journalism: the short-term weapon

“Media is just a word that has come to mean bad journalism”

— Graham Greene

If, among all sectors, there is one that has suffered more changes since the advent of Internet, that is information and journalism. But, on the contrary, think about how media recently has become one of the main weapons used in the new cold war. During the days before the invasion, for instance, American secret services started the so called “infowar”, which consisted in anticipating possible Russian moves by publicizing them openly in order to defuse them — and it worked, at least for a while. As they say: knowledge is power, and it is true nowadays more than ever. Furthermore, it is undeniably accurate to state that no culture in history has ever had our same widespread access to information, though it is even more true that such an extensive asset needs an equivalent amount of tools to be kept safe. 

The noble mission of journalism, as we knew it in a not too distant past, remains a prerogative of a chosen few worldwide. A collapse that has fresh roots, starting in the 1950s with the arrival of television, but precipitating at the dawn of the new millennium, facing one of the fastest market declines throughout any product category ever recorded. Of course we are talking solely about the newspaper industry, while alongside the new digital equivalent made its rapid way as a substitute, rewriting the rulebook of the game. 

Certainly the spreading of individual blogs started the trend that has lead to the actual state of art, where audiences no longer reach out to established broadcasters to build an opinion, but too often turn to privates for exclusive information reflecting their very own positions. 

Most experts agree that the first blog was links.net (still active), created in 1994 by then-student Justin Hall as a place to publish his writing. The site consisted entirely of brief posts, each one sharing a link and some of his thoughts about the content within. This compilation of links included links to websites he liked, as well as his own work. If we look back to this early stage of self-narrative, it feels almost impossible that an individual voice could build larger audiences than established news groups. 

The massive advance of social media platforms shortly after drastically accelerated the trend, even leading to the recent birth of Instagram-only news media profiles, led by professional journalists, sometimes counting hundreds of thousands of followers and daily readers: numbers unknown to nowadays’ newspapers. But how did these ones cope with the dramatic crisis? As mentioned earlier, just a handful survived really, remaining truthful to themselves and to their primary calling, while the vast majority had to sell its soul to bits and pieces in order to survive, losing its independence and therefore its trustability. And good journalism is all about trustability. When we think about independent journalism, we think - among few others - about The Guardian, who describes itself like this in the about section of it’s website:

We're reader funded

The Guardian’s independent, high-impact journalism is powered by its global readership. In 2020 alone, more than 1.5 million readers supported us financially. It’s thanks to this generosity that we can provide quality, trustworthy reporting that’s open for everyone to read. With no shareholders or billionaire owner, we can investigate and challenge without fear or favour, and amplify stories that need to be told. You can show your support for our work today, in whichever way suits you best.

The Guardian is one of the most respected sources worldwide, also thanks to the fact that they are one of the few honest observatories for climate change-related news. This said, it is crucial to remember that the British news company also is the number one followed Instagram profile of its sector, with 5.1 million followers: a rapid growth that made a huge leap during the years of the pandemic, where audiences were in bad need of trustworthy sources of information, increasing from 860 thousand in 2018 to 4.4 million in June 2021 (the publisher’s account recorded over 57% year-over-year growth in 2018). 

But as mentioned earlier, it is an uneven battle. These 5.1 million followers turn to The Guardian because of its 200-year-long history of high quality journalism, though Instagram-only news profiles born just five or seven years ago count disproportionally huge audiences. @so.informed, for example, (and we are talking here about a wonderful editorial format), which deals with a different topic in each post, has 2.9 million followers. That’s the (digital) press, baby!

The Guardian represents just one of the few examples of how information stays intact throughout both structural and cultural changes, but not many share its fortunate fate.

And in the era of action, the brand’s role in this collapse has been more than marginal, preferring to either stand by and watch or taking over media companies for personal gain. Brands have largely underestimated investment in the information business, too often choosing to feast on the corpse of newspapers on the brink of bankruptcy, distorting their purpose and transforming them into digital media companies. 

Not only, though. 

