Matthew Rose: 'Media Companies Are Increasingly Influential to People's Day-to-Day Lives'
The Wall Street Journal reporter says that the media industry "leads the national conversation in many significant ways" and is therefore an important area to cover despite accusations of naval gazing.

By Patrick Phillips
I Want Media, 07/16/03

Matthew Rose, staff reporter of the Wall Street Journal, has covered publishing for the leading newspaper since 1999. The Brit-born journalist was a tech reporter for the Wall Street Journal Europe in London before moving to New York to report on newspapers, magazines and other media subjects.

Rose spoke with I Want Media about several media topics, such as how the Internet and bloggers contributed to a "hothouse atmosphere" at the New York Times, why the shutdown of Talk and Rosie magazines were not "significant industry stories," and why media reporting is "insanely competitive."

I Want Media: An article about media reporters in Us Weekly's special Fashion Week publication this year described you as a "hottie." Would you agree with that assessment?

Matthew Rose: [laughter] What you've got to remember is that they said I'm the "hottie of the bunch." I think it's less indicative of my own personal characteristics and more perhaps of the group [of media reporters] as a whole.

IWM: What's the big media story right now?

Rose: If you are talking about the big media companies -- AOL Time Warner, Vivendi Universal, that sort of behemoth category -- the obvious question is about what does it mean to be that size and is there any point to being that size?

I think they are grappling with that question right now, which is what does amassing a collection of assets do for you? Why is it of value to investors and what are the benefits to owning properties across different platforms? I don't think anyone knows the answers because there is no clear pattern emerging. But that's the big question.

IWM: What about in the world of publishing?

Rose: There have been many problems in the magazine industry during the last couple of years, such as with the newsstand and advertising. But if you look at some of the big stories, they have mostly been little scandals, like the Rosie O'Donnell spat or Talk [magazine] closing.

IWM: Those are "little scandals"?

Rose: Well, big scandals. But in the grand scheme of things they are not significant industry stories. They are big deals when they happen, but they come and go and leave no lasting effect. There are no obvious trends emerging in the way people are doing business. They are just surviving hand-to-mouth.

IWM: Why is that?

Rose: The economy. It's bad, mostly. It's the economics of the business. There are long-term problems which have to do with how magazines are sold on newsstands and how to get subscribers through direct mail, which is nitty-gritty kind of stuff but incredibly important in terms of how people do in the business.

IWM: One recent article about the problems at the New York Times had said that top editor Howell Raines departed "just as another shoe was about to drop in a Wall Street Journal story by Matthew Rose." Whatever became of that story?

Rose: Yes, I read that too.

IWM: Did you have a major exposé in the works? Was it ever published?

Rose: I can't really talk about any stories that we might do or haven't done. I think it's not appropriate. But a good question.

IWM: O.K. What is your assessment of the recent turmoil at the New York Times?

Rose: It seemed to be a kind of crunching combination of two separate issues. Both of which stemmed from Howell Raines's personal management style.

One was making the paper speed up its response to the news, which either is or is not a good thing, depending on which side you're on. But it's not necessarily bad.

And the other issue was the way in which he centralized the day-to-day management of the paper in a very small group of people. Adding to that was the idea that he had favorites, which has been fairly well-documented. If you add all those things together, it was a cocktail for making lots of people very unhappy.

I don't think I'm saying anything particularly novel here. The [Jayson] Blair situation and the [Rick] Bragg situation -- which in and of themselves were significant, clearly -- shed light on the bigger problems the paper had internally. Then it all came flooding out. It was amazing the speed at which it happened. And once it started it just didn't stop.

IWM: Why do you think it happened so quickly like that?

Rose: There has been commentary about how the Internet and bloggers brought down Howell Raines, which is an absurd notion. Romenesko was clearly a repository for a lot of disgruntled people and brought a lot of information out into public view.

But the idea that bloggers, because they had been railing against the Times, suddenly got Raines fired strikes me as totally ridiculous. The real driving force behind the story was what was going on inside the newspaper. It was a very complicated story. There were so many factors, from management to race to the history of the Times ...

Maybe what the Internet did do was to speed things up. There was endless commentary all the time, every day, with people posting stuff online. It was a hot house atmosphere to begin with. Maybe the Internet turned up the heat a little bit more.

IWM: What's your take on the appointment of Bill Keller as the new executive editor? Is the New York Times finally ready to heal? Or will problems continue to beset the paper, given the lengthy correction it published on Monday?

Rose: As we said in yesterday's paper, Keller's appointment was warmly greeted by most at the Times. My guess is that it signals the beginning of the end, as he seeks to restructure the management on the news side, presumably taking on board whatever the Siegal committee [an internal panel examining newsroom practices] says at the end of this month. You're right, though, that Monday's correction is evidence of how rebuilding confidence in the paper is going to be a challenge.

IWM: What is the most challenging aspect of your job?

Rose: It's insanely competitive.

IWM: Who are your major competitors?

Rose: Everyone. The most direct key competitors are the [New York] Times, Post, Daily News, the trades, the [New York] Observer. Not necessarily in that order.

And that's just for starters: Every newspaper in the country has someone who will occasionally write about media. Even the glossy magazines ... GQ recently did a profile of [Time Inc. editorial director] John Huey, and Vanity Fair did a big article on Rosie O'Donnell and her magazine.

IWM: Is there a growing interest in media among the general public? I mean, why would general-interest publications cover media subjects?

Rose: I once saw a number -- I'm going to make it up, I don't recall the exact figure -- but it was something along the lines of the fact that the amount of gross domestic product created by media companies is equal to the steel, coal, and farming industries added together.

Media companies are huge. They employ thousands and thousands of people and create what millions of people watch, see and do, every single day. The industry leads and influences the national conversation in many significant ways. So, in that sense, it is incredibly important, and deserves the coverage. Media companies are increasingly influential to people's day-to-day lives.

We used to have one reporter in the late '80s covering what eight or nine people cover now -- publishing, entertainment, TV, film, radio ...

Sometimes you can get too far down in the nitty-gritty of who said what to whom, and whether this editor likes that editor. And the general public doesn't care about that. But in the broad stretch of things, it's a huge, influential industry.



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