Monday, July 24, 2006
The ROI of Integrity
One of the better sessions I attended at the ASBPE national conference addressed the issue of editorial ethics and integrity--or to say this another way, how to avoid caving to pressure from publishers and advertisers. ASBPE recently published its revised code of ethics, and I think it's generally good.
To my mind, ASBPE associate director Robin Sherman asked the big question: "What's the ROI of integrity? There's very little research into this area, and any research I've seen has been on the newspaper side of the business--but it's poor research." (This is an area that ABM should consider studying.)
For Rance Crain, the president of Crain Communications, the answer is simple: "Editorial excellence makes good business sense. Advertisers want readers, and readers who trust and are involved in our editorial pages will also be involved with our advertising. Forget ethics, editorial excellence is the best way to make money."
So far so good. But I'm a little disturbed that, in many editors' minds, the issue of ethics seems to fall squarely on publishers, salespeople and advertisers, and their insatiable demands to compromise the integrity of magazines. Sure, it happens, and far too often.
But the other side of the editorial ethics equation is equally important--and that's the ethics of serving an audience with the best possible information and analysis. Any magazine that's poorly researched and written, graphically poor, reliant on press releases, and generally not leading and shaping its market through its coverage, isn't being ethical. And there are probably as many of these types of magazines in B2B as there are magazines which sell their souls and credibility to advertisers.
Comments
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To my mind, ASBPE associate director Robin Sherman asked the big question: "What's the ROI of integrity? There's very little research into this area, and any research I've seen has been on the newspaper side of the business--but it's poor research." (This is an area that ABM should consider studying.)
For Rance Crain, the president of Crain Communications, the answer is simple: "Editorial excellence makes good business sense. Advertisers want readers, and readers who trust and are involved in our editorial pages will also be involved with our advertising. Forget ethics, editorial excellence is the best way to make money."
So far so good. But I'm a little disturbed that, in many editors' minds, the issue of ethics seems to fall squarely on publishers, salespeople and advertisers, and their insatiable demands to compromise the integrity of magazines. Sure, it happens, and far too often.
But the other side of the editorial ethics equation is equally important--and that's the ethics of serving an audience with the best possible information and analysis. Any magazine that's poorly researched and written, graphically poor, reliant on press releases, and generally not leading and shaping its market through its coverage, isn't being ethical. And there are probably as many of these types of magazines in B2B as there are magazines which sell their souls and credibility to advertisers.
