Time to be smart, not a smartass

HedgeFundFlouting convention has its uses. An outrageous image can provoke debate, prompt action or, at a minimum, win attention. And all those things are vital to any media organization in our infoglutted age. When so many magazines vie for notice, after all, it takes a lot to grab a reader’s eye on a crowded newsstand, stand out in a towering mail pile or merit a crucial split-second’s notice on a computer screen.

But does that mean sacrificing taste? Sure, Penthouse gets a second glance every time. But will that translate into lasting buzz or just a dismissive, “ah, there they go again?” Does a magazine want to be known as smart and sassy or as juvenile and sassy? What happens to the “smart” when a puerile cover image sullies the book’s impact?

So this brings us to Bloomberg Businessweek. There’s no question the magazine has done impressive work since 2009, when McGraw-Hill sold BusinessWeek after thinning its journalism ranks over several financially troubled years. One would expect no less than excellence from Bloomberg, the preeminent business-news operation of the day. A friend who toils abroad for the news service points out that BB won the 2012 National Magazine Award for General Excellence – the magazine world’s equivalent of the Pulitzer Prize — something the magazine hadn’t done since 1996, an earlier time of superb journalism at BW.

InfidelityBut one must wonder whether BB has won despite some of its new approaches, rather than because of them. Much of the reporting and writing remains superb – its economic coverage, for instance, has won awards from the Society of American Business Editors and Writers, and I know from serving as a judge that the work was best in class. Some of BB’s contrarian ideas, fleshed out well in text that intelligently challenges conventional wisdom, are compelling. At its best, its work is as good as the best material BW was known for over decades, work that won 10 National Magazine Awards in various categories from 1973-2008, all before the latest general excellence prize. BW and its staffers won a slew of other prizes for foreign and domestic work over those years, too.

MatingJetsThe risk for BB is that its drive to be edgy, particularly in its cover imagery, could easily thrust it over a cliff’s edge. It could all too easily slip from provocative to prurient, as it has at times already. Disturbingly, the distance from smart to smartass is not all that great.

Already, the editors have had to apologize for the art in a cover piece. They ran a smart housing story, only to have its impact undercut by racial insensitivity in the cover art. At best, the drawing seemed goofy anyway.Housing

BB today, like BW before it, does have to distinguish itself both in its journalism and in the artwork it uses to make its points. And, as my friend from Bloomberg points out, the magazine has been recognized for its design successes by such outfits as Britain’s Design and Art Direction. Apparently, though, what caught the eye of folks at D&AD was one of the more elegant covers, which used a stark and simple photo of Steve Jobs. This seems a case of BB earning recognition for being classy rather than déclassé. That’s something any editor should feel proud of.

JobsBB has had some impressive successes. It has held onto 4.7 million readers worldwide when so many others have lost the readership battle. It can draw on the work of 2,300 journalists in 72 countries, a couple thousand more journalists and support staffers than BW ever had. If it is to keep up its record of success in readership and influence, the book should work to be known for top-flight economic and business coverage and high-quality artwork that makes the coverage come alive. This is its inheritance, its bloodline. The editors shouldn’t be weighed down by the magazine’s stellar list of alumni and their work as they sort out what to put in the book each week, what imagery to adorn its cover with. But, if they do pause for a second to consider the book’s distinguished history, they might feel a useful nudge in the right direction.

What do the editors, staffers and art folks want the book to be known for anyway? What do they want their legacy to be? Flout convention, sure. Be provocative. Kick up dust. But do it with style and intelligence. A little grace can carry you a lot farther than an adolescent smirk or an unwelcome dollop of snark.

How much are your ethics worth?

Hookerscartoon“Would you sleep with me for $25?,” the man asked the woman he had just met. “No!,” she said indignantly. “Well, how about $500?,” he responded. “Mmm,” she said. “Well, let me think about that.” Then he said, “how about $250?” Her furious answer: “What do you think I am?”

“My dear, we know what you are at this point,” he countered. “Now, we’re just negotiating price.”

This old story came to mind as I thought about the $38 undercharging episode I went through last night. My daughter, son-in-law and I bought several items at Target and the clerk told us the sum, which seemed low. My daughter questioned the figure, but he insisted all was right. So we went on our way.

Later, we looked at the receipt and, sure enough, he undercharged us by $38, apparently failing to scan a board game we bought.

So, what do we do? Return to the store and, possibly, get the clerk in trouble? Rationalize our windfall by grousing about how much Target has made on us over the last few months (the equivalent of a small country’s GDP)? Do we say to ourselves, “well, the game was absurdly overpriced anyway?”

Or, do we just take malicious joy, savoring the illicit thrill of getting away with something?

theftI was reminded of a couple incidents that, for decades, have stuck with me. First, when I was a kid, my aunt and I passed the candy bin in a grocery store and she filched a few chocolate malt balls or some such treat. When I asked whether that was stealing, she came up with some cockamamie rationalization for why it was okay. It didn’t seem right to me then and doesn’t now.

I shared this story with my daughter and son-in-law. I also thought, “what kind of example do I want to set for them? How do I want them to see me?” Since they are both lawyers whose job requires a high-minded sense of ethics – a sense they have anyway — the questions were especially sharp for me.

On the flip side, I once went into a shop with a friend and, when I told the counterman he had undercharged me, my friend asked me: “So, are you new to this country?” Only someone hopelessly naïve would not try, at every turn, to get away with whatever he could. Property is theft, right? And isn’t that the American way?

After we got home and played our board game last night, it was past closing time and too late to return to the clerk. But, as I awoke this morning, the undercharge was eating at me. It just wasn’t right. Those malted milk balls weren’t free. And I didn’t want my kids to look on me in an ugly light, whether the sum was for $38 or $3,800. I didn’t like feeling guilty. Right direction

So, this morning, I popped in on the Target. The clerk, a different fellow than our cashier of last night, said most people wouldn’t bring up such an undercharge. Sadly, that may be right. Indeed, I did have to suppress a twinge of feeling foolish, a sense that I was the altar boy who never grew up, the Boy Scout whom others scoff at for being oh so righteous. I even thought, “well, I’m just a middle-class guy who, thankfully, can afford to do the right thing. How different things would be if I were just scraping by, like so many others do.”

Still, I know who I am. My kids do, too. That’s well worth $38, wouldn’t you say? It would be worth $3,800 or $38,000.