You don’t have to love innovative digital marketing environments to work here
Dec 29th, 2007 by handolio
There’s a set of responsibilities incumbent on a journalist that needn’t trouble a copywriter, PR executive or marketing assistant. The latter are generally assumed to have an agenda, with a message to sell or place, and their words regarded accordingly. The former should be writing for the reader.
Given the above, it’s not always surprising that people outside of Spannerworks don’t readily understand what Charlie and myself are doing working for a marketing agency. As it goes, every now and then we’re reminded that we’ve still got work to do within the company.
Copywrong
We’re currently recruiting for another journalist at short notice, and our recruitment man has done a great job in quickly getting adverts into various publications and onto websites like Journalism.co.uk. Unfortunately, neither Charlie or I thought to check the copy in the run-up to Christmas, and the company ended up putting out this abomination.*
It’s been picked up by student journalist Dave Lee, who wrote in his blog: “What I have a problem with is when jobs such as this are advertised as journalism. Journalism it is certainly not.”
Based on the copy in the advert, I couldn’t agree with him more.
One of the things that makes Spannerworks an exciting place to work is that it brings together a whole load of people from different backgrounds. Charlie and I write for a growing number of the company’s clients, but it’s still a minority. We’ve recently realised that we need to invest some time in explaining to a lot of people from marketing, PR, sales and search-optimisation backgrounds exactly what journalism is and how it contrasts with the role of a copywriter – a role which, incidentally, we recently filled with a very capable journalist.
Fortunately, there are plenty of people in the company who already understand the difference – our department head Antony Mayfield is one of them. He spotted and commented on Dave’s post and has arranged to have the ad withdrawn until we can replace it in the new year with something less God-awful.
There remains, I’m sure, plenty of scope for debate about a journalist’s role within a marketing company. Our job is challenging, sometimes difficult, and before we started both Charlie and I had concerns – now allayed – about whether it would be possible for us to remain truly objective.
But journalism it certainly is – otherwise neither of us would still be there.
Hi Simon!
I have to say, my estimations of the company you represent have u-turned since that original post. The willingness to change the ad is very refreshing indeed!
That said, I still take issue with the notion of ‘journalism’ coming from within a marketing agency. Your colleague, Antony, commented: “We also have one former journalist from a national magazine who writes advertorial-style copy for client and advertorial websites.”
Advertorial, as I see it, is not journalism. It’s PR, through and through. Sure, it requires accurate journalism skills like research, interviewing and similar — but then so does an essay, or a report, or any piece of informed writing.
Antony does acknowledge that advertorial does blur the boundaries between journalism and PR, but suggests that the jobs you and your colleague undertook at your magazine titles involved advertorial work and, thus, your work for Spannerworks is no different.
I’m not for a moment saying journalists don’t write advertorial. They do. I’ve written a couple (but both times insisted my name was nowhere near it). At some magazines and newspapers, journalists will be writing job adverts, or listings, or maybe even setting out Sudoku puzzles.
My point is, not all a journalist does in his/her day to day work should be considered journalism. Advertorials are not journalism — they’re long, expensive adverts. So to say that because someone was doing advertorials when they were a journalist then it surely means they are still being a journalist now is just short-sighted and a little wishful.
Of course, this whole argument falls well and truly on its face when I realise I can’t tell you exactly what I think journalism *is*. But, I’d say it was nigh on impossible to report on a subject when you have an overriding interest in it.
On a lighter note, though, you both make cracking bloggers. Very interesting reads.
Kind Regards,
Dave
[...] too happy about, I thought I’d add this follow up which I original posted as a comment on this blog here. Hi [...]
Journalists:MRIs, nuclear wars, time capsules…
(Relatively) recently some clever chap realised that, being human, we will eventually all kill each other (or die trying) and so built a digitised information network that could survive a nuclear-flavoured nightmare: the IntermeWeb hyper-knowledge superHighway.
It will be humanity’s time capsule and we are all invited to contribute to this living record of human consciousness.
The great writers and artists of tomorrow are blogging and coding now – they might be discovered when long since dead, the history of their skills having long survived them in binary form.
If everyone is an artist and contributor to a global cultural record we must recognise and record the importance and impact of content produced, transient and whimsical though this impact may be.
So…a journalist…might be an explorer of words, collector of thoughts or journeyman of ideas who helps weave together seemingly disparate networks of thought and conversation.
Over the course of time they maintain their Master Record of Influence – as sentient signposts in a sea of digital life-streams, guiding us gently towards our chosen path of truths. The Journalist Jedi is born…
I’ve posted a comment over at Dave Lee’s blog. Fearlessly, I risk creating duplicate-copy-related comeuppance from Google, by reproducing it below:
Hi Dave
Great blog, I agree with all you’ve said about what constitutes journalism. I think maybe I should say how things are organised here at Spannerworks.
Our colleague, who formerly worked as a journalist, has the title of Copywriter. The bulk of her job is to write advertorial content and product copy, published in separate outlets to the editorial services.
Simon and I write news and blog posts, both of which are there to stand on their own merits as objective editorial. We aim to operate to the same standards of journalistic integrity as any conventional media outlet.
The clients who sign up for our editorial services understand that this kind of content cannot serve as advertorial or PR for their company – it’s ‘proper’ news, designed to add value to the client’s website because it’s genuinely useful. The client generally has no input into its creation other than to help us formulate a brief.
If it’s not the real thing, readers can get their news just as easily somewhere else – and the providers of dodgy news can be flamed in a multitude of public forums (including Hackbash), which may have a negative impact on the publisher’s reputation. So it’s in their interest to invest in proper news written by genuine journalists.
Charlie
I think problem, even with the clarified advertising copy, is that many SEO agencies want employees with the skills of a journalist to fill roles that aren’t journalism in a conventional sense.
The marketing problem for the advertisers of these jobs is how do they get these new quasi-journalist roles in front of people currently working in traditional journalism…
Marketing is increasingly requiring an interdiscplinary approach, whether it’s team of different skills working together or employers building up varied experience.
The good news is Dave gave his feedback and it was heard, which is good for him and Spannerworks as it saved them losing a number of potential candidates who shared the same view as Dave.