It used to be when journalists tired of their trade they moved into corporate communications. Now things are going the other way: Corporate communications is moving into the tired trade of journalism.
Chicago Reader media critic Michael Miner reported last week on a controversy at Northwestern's legendary Medill School of Journalism, where the newish Integrated Marketing Communications program appears to be bleeding into the traditional journalism program.
Evidence A: Marketing jargon on the Medill home page, boasting of a journalism program with a mission of "ENGAGING the AUDIENCE with relevant, differentiated storytelling & messages."
Does that sound like something cut and pasted off a corporate communications strategy plan, or what?
Mary Nesbitt, Medill's associate dean for curriculum is also removing the term "news service" from the Medill News Service, which allows students to write what amount to wire stories for local papers. Why?
"We've been kind of casting around for something that gives the same idea, that doesn't have the trappings, the baggage of the old 'news service' idea .... I think 'news service' in the working newsrooms in the industry can have a pejorative aspect to it. It has the notion of 'We push it out to you.' And news customers are now able to pull news in from a variety of different sources. And we want to be one of them. .... I've gone through all kinds of discussions and brainstorming about a better name that's more active and more, sort of, expressed the richness of what it is our students are actually doing.
"It may be that we're talking about branding. It's not just what you communicate, but how you communicate what you do. The marketplace is so crowded with brands that you need a robust, consistent one that has meaning for whoever it is you're trying to reach."
Here's a hint, Mary: When you're struggling this desperately to find a new word for something as old as journalism, you are not in the process of branding, you're in the process of bullshitting.
And if Medill's 86-year-old brand has somehow lost its luster, that's a bigger problem than differentiated messages can solve. I don't think Medill has lost its luster among journalists.
I do think traditional journalism and journalists have lost their robustness as corporate owners use them to get rich. More on this—including my experience that it's now more rewarding write for many employee newsletters than it is to write for major newspapers—down the road.
Comments (7)
Sigh. "When you're struggling this desperately to find a new word for something as old as journalism, you are not in the process of branding, you're in the process of bullshitting."
This is sad, sad news about Medill, and sounds like a bad decision made at a high level by folks who want to "grow" Northwestern and are quite willing to kill Medill to do it.
I'm reminded of a great English class I took once where I learned the difference between descriptive and prescriptive dictionaries. A descriptive dictionary tells you all the different ways people are using, spelling, and pronouncing a word, but doesn't pass judgment on any of them or tell you what you should do. A prescriptive dictionary tells you the standard, generally accepted, correct way to use, spell, and pronounce a word.
Both types of dictionary have value, but when you want to sound like you know what the hell you're doing, you go to the prescriptive source.
If we think of Medill and other old, respected journalism schools as "prescriptive" and the myriad "pull" elecronic news sources as "descriptive," it's clear that the descriptive news sources are propagating at a much faster rate. Making a great old prescriptive j-school go descriptive is the same as saying there are no worthwhile or valuable rules, standards, or value judgments when it comes to gathering, presenting, or even receiving news. Bullshit. Terrifying bullshit.
Posted by Jane Greer | July 8, 2007 1:18 PM
Posted on July 8, 2007 13:18
The marketplace is so crowded with brands that you need a robust, consistent one that has meaning for whoever it is you're trying to reach."
If you have to change your "brand" every time your audience changes, it's not a "robust, consistent one," is it? I would have though Medill qualified (at least, that's what my graduate-of-Medill friends tell me), but apparently not.
Posted by Diane | July 8, 2007 1:57 PM
Posted on July 8, 2007 13:57
Mark my words - there's the fine hand of a "consultant" in this train wreck somewhere. And I don't mean legitimate, valuable, straight-talking consultants like Jane Greer or Robert Holland. I mean the "bullshit baffles brains" variety, who come in, interview half the employees to find out what's going on, then transmute the real story into a bunch of buzzwords and high-falutin' jargon to convince the senior people they need to do stupid stuff like this. At $500/hr let's not forget when they could have just asked the people who actually know what would help - employees - for free! Gaaaa!
Posted by Kristen | July 9, 2007 7:14 AM
Posted on July 9, 2007 07:14
Good points, all. Diane, this notion of when to hold fast to your brand and when to adjust your brand to the changing audience is a fascinating one, eh? To me the best brands come originally not from focus groups, but from one person's an intuitive response to a permanent need in society (read; Herb Kelleher, Southwest Airlines, cheap domestic air travel).
If Medill is deciding society will not pay to have knowledgeable journalists hanging around city hall and sniffing around, well--well, that's good news for the politicians, at least.
Posted by David Murray | July 9, 2007 10:17 AM
Posted on July 9, 2007 10:17
I've always maintained that the essence of a person or organization is contained in the words they use. Change the language, you change the society. Change your language based on some crappy advice or stupid trend and you have lost who you are.
It's interesting to see that a journalism school is floundering, just as many traditional media outlets are these days. I love reading Jeff Jarvis' blog, BuzzMachine, http://www.buzzmachine.com/ in which he is documenting the change and watching what the losers and winners are doing.
Posted by Ron Shewchuk | July 10, 2007 2:51 PM
Posted on July 10, 2007 14:51
Thanks for the tip, Ron. I'll add that one to the RSS feed in my head.
Posted by David Murray | July 10, 2007 2:55 PM
Posted on July 10, 2007 14:55
What???!!! I could be charging $500 an hour for "bullshit baffles brains" methods of consulting???
Well, this legitimate straight-talking stuff is for the birds! :-)
(You're very kind, Kristen.)
Posted by Robert J Holland, ABC | July 10, 2007 3:42 PM
Posted on July 10, 2007 15:42