Brands have also played a benevolent role in a few cases, taking a declining industry by the hand, and guiding it through difficulties, finding new solutions to keep them afloat. Let’s take news kiosks, for example: journalists aren’t the only ones that have suffered the revolution in the business, but also suppliers and related enterprises. Furthermore, for some cultures, the kiosk’s role wanders beyond the mere selling of newspaper, also representing a crucial landmark in a neighborhood’s life. This is the case in many European countries, for example, where news kiosks have gone from imminent death to an interesting rebirth also thanks to the intake of brands. Two examples are, on the one hand, the partnership with large-scale retailing, that made kiosks partial suppliers of daily products such as groceries, but also delicatessen and higher price-range goods; on the other hand the exquisite sponsorship by Louis Vuitton for Venetian historical kiosks (within the inauguration of the latest Biennale), relaunching their aesthetic and combining the sale of newspapers with branded city maps.

But one brand specifically did even more, bringing an iconic magazine back to life in its original form, with its light-pink colored paper. Which, if you think about it, is astonishing being 2022.

Founded in 2001 in the Netherlands, BUTT magazine has been a reference point for queer spaces and presided the performative and artistic scenes of those years, always making use of top-level photographers, starting with Wolfgang Tillmans. As well as in bookstores, it was to be found in American Apparel stores and it soon became a cult object for fans. BUTT has been praised for its unabashed sexual and non-sexual portrayals of men, which emphasize equal opportunity in depictions of all people in print. But its luck ended in 2011 when it ceased publication, leaving a painful void behind in that particular niche. 

Only this spring, after ten years from its last appearance, the magazine founded by Gert Jonkers and Jop van Bennekom had its comeback, sponsored by Kering-owned Bottega Veneta, whose Creative Director Matthieu Blazy curated the edition. 

Bottega Veneta is not new to this kind of human touch to its campaigns, having freshly celebrated the “Bottega for Bottegas” project: an act of solidarity with 12 Italian bottegas from across the country, to shine a light on the work of the traditional artisans that have made the fortune of Italy, from Krumiri Rossi biscuits and Pastificio Martelli pasta to Orsoni ceramics and Amatruda paper. 

There’s one word that represents Italian excellence in the world: Bottega. 

This Holiday Season, Bottega Veneta stepped out of the spotlight  to give other Bottegas the stage. 

The Bottegas took Bottega Veneta’s place everywhere.

Putting themselves aside was not only generous, but quintessentially represented what audiences would like to see their favorite brands doing.

The BUTT operation is another piece of the human-based mosaic Bottega Veneta is composing in order to create a stronger relationship with its audience, working on a compelling tone of voice on the one hand, but at the same time fixing its positioning with a unique determination on a precise niche. Taking a magazine that was characteristic of the American Apparel stores is a tough gamble for a brand like Bottega Veneta, which has always been traveling on diametrically opposed communication lines. Again the role of the creative director has once more shown its relevance, following a trend that has crossed the fashion industry as a whole. 

Information is urged to become human again, as called out during the latest World Press Freedom Day promoted by UNESCO on May 3rd, who named this year’s topic “Journalism under digital siege”, referring especially to Russia’s interferences on Western media, but not only. Brands have the chance to play a big role in this, if they accept to give a selfless contribution to the free press, adding this particular segment to their activism in the interest of audiences worldwide. Giving back voices to minority communities is a brave choice that needs continuity also on a larger scale: quality journalism needs funding; think about the role of on-field reporters during the  conflict in Ukraine. How many fake news promoted by Putin’s government have been smothered by pictures taken and chronicles written by journalists who have put their own life at risk for the sake of truth? Investing in human witnessing to receive first-hand information is not only crucial during war time, but can be decisive in any area of interest, instead of relying on unreliable sources or random social media accounts funded by god-knows-who. 

Quality, in journalism at least, is necessarily tied to a human factor. Investing in quality press means investing in people and humanity. Just to give you an idea, search Wikipedia for “List of defunct newspapers of the United States”, you will be surprised by the length of that list. And in disambiguation you’ll find many more for your own country, if you need some inspiration. 

And if you are worried that a brand owning a newspaper could pose a threat to the independence of that source, then take a look at how Amazon-owned Washington Post has dealt with the news of the first trade union born inside an Amazon factory. Spoiler: Washington Post was awarded the 2022 Pulitzer Price in Public Service.  

Let’s make newspapers and magazines our responsibility again. Activism you can browse can play a big role in your community. As British playwright Tom Stoppard once said: “If your aim is to change the world, journalism is a more immediate short-term weapon.”

this article appeared on human brands observatory July 4th 2022