It's 1985 In Philadelphia
Well, at least at the main paper there, the Inquirer. Get a load of their "thinking" these days:
Colleagues - Beginning today, we are adopting an Inquirer first policy for our signature investigative reporting, enterprise, trend stories, news features, and reviews of all sorts. What that means is that we won't post those stories online until they're in print. We'll cooperate with philly.com, as we do now, in preparing extensive online packages to accompany our enterprising work. But we'll make the decision to press the button on the online packages only when readers are able to pick up The Inquirer on their doorstep or on the newsstand.
As Jeff Jarvis notes, that means it's time to get out for any reporters stuck there. I simply can't believe that this is what passes for "thought leadership" at a media outfit now.
Comments
Ah but is is "pre-anouncing" a good thing?
[] August 8, 2008 13:25:17.107
I don't think this is necessarly about what you think it is about. When I read the story it seemed to me one of practices they want to stop is blogging about big stories in the works. Viewing these stories as individual products blogging about them is like pre-anouncing a produt. I'm not saying pre-anouncing is always a bad thing, it is certainly something you want to manage carefully, and if managed carefully can pay big dividends. Just contrast how Apple and MS differ in how they (pre)anounce new products.
Going back to the print bussines imangine your paper is on the trail of a big story, managing how that is brought to public attention can make a big difference. Ideally you would want to generate a buzz that indicates something big is going to break with some vauge hints about what it is but nothing to concrete. Then publish it everywhere all at once.
Please scoop us
[dan] August 9, 2008 2:15:53.968
It's not pre-announcing. It's publishing. If your goal is to be scooped, this is the perfect strategy.