Time Inc. judging writers based on advertsiers

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

Fast forward to Monday, when Gawker revealed that not only has Time Inc. been encouraging its editors to work more with business—it's also been judging them based on whether or not their content is helpful to advertisers.
The site obtained a spreadsheet showing writers for Sports Illustrated being ranked on the quality of their work, its newsworthiness and, chillingly, in the category "Produces content that [is] beneficial to advertiser relationship."
It's a good guess that none of the writers who joined Sports Illustrated did so to benefit advertisers.
But it gets worse. A representative of the Newspaper Guild told Gawker that Time Inc. actually fired writers in part based on the chart, meaning that they were let go in part because they weren't driving enough advertising through their work.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2014/08/18/time-inc-writers-advertisers_n_5688270.html

 

[DanOregon]

I looked at the chart and was trying to figure out the writers by the "scores." Not sure if the "writer-editor" was a general term for the sheets sake or the specific title. If it's senior writers I'd guess King for 2 and Gary Smith for 5.

 

[Joe Williams]

Disappointed there's no "average clicks per piece" category.

 

[DanOregon]

I'm guessing the "Hot Clicks" staffer doesn't have to worry about making the mortgage payments.

 

[Double Down]

King is so No. 1 or 10, people.

 

[LongTimeListener]

Verducci got a 700 percent raise.

 

[MileHigh]

This isn't isolated.

 

[Small Town Guy]

I'd say Andre Laguerre is spinning in his grave but his body first stopped by the bar for a drink or 10 to dull the pain.

Reminds me of this bit from The Franchise, talking about when the magazine was in danger of going under until they came up with a new advertising strategy that promoted SI as one of the newsweeklies instead of leisure. From then on, it basically started raking in money.

From a Time exec: "The advertising success is also due in part to the fact that as an editorial entity, it became something that people applauded. Laguerre was doing his job brilliantly. I felt that he was doing everything he could do as an editor to make it a success. It was not up to him to do the other."

 

[Michael_ Gee]

Exactly how does someone assigned to do an NHL story, for instance, create advertiser friendly copy? Also, once you start pimping out your copy, the reporters turned hookers are going to be tempted to go into business for themselves, and create kickback friendly copy.

 

[Schottey]

Read the last paragraph of the OP again and realize the mental gymnastics Gawker took you through.

Being "advertiser friendly" is one metric among many. It's not the deciding score, nor is it the only quality being ranked. There is no proof that anyone was fired because they weren't "advertiser friendly," and (for all Gawker or any of us know) could've been the most advertiser-friendly shill on the planet but got fired because he wasn't a good writer or because he wasn't motivated.

Gawker—as they are wont to do—takes a premise, then shoehorns in a loosely verified fact and does about 30 backflips trying to gin up anger insinuated that someone (if only "in part") got fired because Time INC isn't as journalistically pure and morally right as the good people at Gawker...you know, the ones that ***** out plenty of clickbait (per internal memos from Denton, Daulerio and such) and are being sued by their former interns.

Truth be told: charts like that are just a visual representation of the exact kind of qualities every single editor around the country is looking at—yes, even whether or not content is appealing to advertisers—it's just out in front of us on this chart whether than up in someone's head. If one actually takes a step back from the Gawker-engendered rage, this isn't nearly the juicy scoop they want it to be.

Much like I said in the SoE thread...that the business-side of journalism exists doesn't mean everyone immediately throws ethics out the window. Time/SI has likely been using this or something like this for a long time and has produced plenty of fantastic work—advertiser friendly or not.

 

[Alma]

Read the last paragraph of the OP again and realize the mental gymnastics Gawker took you through.

Being "advertiser friendly" is one metric among many. It's not the deciding score, nor is it the only quality being ranked. There is no proof that anyone was fired because they weren't "advertiser friendly," and (for all Gawker or any of us know) could've been the most advertiser-friendly shill on the planet but got fired because he wasn't a good writer or because he wasn't motivated.

Gawker—as they are wont to do—takes a premise, then shoehorns in a loosely verified fact and does about 30 backflips trying to gin up anger insinuated that someone (if only "in part") got fired because Time INC isn't as journalistically pure and morally right as the good people at Gawker...you know, the ones that ***** out plenty of clickbait (per internal memos from Denton, Daulerio and such) and are being sued by their former interns.

Truth be told: charts like that are just a visual representation of the exact kind of qualities every single editor around the country is looking at—yes, even whether or not content is appealing to advertisers—it's just out in front of us on this chart whether than up in someone's head. If one actually takes a step back from the Gawker-engendered rage, this isn't nearly the juicy scoop they want it to be.

Much like I said in the SoE thread...that the business-side of journalism exists doesn't mean everyone immediately throws ethics out the window. Time/SI has likely been using this or something like this for a long time and has produced plenty of fantastic work—advertiser friendly or not.

This is a reasonable post. I don't like that SI/Time would even include that category, but this is reasonable.

Gawker's ethics, of course, are never in question.

 

[boundforboston]

Exactly how does someone assigned to do an NHL story, for instance, create advertiser friendly copy? Also, once you start pimping out your copy, the reporters turned hookers are going to be tempted to go into business for themselves, and create kickback friendly copy.

Something I also wondered. Would you have to mention the type of stick the player used to shoot the game-winning goal?

 

[Evil ... Thy name is Orville Redenbacher!!]

Exactly how does someone assigned to do an NHL story, for instance, create advertiser friendly copy? Also, once you start pimping out your copy, the reporters turned hookers are going to be tempted to go into business for themselves, and create kickback friendly copy.

Something I also wondered. Would you have to mention the type of stick the player used to shoot the game-winning goal?

See NASCAR TV and radio coverage.

 

[Riptide]

"This is for all the Tostitos, Herbie."

 

[da man]

I haven't read the Huffington Post link, but does it say how they measure whether content is "beneficial to advertiser relationship"? Because it might not mean what you think it means.

Content beneficial to an advertiser relationship doesn't have to mean mentioning their products. It might simply mean providing content that they want to have their ads associated with -- popular stories about popular topics that will attract readers, or subjects that advertisers feel mesh with their corporate image and/or values, or stories about events they sponsor. I know in the newspaper biz we constantly had advertisers requesting ads in certain sections or near certain stories.

This likely has no bearing on ethics whatsoever.

 

[DanOregon]

And here I thought SI's book excerpts which seemed to precede full-page ads a week or so later were just a coincidence. I thought the writer including the type of tequila, the label on the suit and the make of car in a story were just some of those "writerly" details that bring a story to life.