Romenesko's dog days

Jim Romenesko’s media news site -- once considered an edgy, gossip-heavy addiction for journalists, but now in the post-Gawker world seen as a virtual oak tree of old-time journalistic restraint and standards -- has taken some hits lately, including this body blow from an apocalyptic Howell Raines. The deposed New York Times executive editor brands Romenesko as, yes, just another print-bred dinosaur, one who doesn't quite get that the online revolution he helped usher in will eventually push him to the side as well.

Then the site's redesign launched this week. The New York Observer's Matt Haber compared his reaction to the awkward moment when you realize an acquaintance has had her breasts done. Gawker itself asked simply, “Is this the end of our hero? Eh.” Media theorist and NYU professor Jay Rosen Twittered: “Re-designs are hard, first reactions unreliable. But Poynter’s new design leaves Romenesko lost in a sea of type. Hate it.” He elaborated in another tweet: “What I meant is that on all four sides the site wants to zip me away from Jim’s space.”

Rosen was on to something. It seems the site’s very popularity became an issue. Romenesko is owned by the Poynter Institute, a nonprofit, Florida-based school that trains journalists and promotes journalistic and media integrity, and the biggest audience on the Poynter site is Romenesko's. You can’t blame Poynter for trying to leverage its one star to benefit the site as a whole. As Poynter Online's director, Bill Mitchell, explained in an e-mail:

Romenesko is the most popular page on Poynter Online, and we heard from some users that they had difficulty finding his page from elsewhere on the site. That prompted us to include ROMENESKO in the main navigation across the top of pages. To encourage traffic in the other direction, we included on Jim’s page the same functionality to access content by most recently published, most e-mailed, etc.

Romenesko himself added, over the phone:

People complain that Poynter is trying to move them off the site. And they are -- our stats show that the majority of people go to my part and don’t move off of it, and obviously we want people to explore the other parts of the site. ... There’s Al’s Morning Meeting which has a TV focus, but I think it’s of interest to all journalists. I think it would be great if my readers found him too.

I also like the new conversations that we’ve added to the new design. There’s a Romenesko conversation going on there now, a new chat board. People can post, and I post items and readers are welcome to respond or start something new. There’s so much there, really, there are columns by the faculty and staff... Poynter Online is more than Romenesko, although my ego would want to think it’s not.

Poynter's Mitchell has assured readers that he's listening to the criticism and will make changes (e's already increased the headline sizes). And it's true that every redesign is hated at first. Still, with its busier page, this one is going to take some getting used to -- on a day crammed with other things to do, you really just want that sense of urgency and focus that Romenesko (like any good blog) delivers.

But there are knottier problems for Romenesko. He's been criticized, bizarrely, for continuing to post the overwhelmingly bad news that spews forth from journalistic quarters. Blogger Justin McLachlan noted a “backlash against the industry-wide death rattles he seems fond of publishing.” He concluded that the younger generation of journalists were turning away from the site. And he railed against Romenesko for not offering some solutions himself: “The news business is collapsing around us, mostly because people like Romenesko sit around wringing their hands and lamenting what was instead of innovating the way we do our jobs and the products we create.”

On the phone, Romenesko sounded perplexed by all the shoot-the-messenger stuff:

Some days are depressing. There was one day in particular that it seemed all I was doing was posting about layoffs, budget cuts and buyouts, and so on. But I think I have to do that. I can’t ignore it when a newsroom shrinks by 25%. I can’t look away. Some readers complain that it’s all gloom and doom. I read on Twitter that some people are boycotting my site because they say it’s too negative. ... Of course Twitter allows only 140 characters, but the sense I get is that they don’t want to read the negative. People will post my link and say, "Warning, it’s a Romenesko link, enter at your own risk." But you know, it's a historic time in the business and I think I have to document it.

Even in the good times, journalists tend to be constitutionally negative and grumpy, obsessed with gradations of status in their perpetually embattled profession. With his quick reactions but sober, almost clinical approach, Romenesko has always been their perfect pulse-taker. The current story of journalism is not pretty -- and neither is the Poynter redesign -- but we need him to keep telling it, and we should keep reading.

-- Maria Russo

Comments

[tim]

Romensko is great but the rest of Poynter is as shockingly dull, dimwitted and misguided as a junior-high civics class or a Dilbert corporate retreat. It constantly amazes me that an outfit capable of being a shining beacon dedicates itself to this warm, fuzzy, theoretically high-minded baloney. Never any practical advice or knowlege, just "rethinking" and "raising issues" -- yuk