Jeff Bercovici: I'm joining DailyFinance!
Filed under: Media
Hi, folks. Prepare to see a lot of me around these parts. Starting June 1, I'll be part of the DailyFinance team, writing about the media industry, a beat I've covered for most of the past decade as a reporter and blogger.I'll be looking at the big, existential questions facing media companies: What will it mean to be a newspaper or a broadcast network in 10 years? Is there a way to get consumers to start paying for content they're used to getting for free? Can the norms and ethics of traditional journalism flourish on the web? Will "integrated" advertising (i.e. product placement) spread from entertainment programming to news? And lots more.
I'll also devote plenty of pixels to the personalities and controversies that make this such an exciting beat to cover. When David Geffen makes his next run at The New York Times, I'll tell you whether the Sulzbergers should accept his offer. If Maureen Dowd commits another act of accidental plagiarism, I'll be her personal ombudsman. And anytime Rupert Murdoch does anything at all, I'm there.
I also plan on breaking news in this space from time to time, if only to give my fellow bloggers something to write about. If you have tips or suggestions, I hope you'll email me at Jeff AT DailyFinance DOT com.
A little about me: I spent most of the past two years writing the Mixed Media blog on Portfolio.com, the website of Condé Nast Portfolio magazine, which shut down in April. Before Portfolio, I covered media, entertainment and politics for the pop culture magazine Radar (another victim, sadly, of the great magazine recession). And before that I reported on media and advertising for the trade newspaper WWD, where I wrote a daily column, "Memo Pad."
These are fascinating times to be covering the business of media -- depressing, yes, and more than a little scary for a journalist who hopes to be gainfully employed for the next few decades, but fascinating all the same. Incremental change in the publishing, broadcasting and information industries has given way to wholesale retrenchment and desperate innovation.
Fortunes will be lost and made; new values will succeed old verities. DailyFinance is your front-row seat to it all. Come back often.
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Reader Comments (Page 1 of 1)
5-21-2009 @ 5:07PM
Ron Mwangaguhunga said...
Good, cause Bercovici withdrawl would have been tough.
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5-21-2009 @ 9:30PM
Kevin Matthews, ArchitectureWeek said...
Congratulations, good to see you here, and looking forward to your coverage. As a voice from the magazine journalism business online, I'll say don't skimp on pointing your spotlight in our direction!
From the shiny side of my screen, it seems like the journalistic media business overall is caught in an industry and culture-wide version of the classic crossing-the-chasm travails that accompany classic technology adoptions. Here, the primary transition is from the paper platform to the Web platform.
Media readers are acting as the innovators, having largely moved online, while the ad agencies and advertisers are acting as the conservatives, continuing to spend (as adjusted (devastating) for the great recession) for ads on paper almost as if the world hasn't changed. Still resisting moving their inventory online, while print publishers generally dither in the middle.
The world has changed, and I know you'll have plenty to write about it!
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5-21-2009 @ 4:11PM
Amey said...
I'm thrilled to welcome Jeff to the team. Not only will he provide great insights into media developments for our readers, but he's going to give us great insights for shaping DailyFinance as a site. No doubt, he'll make sure that the future of journalism on the web is best represented right here at DailyFinance.
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5-21-2009 @ 4:31PM
Todd Pruzan said...
Jeff, from one Portfolio graduate to another: welcome aboard! Portfolio was lucky to have you, and so is DailyFinance. We couldn't be more thrilled to have you on the team, and we're looking forward to working with you.
Reply
5-21-2009 @ 4:42PM
Anthony Massucci said...
Jeff,
Welcome aboard!
Looking forward to meeting you and excited for
the future at DailyFinance.
-Anthony
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5-21-2009 @ 4:50PM
Andrea said...
Yeah, welcome.
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5-21-2009 @ 6:15PM
diane stefani said...
Congrats Jeff. Glad you found a new home for your incisive reporting without missing a beat.
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5-22-2009 @ 9:39AM
Jennifer Owens said...
what, no folio: first day?! Great news on the gig!
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5-22-2009 @ 12:12PM
John Harrington said...
Jeff - Congratulations. You've been doing one of the best jobs on media issues, back since we first had contact when you were at Media Life. Would you like to be receiving The New Single Copy, our weekly newsletter about publishing and publishing distribution?
Let me know.
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5-22-2009 @ 10:28AM
Andrew P said...
Jeff,
Congratulations on your new position. Looking forward to your future coverage. You couldn't have a better colleague to work with than Amey.
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5-22-2009 @ 10:43AM
Jeremy Greenfield said...
congrats, jeff. good luck.
- jeremy
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5-23-2009 @ 7:05PM
Meg Weaver said...
Jeff, congratulations! I was slugging through this week's magazine news for our Magazine News newsletter and saw the happy announcement. It made my day. Meg Weaver, Wooden Horse Publishing, http://www.woodenhorsepub.com
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