These days war seems to reach us through the back doors of culture, long after Dancing with the Stars shows even more bodice and yet another reality show offers the next cadre of ginned up beauties who scratch their way into the popular imagination. This is pumped up tribalism at its campiest and probably best described by animal imagery or better yet, cartoons. I can think of no better presentation of the pain in our national psyche than the cartoons of Matt Wuerken, of Politico, who just won a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartoons. Of the twenty cartoons offered on Politico to celebrate this amazing achievement, my favorite is the one asking cartoon subjects to raise their hands if they think we are involved in too many wars. Everyone does, of course, including the politicians and peaceniks. The heavy-burdened soldier also raises his hand but apparently does not have a vote. On a street corner not far from my house, small, competing war and anti-war groups ask motorists to honk their approval. They have been drowning each other out for about ten years.
We do our best to deny war and its consequences. After all, only about 1% of the population has direct involvement in our military campaigns. Most media outlets don’t have the time, money or resources to explore “our terrible love of war” and its consequences. And the public is weary. These realities make the Huffington Post’s receipt of the Pulitzer Prize for National Reporting on war all the more noteworthy. Senior Military correspondent David Wood wrote a ten-part series, “Beyond the Battlefield,” examining the effect of war on the seriously wounded after they return from battle and on their families.
Enough will be written about an online news service winning this prestigious award after only seven years. It represents an enormous breakthrough. Most print publications would not have the stomach or the space for this kind of coverage. More than any account I am aware of, Wood has captured the physical and psychic cost of war, a story told with restraint and compassion from inside the families. Every American should read this series that grows in importance as the drumbeat for a war with Iran grows louder.
War has long been a part of America’s mythology—and politics. Whether one has served in the military doesn’t matter much now in a quest for political office. The last time military service seemed to be an issue was when George W. Bush was running for president and his service in the Texas National Guard came into question. Dan Rather of CBS put the issue in the national spotlight on a 60 Minutes broadcast September 8th 2004, providing documents that cast doubt on Bush’s service. The documents were attacked by conservative bloggers as forgeries, and twelve days later, CBS issued as retraction. Dan Rather apologized on the Evening News and six months later would leave the network. John Kerry, a genuine Vietnam hero, would be savaged by the Swift Boat crowd as a fraud and a phony and would lose a close election to Bush.
That might have been the end of the story. Dan Rather, ever ferocious in his reporting, wanders the world for HDNet, chasing a variety of stories. Sometimes I watch these reports, marveling at the tenacity of this eighty-year-old warrior who still thinks CBS caved due to pressure from the Bush family.
Rather might take some comfort in the Joe Hagan’s current Texas Monthly story, “Truth & Consequences,” that takes a fresh look at the Bush Texas National Guard years, an effort helped by the availability of new documents and less reticence on the part of observers now than Bush is out of office. This is a fascinating account and underscores that long-form journalism is alive and well. This piece is worthy of a National Magazine Award, at least.
Hagan does not come to any definite conclusions but sketches the intricate, complicated, shifting mosaic of Texas politics. Whether or not Rather got snookered by fake documents or a plant from a political operative, as the Texas Monthly coverage makes clear, the story was always about the chummy, clubby, back-scratching nature of Texas politics and how these influences found their way into appointments to the National Guard and government in general. Rather and his producer went for the smoking gun when the whole state was on fire and very smoky.
As Hagan points out, there are enough holes in Bush’s account of his Guard tenure to drive a tank through—my term. Did the elder Bush intervene to get his son in the Guard when he was three months away from being drafted and the Tet Offensive still resonated in the national consciousness? Once in, why did he stop flying? Why was he allowed to take a leave from duty to work in a political campaign? Why was he collecting pay for Reserve duty when he didn’t seem to be on base or even in the state? These issues remain important because they raise serious questions about Bush’s elaborate political narrative or fiction. And what will his Presidential Library say about these years when for a time he seemed to be missing in action?
But as Hagan notes, this might be as much about privilege as anything else. Many of the sons of the Texas wealthy and powerful found a home in the National Guard: Connolly, Bentsen, Bush, the grandson of oil tycoon H.L. Hunt, and members of the Dallas Cowboys. Maybe Bush was just lucky to win a spot in the coveted 147 Fighter Interceptor Unit known as the “champagne unit,” which was destined to keep the local Gulf waters safe for democracy.
I recall President Bush landing on the aircraft carrier USS Abraham Lincoln on May 1, 2003. He announced that the mission in Iraq was accomplished under a banner bearing the same words. We all owe a debt of gratitude to the Huffington Post, Texas Monthly and Politico for not allowing our wars to become fictions, photo ops or mere video games.
