TBD or Tampa Bay Times, the name doesn’t make the brand

The St. Petersburg Times is planning to rebrand itself as the Tampa Bay Times.

Here’s the primary reason I think you shouldn’t waste time, energy, focus and money rebranding a newspaper: Print newspapers are a declining business, and news organizations should spend time, energy, focus and money on building a successful digital business for the future, not trying to rebrand the product of the past.

I’m a longtime fan of the St. Pete Times and the Poynter Institute, the non-profit organization that owns it (and depends on Times profits for its prosperity). I wish the Times well in its rebranding effort. I hope it reaps in great profits that fund growth of Poynter’s programs.

However, I think MediaNews Group (my colleagues in Digital First Media) made the right decision in reversing a move toward a regional brand, retaining the established local brands, including the Oakland Tribune, a name with a long and distinguished history.

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Some other editors of the year (or any year)

I can be a bit of a scold to colleagues, exhorting editors to move more boldly and swiftly into the future.

As an industry, newspapers have been slow and clumsy at innovation. But a lot of editors do outstanding, innovative journalism (as well as outstanding traditional journalism) and I would like to recognize some of them. I was honored today by Editor & Publisher, named Editor of the Year. As I explain in a separate post, I was surprised by the honor, not out of false humility but because I truly am no longer an editor.

While I am honored by this recognition, I do want to make the point that many editors are deserving of such recognition. Dozens, if not hundreds, of editors serve their communities honorably, elevate the journalism of their staffs and pursue innovative solutions, even in these trying times.

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Objectivity and neutrality aren’t the only ways to protect journalists’ credibility

Journalists have never been able to keep our opinions and biases out of our work. Nor should we.

Our job is to report the important, interesting and relevant news of the nation, the world or our communities. And, if we’re honest, we have to admit that important, interesting and relevant are matters of opinion.

We work hard to find and report the facts. But finding and reporting those facts requires an endless series of decisions: Which tips to pursue and which to ignore; when we have enough verification to confirm a fact;  how reliable a source is; which facts to include in a story and which to leave out; which facts come first and which come last; which stories lead the newscast or run on Page One ; which stories to keep following and which are worth one shot. Each of these decisions reflects an opinion. Only we don’t call them opinions; we call them news judgments.

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