ChasNote

Joe Marchese explores the challenge faced by independent publishers — who are often their own editorial staffs, too — as they attempt to maximize revenue while maintaining journalistic integrity. From Mediapost:

“Consider that when a journalist is an island unto his/herself, he or she must also assume the roles of advertising sales, marketing and finance. If you thought it was tough for massive corporations to deal with the bipolar issue of maximizing profits and maintaining journalistic integrity, imagine when it is one individual fighting that battle with his/herself everyday. Massive corporations at least provide a paycheck and platform, allowing great journalist to focus on what they do best while ‘the suits’ focus on the advertising and profits. It may have been a constant internal battle for journalistic integrity, but as much as you might want to despise media moguls, at least there was a battle happening. There was also some comfort to knowing that there were rules regarding the operation of the news divisions, a sort of church and state separation.”

And he calls us folks at FM thought leaders! I like that.

“Thankfully there are thought leaders, like Federated Media Publishing, that may someday provide the scale of operations and monetization necessary to create the next generation of church and state separation between journalism and ad sales, while nurturing/encouraging quality independent journalism in a way pure performance networks never could (but this a fight that is far from won).”