Over at Pegasus News, the hyper-local newsite for all things DFW, Mike Orren has a great blog post today about journalists, their management, the ad sales staff, and how it all interrelates to the declining state of the newspaper business today. It’s well worth the read, as its main points are this: it’s not all management’s fault; everyone is responsible for "seliing" the newspaper to us readers; perhaps journos should have experience in selling ads.
Now, the suggestion isn’t that Bill Addison, writing about one of the 189 places in Dallas that sell chops and gravy, should also be spending time hawking ads to III Forks for Friday’s Guidelive. But, would it help a journo to better understand the clients they write for, and the clients who buy the ads that keep their paper afloat, if he/she had spent some time in sales? I would wholeheartedly say YES!
I work in a senior position in IT. I know of nobody who has not had a major dose of sales and/or marketing who has ever become really successful in such senior positions unless they have lived and understood the sales and marketing cylcle. And maybe even had a portion of their compensation tied to successful efforts in said areas. If a Belo editorial writer had ever had to sell ads to TxDoT or TXU, would they look at their positions differently later on when they write an op-ed supporting one or slamming the other?
I’m not saying that the ads should influence what they write. I’m saying that you’re risking putting yourself in a post turtle position unless you have a seat-of-the-pants understanding of the entire business you profess to be a professional member of.
