Voices
nal and set up a new project called
Recode in partnership with NBC.
Perhaps the most famous example
is Nate Silver, who brought his
FiveThirtyEight poll-analysis site
to The New York Times a few years
ago and then moved it lock, stock
and barrel to ESPN. In that regard,
I suppose you could say NBC and
ESPN have embraced the network
approach. To some extent, you
might also say that of The Huffington Post, as it combines professional journalists, unpaid bloggers
(I’m one) and a dizzying array of
content — from Calderone’s excellent media coverage to the notorious Sideboob vertical.
Jeff Jarvis recently argued that
Patch — AOL’s incredibly shrinking
hyperlocal news project — might
have stood a chance if AOL chief
executive Tim Armstrong had
taken a network approach. Rather
than running cookie-cutter community sites from the top down,
Jarvis asked, what if Patch had offered advertising and support services to a network of independent
or semi-independent sites?
The problem with such scenarios is that media executives
— and business leaders in general
— are not accustomed to the idea
of giving up control. Calderone
DAN
KENNEDY
HUFFINGTON
01.19.14
reports that some Post staffers
have long grumbled at what they
see as “preferential treatment” for
Klein, which suggests the depth of
the problem. But entrepreneurial
journalists like Harris and VandeHei, like Mossberg and Swisher,
and like Silver and Klein have a
proven track record.
Legacy news organizations need
to find a way to tap into that success outside the old models of own-
Legacy news
organizations need to
find a way to tap into...
success outside the old
models of ownership and
not worry about obsolete
notions of employeremployee relationships.”
ership and not worry about obsolete notions of employer-employee
relationships. Reach and influence
are what matter. And they are proving to be incompatible with the ambitions of young journalists
like Ezra Klein.
Dan Kennedy is an assistant
professor of journalism
at Northeastern University.