And as a veteran, I salute you.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Device Elitism
Is publishing's obession with the Kindle and the iPad elitist? That is the question posed by Publishing Perspectives (http://publishingperspectives.com/2011/04/publishings-obsession-kindle.ipad-elitist/
Edward Nawotka writes that " Recently I have heard several digital publishers across Latin America and South East Asia argue that the ongoing obsession with Kindle and the iPad is shortsighted at best, elitist at worse. These publishers feel that the readers in their nations, be it Columbia, India or Indonesia are just as avid consumers of digital reading material as those in other nations, but the high cost of the Kindle and the iPad make them inaccessible to most consumers. This, as well as an outright lack of content, means coming up with an alternative distribution strategy. Typically, this means focusing on devices that the vast majority of people already own or are likely to continue owning in the future: the simple feature phone. The phone is cheap and nearly ubiquitous all over the globe. Could focusing on developing for feature phones--or at least channeling content through an appropriate API--offer a greater number of people, not all of them in rich nations, greater access to the world's intellectual wealth?"
In a tablet-giddy age this is a brave thing for Mr. Nawotka to say. Speaking from a magazine perspective, I don't think the focus on the tablet, for example, has anything to do with elitism. In my opinion it has much more to do with the prevailing magazine business model. Although the larger US magazine publishers in particular have vowed to generate more of their total revenue from content, most still get 70-80% of their revenues from advertising. Thus the need for a screen size, rich color display and functionality that would offer a high CPM universe for prospective advertisers and a sticky space for consumers. And to date consumers seem to be spending more time in a magazine app than in the print version. Advertising on the tablet shows enormous promise but one wonders what happens when device manufacturers provide the opportunity to measure user analytics in the softwear. Adobe/Omniture has hinted at this or more than one occasion.
I think it a little one-sided to downplay interest in the iPad outside the US and Europe. The tablet is becoming very popular in China, for example. Nonetheless, we cannot underestimate the importance of the feature phone, the smartphone and the "superphone"--these devices exist along a continuum as consumers increasingly demand more features and functionality. We need to address the content needs of the more than 1.5 billion mobile phone users worldwide.
It might be easier to develop premium content units or templates for a range of mobile devices in countries outside the US, at least in the beginning. In most regions, including Europe, publishers generate much more revenue from content than from advertising (There are some exceptions, including Italy). While the publishers in question are no less interested in brand integrity than their brethren in the states, they have a long history of repackaging and mashing up content, as does the long tail of mid-size and independent publisher in the US.
The German magazine Focus has reported some success in selling high-value, article-level content through Google's One Pass. Given the abundance of mobile devices there is no reason a similar article-level approach that includes personalization, location-based features and relevant context could not be developed for the increasingly sophisticated mobile device. Viyya Technologies, a New Jersey-based company, is developing such a business.
Such an approach to mobile content distribution would not only be good business; it would be consistent with current dynamics in the device and carrier eco-system. At the end of the day even the finest premium content is still, well, data and therefore a predictable, scaleable revenue stream.
Edward Nawotka writes that " Recently I have heard several digital publishers across Latin America and South East Asia argue that the ongoing obsession with Kindle and the iPad is shortsighted at best, elitist at worse. These publishers feel that the readers in their nations, be it Columbia, India or Indonesia are just as avid consumers of digital reading material as those in other nations, but the high cost of the Kindle and the iPad make them inaccessible to most consumers. This, as well as an outright lack of content, means coming up with an alternative distribution strategy. Typically, this means focusing on devices that the vast majority of people already own or are likely to continue owning in the future: the simple feature phone. The phone is cheap and nearly ubiquitous all over the globe. Could focusing on developing for feature phones--or at least channeling content through an appropriate API--offer a greater number of people, not all of them in rich nations, greater access to the world's intellectual wealth?"
In a tablet-giddy age this is a brave thing for Mr. Nawotka to say. Speaking from a magazine perspective, I don't think the focus on the tablet, for example, has anything to do with elitism. In my opinion it has much more to do with the prevailing magazine business model. Although the larger US magazine publishers in particular have vowed to generate more of their total revenue from content, most still get 70-80% of their revenues from advertising. Thus the need for a screen size, rich color display and functionality that would offer a high CPM universe for prospective advertisers and a sticky space for consumers. And to date consumers seem to be spending more time in a magazine app than in the print version. Advertising on the tablet shows enormous promise but one wonders what happens when device manufacturers provide the opportunity to measure user analytics in the softwear. Adobe/Omniture has hinted at this or more than one occasion.
I think it a little one-sided to downplay interest in the iPad outside the US and Europe. The tablet is becoming very popular in China, for example. Nonetheless, we cannot underestimate the importance of the feature phone, the smartphone and the "superphone"--these devices exist along a continuum as consumers increasingly demand more features and functionality. We need to address the content needs of the more than 1.5 billion mobile phone users worldwide.
It might be easier to develop premium content units or templates for a range of mobile devices in countries outside the US, at least in the beginning. In most regions, including Europe, publishers generate much more revenue from content than from advertising (There are some exceptions, including Italy). While the publishers in question are no less interested in brand integrity than their brethren in the states, they have a long history of repackaging and mashing up content, as does the long tail of mid-size and independent publisher in the US.
