On clarity of writing, the purpose of journalism, and tronc

"Everyone will now be mobilized and all boys able to carry a spear will be sent to Addis Ababa.
Married men will take their wives to carry food and cook.
Those without wives will take any woman without a husband.
Women with small babies need not go.
Those blind, those who cannot walk or for any reason cannot carry a spear are exempted.
Anyone found at home after receiving this order will be hanged."
- Haile Selassie's 1935 Mobilization Order

UPDATE 6/18/18: tronc realizes its own ridiculousness.

Below is the internal memo former Tribune Publishing (now tronc) CEO Justin Dearborn sent to company employees on June 2. In it he's announcing a "rebranding" of Tribune Publishing into a "content curation and monetization company" called tronc (all lowercase). tronc stands for tribune online content. tr-on-c. The Tribune's motto used to be "World's Greatest Newspaper." It hasn't been great for some time now, but at least the phrase was aspirational. If nothing else it was a goal. What goals can we discern from Dearborn's memo?

There's "creating and distributing premium, verified content," which doesn't exactly stir the souls of journalists or readers. Whoops! I mean content creators and consumers.

Or how about "leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to create an interactive and customized user experience to benefit our 60 million monthly users"? Sexy, huh? God, it just makes me want to curl up on my straw mat by an electric fire, drink some kale juice and interact with my digital experience. Just like the old days.

And what of the name, tronc?

The thing from which it's derived isn't even worthy of capitalization, apparently. "tribune online content." Really we had to shorten that? And what's wrong with the words "Tribune" and "publishing?" That's what Tribune Publishing was – an electronic and print publishing company. That seems to be what it still is. Is the word "publish" so tainted by its association with "print" that it must be banished? Is the name "Tribune" so tied to a mediocre newspaper that … well, let's not pursue that line of reasoning.

As with so much in business today, this rebranding is just smoke and mirrors. They could have continued to call it Tribune Publishing and made the shareholders happy by saying they were going to fire more journalists and use computers to generate content, which is kind of what it sounds like TribCo is going to do. Why go to the trouble of digging through all those Kool & The Gang albums

to find the perfect retro font for the logo and the expense of hiring a consultant to program this Rube Goldberg strategy for getting information to people? Just issue a statement that says "To reduce costs and increase dividends to make shareholders happy, we are going to push the digital thing going forward. Eventually we hope to have mostly computers and just a handful of people producing information. Maybe someday it will be all computers. Please buy some of our stock. And an online subscription. And click an ad. Thanks."

That's at least way more to the point than this murky ramble Dearborn – or his AI doppelganger – produced. But murkiness is the investor relations person's friend. Using language for obfuscation, as opposed to enlightenment, is considered good business strategy. Unlike Selassie's call to arms after Italy's invasion of Ethiopia in 1935 – one of the clearest communications you will ever see – there is ample room for interpretation and debate over meaning and intent in Dearborn's memo.

And anyway the goal of Dearborn's note isn't to inspire journalists or entice subscribers. Its purpose is to comfort investors. Early in the trading day after the announcement, investors didn't seem comforted. Tribune Co.'s share price fell 3.4% to open trading on June 3.

I don't pretend to know how to arrest the decline of newspapers and other print media, and I don't know how to generate more advertising or subscription revenue. I think part of the problem with online advertising is that all the page takeovers, flash media and auto-play videos are supremely annoying. People refuse to click on them out of spite. Plus, not enough people are interested in what these pimps are selling. I don't want a personalized cloud technology recommendation from Microsoft and I'm not going to buy insurance from State Farm based on its blinking tower ad on the Tribune's home page. Maybe start charging people to comment on stories. That might work. You want to deposit your particular brand of snark and anonymous internet bravado at the bottom of the story about the Cincinnati Zoo mom? Pony up $1.

Meanwhile, I was struck recently by a prospectus from 1852 for a now defunct newspaper – the Frankfort Mirror. Note how the name clearly says what the thing is to be. Compare its aspirational tone with the rebranding memo below. I'd be interested to read your thoughts on the similarities and differences between them. And for now, Blogger won't even charge you $1 to tell me.

Internal memo to tronc employees from CEO Justin Dearborn:

Colleagues,

Today, I am pleased to announce another important step in our transformation – the renaming of our Company to tronc, or tribune online content. At our core, we remain a content curation and monetization company focused on creating and distributing premium, verified content across all channels. This rebranding acknowledges our important evolution as a company and captures the essence of our vision for the future.

Tribune Publishing has a proud history, with iconic brands that remain the core of who we are. But as we are all well-aware, the media industry is shifting rapidly, and the path to success requires an innovative new approach and a fundamentally different way of operating.

We are embracing this evolution with open arms and executing a transformation strategy focused on leveraging artificial intelligence and machine learning to create an interactive and customized user experience to benefit our 60 million monthly users. It has been a busy time – in just a few short months, we have already made significant progress, including:

Reorganizing the business into new operating and reporting units to increase transparency and drive corporate focus;

Launching troncX, our content curation and monetization engine, which combines our existing assets with new artificial intelligence (“AI”) technology to accelerate our digital growth; and

Partnering with Nant Capital and Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong to accelerate the transformation from a legacy news company to a technology and content company.

Renaming the Company is the logical next step in this journey and underscores our commitment to completely transform the business – and the industry – and to continue to best serve our readers and the communities in which we operate.

We will be communicating with you often over the coming weeks about the mechanics of the transition process. Importantly, this change does not impact the name of our proud and iconic brands.

As part of this announcement, we also announced that the Company will be transferring its stock exchange listing from the New York Stock Exchange to the Nasdaq Stock Exchange. tronc shares are expected to begin trading as a Nasdaq-listed security under the new ticker symbol “TRNC” on June 20. Nasdaq is the home to many other leading innovators and technology companies, providing the ideal platform for tronc shares.

Separately, you may have also seen that our Annual Meeting of Shareholders was held earlier today in Los Angeles. We are pleased to announce that shareholders elected all of the Company’s nominees. On behalf of the Board, we are grateful for the support of our shareholders, and look forward to continuing to serve their best interests as we execute our strategic plan.

Importantly, the majority of voting shareholders rejected Gannett’s symbolic, feeble and expensive withhold campaign. We cannot speculate as to what Gannett may choose to do as a result of this rejection, but the best thing we can do is to stay focused on the important work we have underway. I sincerely hope that the Gannett shareholders begin to express their displeasure to the Gannett Board regarding the corporate waste that has been perpetrated these past six weeks with their massive spend on this emblematic campaign. Gannet’s interest in our Company only reinforces the high value of our innovation and strategic vision.

This is an incredibly exciting time as we continue to transform our Company and industry. As we start this new chapter as tronc, I want to thank each of you for the hard work and dedication that has allowed us to create a better future for our Company.

Thank you for all that you do.

Best,
Justin Dearborn