In a multi-platform, multimedia environment, it’s difficult for a magazine to break the kind of news that will lead every cable broadcast, every newspaper and every website for hours on end. But that’s what the Rolling Stone profile (written by Michael Hastings, who is currently in Afghanistan) of General Stanley McChrystal did this morning.
But if you wanted to read that profile, rather than rely on a couple of pull quotes or the punditocracy? Tough luck: Rolling Stone didn’t even bother putting it online before they rolled it out. In fact, despite the fact that everyone else’s website led the profile, Rolling Stone’s site led with Lady Gaga’s (admittedly impressive) machine gun jumblies all day and didn’t even put the story online until 11:00 ET.
In the mean time, readers looking to get the full scoop did have an option other than their local newsstand: Politico had a downloadable file of the full article — likely provided to them by Rolling Stone for the purpose of getting press coverage of it — on their site until well after 9:00 ET, after which the file disappeared. Rolling Stone Managing Editor Will Dana said the publication of the reprint was unauthorized, but “there’s been no discussion” of legal action.
If print publications are going to keep committing suicide, they really ought to stop blaming the web. A guide to how to have the biggest news story and still lead to the death of investigative print journalism is after the jump.
1. Pay an investigative journalist with experience in the region to shadow the general in charge of executing our war in Afghanistan and get a piece that highlights the insular and insult-laden way he and his team deal with those atop the chain of command and consolidate the power of the military. Bonus points for details about how he spent his 33rd wedding anniversary partying with his staff in an Irish bar in Paris while his staff acted like jerks.
2. Publish the story and shop it to every media outlet under the sun because you realize that it’s actual news, unlike Lady Gaga’s machine gun jumblies.
3. Fail to publish even excerpts of the story on your own website, figuring that your promotion of the story will cause people to go out and buy the magazine.
4. Go to bed and sleep like a baby after the story hits.
5. Wake up to find out that Politico has published a reprint of the story you gave them, since you weren’t smart enough to put the story on your own site and despite the intellectual property violation.
6. Book CNN and MSNBC.
7. Have lawyers call Politico when they get into the office to demand that their violation of your intellectual property cease.
8. Appear on CNN and MSNBC.
9. Wait.
10. Publish story on your website, and link on Twitter. Don’t bother to include it on your front page.
11. Profit.
With additional reporting by Justin Elliott