Jason Taylor, president and general manager of the Chattanooga Times Free Press, described himself as “sort of a mad scientist,” experimenting with one thing after another in real time. Morris Publishing executive James Currow said he is trying to make a clean break with the industry’s old (and accurate) image as “mature, declining and stagnant.” Dallas Morning News Publisher and CEO James Moroney said he particularly fancied one of keynoter Rishad Tobaccowala’s aphorisms: “Embrace the blur.”
I like the mental image associated with “embrace the blur” and Rick Edmonds does an very good job in his post of summarizing how it reflects the evolving mindset of newspaper publishers, or at least the newer, younger, more forward-leaning ones speaking at the annual NAA conference.
Just don’t Google for more details on what Rishad Tobaccowala really means by the phrase. He’s PR rather than editorially oriented and, based at least on what he says in his blog, his prescription for newspapers would abandon much of what the public still values from real journalism – kind of a throw-out-the-baby-so-you-can-fill-the-tub-with-fizzy-water approach.
So let’s all just agree to steal the metaphor for a more constructive approach to multi-platform storytelling that actually has a future.