Lee Abrams Is On To Something

Jen: Portfolio's Jeff Bercovici covered the Dow Jones/Nielsen Media & Money conference (we are owned by Nielsen) and button-holed Tribune Chief Innovations Officer Lee Abrams. Abrams answered questions about the reaction he gets to his goofy memos and if he considered changing course with his communications strategy. 

Tribune's innovations chief was in New York to speak on a panel along with Wall Street Journal Managing Editor Robert Thomson. During the session about turning old media profitable, Abrams said something that caught our attention at Fitz & Jen. According to Bercovici, Abrams thinks a government bailout of the newspaper industry is a "terrible idea."

So does E&P, keep reading: 

Our sharp-eyed editorial writer and co-author of this here blog wrote about the "leaky logic" of a government bailout of newspapers in the September editorial. "There's no reason to believe bureaucrats would do any better picking winners and losers among newspapers," wrote Fitz.

As newspapers struggle through this downturn, its no doubt tempting to go hat in hand to the government and the idea is gaining some traction from newspaper notables like Frank Blethen and Geneva Overholser.

As Abrams might write: FOOD FOR THOUGHT ... newspaper publishers shouldn't grovel in D.C., Uncle Sam's purse comes with lots of strings. Think BIG!!!!! FIGHT BACK! RETAIN YOUR TURF.

It got me thinking about this old WWII movie with John Wayne, we can get out of this fox hole ... Steve Perry puts it best: DON'T STOP BELIEVING!!

Comments

[brooks]

You may want to have a look at our pro/con article on Debatepedia on this topic of bailing out journalism. There are many arguments for sure. We try to structure them a little better. Thanks for the blog post.

http://wiki.idebate.org/index.php/Debate:_Should_governments_subsidize_journalism%3F#Con