content and consider it sacrosanct. The moment the reader discovers that you have restrained covering company X negatively or favoured it in any form because it advertises with you, they are bound to stop reading your publication.
Some sales guys also believe that giving editorial coverage is a good way to sell an ad and bring in revenues. They can’t go more wrong than this. Companies advertise because they know it’s hard to find editorial space. The moment editorial coverage becomes easy, which fool will spend the moolah and advertise? So, in the long run, such strategies will only hit back on the face. Needless to say, advertorials and all custom publishing initiatives are perfect examples of brand dilution and will not work in the long term.
Consider this example. Dhirubhai Ambani bought the Sunday Observer from Ashwin Shah of Jaico and launched a daily paper called The Business and Political Observer to act as their mouthpiece. The Sunday Observer was successful in its Jaico avatar but it never worked as an Ambani operation. Why? It’s because our readers are more intelligent than what we assume them to be. The daily paper became an embarrassment and in no way it saved Ambani’s company from all the negative publicity. The publication actually became a liability for the Ambanis and had to be closed down.
Ravi Dhariwal, CEO of The Times of India Group said in one of the forums, “A good product will always sell…Marketing begins with a good product.” I completely agree with him and I am overtly glad to hear such words coming out of a marketing guy.
My final verdict: Good journalism is good business. Media is the domain of the public and people want fair, truthful and unbiased news and views. There is no scope for any hidden agenda here. We should create a strong editorial-driven product and build revenues around it. It cannot happen the other way round where we build an editorial strategy based on the revenue target.
