It’s Not The Real Thing: Coke can have content but not Journalism

Some of the things we read in the papers is news. The rest – the majority – just looks like news. The best definition of real news was coined by Harry Evans, former Sunday Times editor: “Something someone somewhere doesn’t want you to hear. The rest is advertising”.

I’m often struck by how even very intelligent people struggle with the difference. The magazines on sale at WH Smith mostly fail Evans’ definition. Even a number of national newspapers have effectively withdrawn from the news business and are in a different category, a sort of halfway house called the content business.

According to research for Nick Davies’ book Flat Earth News, the level of PR led stories in national newspapers is running at around 54%.

To distinguish journalism from content, another term is used to describe what all journalists should do: Investigative Journalism. This term has been under scrutiny this week following the Newsnight saga.  David Leigh in The Guardian wrote this:

In the wake of the Newsnight catastrophe, people are now talking as if investigative journalism is just too difficult for the BBC to do. The wretched staff at the TV programme, having wrongly targeted Lord McAlpine as a sex abuser, are now suspended from the practice of the art, like a bunch of errant fourth-formers banned from the school chemistry lab.

Rod Liddle in The Sunday Times (via The Week)

 The BBC has a problem with investigative journalism – it doesn’t really understand how to do it, says Rod Liddle, a former editor of the Radio 4 Today programme, writing in The Sunday Times. It was true of the David Kelly affair in 2008, and it was true of the abandoned Jimmy Savile investigation and the “absurd” Newsnight report on 2 November which wrongly implicated Lord McAlpine in child abuse. “It does not do the proper checks; it is insufficiently rigorous,” says Liddle. “This is easy to change: put decent journalists in editorial positions, rather than the grey legions that run the place now.

It is depressing that the word ‘investigative’ is required at all and is a sign of failure of journalists to do their job properly.

One reason for this failure is economic.

According to the FT, the value of the Daily Mail & General Trust Plc (DMGO), which publishes the Daily Mail newspaper, dropped 10.4 percent in the last two years…Daily Mirror publisher Trinity Mirror Plc (TNI) slumped 42 percent and Johnston Press Plc, which owns more than 230 U.K. publications, fell 24 percent.

At a local level, the picture is even worse. Local councils go about their business in a vacuum and very few independent reporters are attending the courts, leaving the distribution of ‘news’ to police PR teams.

In to this vacuum enters Coca Cola, with a shiny new digital product. Coke Journey is, according to Ashley Brown, director of digital communications and social media at Coca-Cola:

“the most ambitious rethink of Coca-Cola’s web properties since we launched our first website in 1995″.

Brown told Brandrepublic:

“We want to make sure that as our brand becomes a publisher, we do so in the most beautiful and functional way possible.”

The relaunch features a cover story on Coca-Cola’s commitment to supporting schools in India; Coca-Cola’s chairman and chief executive Muhtar Kent’s offers ‘Five Keys to Innovation’, and there is an interview with NASCAR driver Danica Patrick along with more than 70 other additional original pieces of content.

Coke Journey is a site that aims to look as close to that of a good, well resourced newspaper as is possible. It has opinion and comment on important issues, sports interviews, features by named writers. In other words, Coke is producing stuff that looks a lot like news.

Clyde Tuggle, senior vice president and chief public affairs and communications officer at the company said:

“We are doubling-down on our commitment to be a quality publisher of compelling content. We hope Coca-Cola Journey will be a place where people will share their curiosity about the world, engage in stimulating debate, and find out what is at the core of Coke – our quality brands, our business, our people, and our ever-expanding commitment to social good.”

It’s a nice bit of positioning to be sure and ticks all the engagement boxes. Content is a legitimate area for Coke to play in.

But just as long as we’re clear. It’s not journalism. Branded content has blurred the line between news and advertising, running roughshod over Harry Evans definition.

It’s important that a line is drawn, and it feels like Coke Journey might signal where that line is.

There is no such thing as Brand Journalism.

Richard Gillis writes the Unofficial Partner blog. Follow him on Twitter @RichardGillis1

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