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A ‘Real’ Journalism Opportunity
Posted by Imagination Blogger on July 09, 2008
A former co-worker of mine recently lamented that by working for a custom publisher, I, and others who have left traditional publishing, lost the opportunity to do “real” journalism.
His argument is that because I work for an agency with clients, every article I write or edit must meet our client’s approval. And as such, anything the client deems unfavorable to its overall marketing message, branding, positioning, etc., could be edited out, or worse, rewritten. “Real” journalism, on the other hand, allows writers and editors to publish freely, without the constraints of corporate approval or legal review.
In theory, I can see how his judgment has merit—if it were accurate.
For starters, this assessment of real journalism is rapidly fading. Just ask any of the veteran reporters at the Wall Street Journal about their new life under Murdoch. I doubt many would argue that their freedom to publish “serious journalism” hasn’t changed.
But aside from the changing landscape (or perhaps, decline) of American journalism, my experience with custom publishing at Imagination hasn’t been the “client censors all” situation my former colleague assumed. Granted, some of our publications are heavily influenced and edited by the client to fit a particular marketing message. But we also produce a number of thought-leadership publications, where the clients are interested in covering industry innovations, highlighting best practices, and creating conversations and debate about relevant topics in the field. With these publications, the clients aren’t concerned with promoting their latest widget, but rather, with informing and engaging their customers about the industry trends that matter to them.
For example, earlier this year I edited Leadership, a publication we produced for the Healthcare Financial Management Association (HFMA) that reached C-level executives within hospitals and health care systems. At no point did the magazine highlight all of HFMA’s membership offerings or events. Instead, Leadership explored industry trends and insights into providing high-quality, cost-effective care. With profiles on industry insiders such as Donna Shalala, former secretary of health and human services, and Paul O’Neill, former treasury secretary, Leadership started a balanced dialogue about politics and health care, and how the upcoming elections might affect the industry.
Our “real” journalism work also extends to Envisage magazine, a drug development and policy publication we produce for Quintiles. Through Envisage, Quintiles wanted to create a magazine that provides an unbranded, thoughtful vision of the future of biopharmaceutical research. (For a more in-depth overview of Envisage, go to our case study here.)
The magazine reaches an international audience of pharmaceutical and biotech executives, researchers, investigators, academics and regulators. Having this kind of access isn’t something Adam Istas, Envisage’s editor, takes lightly. As a result, he’s put together editorial calendars that delve into the social responsibility aspect of the biopharmaceutical market, as well as the commercialization, development and regulatory issues important in the industry.
Through both Envisage magazine and its Web site, I’ve had the opportunity to cover infectious diseases, such as malaria, tuberculosis and HIV, and non-communicable diseases such as diabetes and asthma, that affect millions of people in both third-world and industrialized countries.
For example, this month I wrote a Web article on tuberculosis and recorded an accompanying podcast with Dr. Mario Raviglione, director of the Stop TB Department at the World Health Organization. In the podcast, Dr. Mario spoke about the ways the pharma industry has both addressed and ignored tuberculosis, a disease that affects one-third of the world’s population.
Back in my “real” journalism days as a hard news reporter, I wrote about shootings, school board meetings and city hall votes that affected thousands of people in a metropolitan area. Now, I have the opportunity to reach the pharma execs who can develop therapies for millions, possibly even billions, of patients worldwide. If that’s not “real” journalism, I don’t know what is.
Tagged with: custom publishing, journalism, magazines, newspapers, pharmaceutical
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