In business, a Chinese wall is an information barrier that separates one part of the company from another. In newspapers, there's a Chinese wall between the journalism part (the newsroom) and the business part (advertising), and usually also the opinion part (the editorial page). Outsiders generally don't understand this, but left hand really doesn't know what the right hand is up to, and what's more, often don't want to know.
I was thinking about that the other night when listening to a live stream of a conference at CUNY in which Journal Register chief John Paton said every one of his #jrc newspapers will cover its newsroom costs this year with digital revenues.
How many journalists know their newsroom's budget? How many know their company's digital revenues? This information isn't passed around openly (and no, I'm not going to reveal any Morris numbers; I'll leave that to Derek May).
But ignorance of this information leaves journalists to guess, and often guess wildly wrong, then build towers of assumptions on these bad foundations. Ever wonder where dumb, self-defeating ideas come from? Now you know.
The oldest, deepest, most basic human emotion is fear. The worst fear is fear of the unknown. So in these uncertain and turbulent days of change for newspaper companies, we shouldn't be surprised that many working journalists, lacking any signals to the contrary, despair for the future of their profession.
Run this equation:
(Don't over-think this. Don't argue that print production costs shouldn't be counted. Just do the calculation. It's a barometer. It can predict fair skies and storms pretty well.)
I've seen papers perform from the 20s to 200. If you're in the middle, you should at least get a glimmer of hope that there is a sustainable future for local journalism in a digital world. In the worst economy in our lifetimes, you're covering your newsroom costs!...
http://www.yelvington.com/content/gateways-chinese-wall
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