E-Media Tidbits

Sherriff of Nothing, via Flickr (CC license) Online, people do NOT experience your news like this.

I was pleased to learn today from Tricia Romano, editor of Pop and Politics, that their site did some further digging on this. See: Do you need a suit and a penis to be in the Business Section?

Romano wrote: "We sent a query to the Style section editor Trip Gabriel, asking how they handle stories such as this one that could go in other sections. We also wondered: 'Do you feel, as [Huffington Post blogger] Erin Kotecki Vest did, that a story about glass ceilings in the blogging universe is undermined by appearing in a section that frequently covers Botox and beauty routines?'"

Here's what happened, according to Gabriel: "The story was pitched by a frequent freelance contributor to the Sunday Styles section (or Fashion & Style on the Web). There was never any question about publishing it elsewhere in the print paper or on NYTimes.com. ...When people ask if a 'serious' piece about glass ceilings is undermined by appearing in a section that covers fashion, beauty and other 'superficial' topics, I'm pretty sure they haven't been reading The Times's Style sections deeply or for long."

Pop and Politics also asked Kara Jesella, author of the NYT BlogHer story what she thought about her work being featured in the paper's Style section versus another, more "serious," section. She said, in part: "I don't know any of the editors in the Business or Technology sections of the paper (though I was pleased to see the story is cross-posted with Technology on the New York Times site)." [Note: Blogger Lisa B. confirmed that this cross-linking did appear on NYTimes.com, although it's gone now.]

Jesella continued: "I'd been wanting to write about BlogHer for at least a year or two and pitched this story to Styles because I frequently work with them and had a feeling my editor there would be interested. ..."Style" at the Times is conceived of pretty broadly. It's not just fashion, but about people and their behavior, trends, what everyone is talking about."

These are fair points that explain this article's placement. But in my opinion, they also demonstrate a somewhat insular mindset common in mainstream media. When news organizations post their content online, assumptions about what "regular readers know" about your paper or site can trip you up big time. Every article or other piece of content you post must stand on its own -- including the context (like the section head) offered where it appears.

Your online readers are probably not "regular readers" -- especially if you're covering a hot-button or new topic. Web and mobile visitors can come from anywhere and will zero in on the one article of interest to them. They'll probably ignore the rest of your site. They certainly won't plow back through your archives to get a feel for the general tone and context of a particular section.

So when online and mobile visitors see a story running under a trivial-sounding section head like "Fashion & Style," they'll probably assume the news org intended to position it as less serious coverage. And they're not wrong to make that assumption. In contrast, when a news org assumes that casual visitors would (or should) guess otherwise, that's simply hubris.

So here's an option: Why not change section names to reflect the true section mission? Or, why not offer a more specific list of sections online than in print? Chris Nelson's comment nailed that point: "I don't disagree for a second that the story should have been in the Technology section, but if Style was renamed 'Society & Gender' -- or something more in line with Mr. Gabriel's view of his section -- would there have been nearly the same uproar over the placement of the story?"

The Pop and Politics post brings another lurking media blind spot into sharp focus: I'd bet that very, very few readers of any news venue (print, online, or mobile) grasp the huge role that personal relationships between writers and editors play in how stories get pitched, shaped, and placed. It really is a who-knows-who business, from concept to publication. Probably the biggest reason Jesella's BlogHer coverage didn't run in the Times' business or technology section was that, as she says, she just doesn't know those editors. This, I think, shows the true cost of the fiefdom approach so common in news orgs.

Here's an idea for section editors: If a good story comes your way, but it really belongs in a different section, make the effort to cooperate with other section editors to run it in the most appropriate section. Everyone benefits. Your readers don't care about your internal silos -- and they shouldn't have to.