The Engima of Business Journalism, The Economist
Cloaked with a veneer of secrecy that leaves readers to wonder “Who the hell wrote that article?” The Economist takes pride in baffling the garden-variety PR person.
Its editorial decisions can at times seem quirky for the sake of being quirky. I mean, do we really need 499 words devoted to ornithology and a bio-acoustic monitor that can distinguish the chirps from 110,000 species of birds from the hiss of a snake?
Yet, contrary to popular belief, this is not some niche publication only serving the British intellectualazzi. Its readership tips 1.3 million with about half of those copies ending up on American doorsteps.
For this very reason, when we supported the announcement of Amazon’s Mechanical Turk a few years ago, we zeroed in on The Economist to tell the in-depth story. It didn’t hurt that our homework revealed that Economist technology editor Tom Standage had penned a book that also took liberties with the same topic, “The Turk: The Life and Times of the Famous Eighteenth-Century Chess-Playing Machine.”
But more than serendipity, our continued success with The Economist comes down to building the right content that aligns with the book’s approach to storytelling. I touched on the importance of anecdotes using one example from The Economist back in July.
Taking this a step further, we analyzed the tech-related articles (list of articles included at the end of this post) in The Economist, covering the April through November 2008 issues.
Seventeen percent of the content fell under the anecdotal umbrella.
It just goes to show that even high-brow business journalism depends on the amusing, provocative or downright weird to keep the reader’s interest.
Economist Articles Analyzed:
November 14, 2008
November 5, 2008
October 29, 2008
October 22, 2008
October 15, 2008
October 8, 2008
October 1, 2008
September 24, 2008
September 17, 2008
September 10, 2008
September 2, 2008
August 27, 2008
August 20, 2008
August 12, 2008
August 5, 2008
July 30, 2008
July 23, 2008
July 16, 2008
July 9, 2008
July 2, 2008
June 18, 2008
June 11, 2008
June 4, 2008
The FAST track to better health
May 28, 2008
May 21, 2008
May 14, 2008
May 7, 2008
April 30, 2008
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Oprah: Heartfelt Storyteller or Paid Shill?
Oprah is a good storyteller who’s even better at facilitating a story.
More than any single element, Oprah has turned tapping into the emotional reservoir of her viewing audience into an art form.
That’s why when Oprah came forward on Friday and proclaimed Amazon’s Kindle (e-reader) as life-changing people paid attention.
In fact, Oprah’s revelation created more noise in the blogosphere than any activity orchestrated by Amazon’s marketing department over the past three months.
Yet, this was hardly a heartfelt moment. Amazon paid for the product placement on Oprah’s show. It’s really no different than BMW cutting a check for one of its cars to appear in a chase scene in a 007 movie, only in this case Amazon got two for the price of one (Kindle + Bezos show appearance).
Last month I addressed whether a good story by definition needs to be authentic, making the observation that you need to be who you say you are (Stephen Hawking I’m not). Oprah certainly passes this test. That was definitely Oprah touting the Kindle.
Giving Oprah the benefit of the doubt, the story starts out authentic and heartfelt. She received a Kindle as a gift and it changed her life. Wonderful. Everyone should be so lucky as to have their lives changed by an e-reader in these economic times.
But why is it that Oprah didn’t go public with her revelation until Oct. 24?
In a word, money - nicely timed to build momentum into the holiday buying season.
Does the fact that Amazon put a few dollars - OK, more than few - into Oprah’s wallet lessen the power of the story?
If the tears from the audience when they got word that the grab bag would be a Kindle are any indication, the answer is no.
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