All news organisations have values. They are the biggest part of the organisation’s brand. Journalists need to uphold these brand values at all times.
Talk about branding is relatively new in the history of the news business. You did not hear much about it in the 20th Century.
But now, proprietors and executives are acutely conscious of the need to protect and enhance their news brand.
Although the language is new, the debate is as old as the industry itself. News providers have always understood the need to stand out in a competitive marketplace. And in the digital age, the competition is fiercer than ever.
Branding is just about making your news product distinctive and connecting with your audience.
And it is not just the high-ups who need to worry about it. It is crucial for the working journalists to understand their news brand and always act in support of it.
One way of thinking about this is to realise that your own news organisation – be it a newspaper, tv or radio station, website or social media outlet – does not really exist.
Don’t worry. It has not been closed down. It’s just that it doesn’t exist in the same way that real things exist. Things you can touch, like mountains, oceans, trees, buildings and people.
News organisations, by comparison, are concepts, things that exist primarily in the minds of people. They are ideas and ambitions and objectives that are turned into daily news products.
Above all, they are ideas about values.
Here are a few examples of how famous news organisations define themselves.
- The New York Times says: our values are independence, integrity, curiosity, respect, collaboration and excellence.
- The BBC says its editorial values include: truth and accuracy, impartiality and diversity of opinion, editorial integrity and independence, serving the public interest, fairness and privacy.
- CNN says its core values are: trust, respect, credibility, creativity, and objectivity.
In other words, the news organisation stands for something. It stands for values.The values are the core element of the news brand.
The idea is that through the brand values, you create an emotional connection with your audience. They start to trust you and you retain that trust by being faithful to the brand.
If you lose the connection by being unfaithful to the brand, you lose the business. The obvious conclusion from this is that the brand IS the business.
In the digital age, competition between news organisations is a battle of the brands. Each one is trying to demonstrate why it is different, better, special.
The battle is fierce and challenging because often the differences between the brands are subtle. Look at the three definitions, above, for example. How well do you think the New York Times, the BBC and CNN have succeeded in identifying unique identities and powerful individual brands for themselves?
There are other components of a brand, including visual things like logos, mastheads and advertising. But with news organisations, everything comes back to the editorial values.
When you are at work, you are a representative of the brand. Your news stories should all reflect the organisation’s values – and so should your personal conduct. Every day at work, you are an ambassador for the brand.
This is not easy. It demands a certain strength of character.
The editor of the dominant UK newspaper of the 20th Century, the Daily Express, said: “I want to spread the idea among the staff that this paper must comport itself with great sincerity in everything it does. We must never be defeatist in approaching the problems of sincere news presentation.”
He was referring to the fact that journalists work under pressure. They write about complex, sensitive and controversial matters and they are under constant pressure to meet deadlines. There is always the temptation to cut corners: to gloss over complications, to improve quotes, to massage the facts to fit the story you are trying to tell.
All of this may produce a more sensational, interesting and dramatic story – but it is not consistent with the brand values of a respectable news organisation.
The brand IS the business and the journalist is the ambassador for the brand.