Huffington Magazine Issue 84 | Page 37

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.