The German magazine Focus has reported some success in selling high-value, article-level content through Google's One Pass. Given the abundance of mobile devices there is no reason a similar article-level approach that includes personalization, location-based features and relevant context could not be developed for the increasingly sophisticated mobile device. Viyya Technologies, a New Jersey-based company, is developing such a business.
Such an approach to mobile content distribution would not only be good business; it would be consistent with current dynamics in the device and carrier eco-system. At the end of the day even the finest premium content is still, well, data and therefore a predictable, scaleable revenue stream.
Tuesday, December 8, 2009
Geo-Fencing
A few years ago a publishing friend in Sao Paulo, Brazil said his company enjoyed zero newsstand returns. I assumed this was no more than acceptable bravado. After all, I had been arguing that the U.S. soccer team actually stood a chance against Brazil.
My friend didn't really sell every copy put out at retail. He just collected all "unsolds" and stashed them in a warehouse on the outskirts of town. "Fire hazard," is what I thought when eyeing the million-plus magazines reaching to the roof of a well-managed and spacious warehouse.
His plan was simple. He would distribute old magazines, usually with no cover date or price, to parts of the country that had not been exposed to articles about the "Ten Ways to Enjoy Brazilian Wines." That, by the way is a joke at the expense of my Brazilian friend who forced me to actually count all those stored magazines. Or he might re-issue the magazines with new covers putting, as it were, old wine in new bottles.
And why not? Brazil has huge swaths of land that have not been blessed with a traditional distribution system presently clustered around Rio and Sao Paulo.
Anyone who has been involved in international publishing knows the above story varies by degree in other developing countries or nations in transition. I've seen instances in China, India and Russia where publishers sell dated magazines outside the major metro areas. The old-fasioned doctrine of "scarcity" still works in some places. Yes, the local black market might have some skin in this game.
What happens when distribution systems in other nations become more mature, and these options are less viable?
At the recent OMMA Mobile conference in Los Angeles there was considerable talk of mobile applications at retail. In a way this was refreshing as there was less emphasis on the Jesus iPhone and more attention to the bottom of the puchase funnel. A number of speakers addressed mobile's ability to "geo-fence" around retail, including loyalty programs and CRM data. Ikea and JC Penny seem very advanced in reading scans with mobile phones.
TechCrunch reported on December 6, 2009 that "Google had mailed out window stickers with two-dimensional bar codes (aka QR codes) to the most searched for or clicked-on businesses in its local business directory. Anyone with a QR code reader in their phone can scan it to call up a Google Mobile local directory for one of these favorite places." Just wave your iPhone in front of the bar code and get all the necessary information about a local business.
As location-based mobile marketing becomes more sophisticated and coupon scanning more ubiquitous, retail businesses, including magazines, are likely to be transformed.
As for my friend in Brazil he plans to put all back issues of his million magazines on mobile devices.
And the U.S. is going to win the upcoming World Cup.
My friend didn't really sell every copy put out at retail. He just collected all "unsolds" and stashed them in a warehouse on the outskirts of town. "Fire hazard," is what I thought when eyeing the million-plus magazines reaching to the roof of a well-managed and spacious warehouse.
His plan was simple. He would distribute old magazines, usually with no cover date or price, to parts of the country that had not been exposed to articles about the "Ten Ways to Enjoy Brazilian Wines." That, by the way is a joke at the expense of my Brazilian friend who forced me to actually count all those stored magazines. Or he might re-issue the magazines with new covers putting, as it were, old wine in new bottles.
And why not? Brazil has huge swaths of land that have not been blessed with a traditional distribution system presently clustered around Rio and Sao Paulo.
Anyone who has been involved in international publishing knows the above story varies by degree in other developing countries or nations in transition. I've seen instances in China, India and Russia where publishers sell dated magazines outside the major metro areas. The old-fasioned doctrine of "scarcity" still works in some places. Yes, the local black market might have some skin in this game.
What happens when distribution systems in other nations become more mature, and these options are less viable?
At the recent OMMA Mobile conference in Los Angeles there was considerable talk of mobile applications at retail. In a way this was refreshing as there was less emphasis on the Jesus iPhone and more attention to the bottom of the puchase funnel. A number of speakers addressed mobile's ability to "geo-fence" around retail, including loyalty programs and CRM data. Ikea and JC Penny seem very advanced in reading scans with mobile phones.
TechCrunch reported on December 6, 2009 that "Google had mailed out window stickers with two-dimensional bar codes (aka QR codes) to the most searched for or clicked-on businesses in its local business directory. Anyone with a QR code reader in their phone can scan it to call up a Google Mobile local directory for one of these favorite places." Just wave your iPhone in front of the bar code and get all the necessary information about a local business.
As location-based mobile marketing becomes more sophisticated and coupon scanning more ubiquitous, retail businesses, including magazines, are likely to be transformed.
As for my friend in Brazil he plans to put all back issues of his million magazines on mobile devices.
And the U.S. is going to win the upcoming World Cup.
Thursday, July 10, 2008
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