That was Brad Warthen's best line from his interview on the radio last night.
He was discussing what motivated him while at The State, and he had this line to make the point that he didn't care if his opinions pleased the newspaper's advertisers or not. He didn't write things or take positions to try and sell newspapers. He just wanted to be read. (I can relate to that in a way.)
I thought that was the best line of the program.
Let me clarify.
ReplyDeleteI was addressing a couple of old, tired things that laypeople say about newspapers. One was that we make this or that coverage or play decision based on what "sells newspapers." The other was the notion that being supported by advertising means that journalists are compromised somehow.
As to the first point, I was trying to correct the public's misconception of what motivates journalists. On the gut level, in terms of what motivated me as a journalist, it really didn't matter how the paper got into someone's hands, as long as they read it. On that gut level, in terms of what moves and motivates me, it didn't matter if the reader stole the paper. But as a vice president of the company, I assure you that I preferred that they not steal it.
As for advertisers -- I'm not saying I didn't CARE whether advertisers were displeased. I'm saying it had no impact on what opinion we arrived at. I mean, I'd rather that they and everyone else be happy with our positions. But if they weren't, that had no impact on the opinion itself.
I gave an example, without naming names, of a very awkward situation that went on for several years, in which a major advertiser -- a leading institution in the community -- was VERY angry about a position we took, and continued to take (a position which, by the way, I saw more or less reiterated on the editorial page during the past few weeks).
To the best of my knowledge, that position cost the paper hundreds of thousands of dollars. But the publisher never tried to get us to change our position.
That doesn't mean that I didn't have some awkward moments at work over it. A couple of times during that period, some business-side new member of Senior Staff would say at one of our weekly meetings, "How come so-and-so isn't in the paper? Seems like that's some low-hanging fruit..."
And someone would do a loud "Ahem!" and there'd be a slight silence before someone said, "Well, that's because of, well, an editorial position taken by the newspaper..." And everyone would pointedly not look at me, and I'd wait for the conversation to move on to another topic.
So, honestly, I'd rather have avoided such moments. But not enough to change my mind on a matter of principle...
Thanks for adding the context. I took it in that spirit.
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