Newsrooms Grapple with Appropriate Level of Personality

Well, interestingly, to us, some media watchers see it as part of a larger and evolving media universe. One is William Powers, who recently wrote a piece called "The Personality Test" in his column for The National Journal. He joins us from Boston.

William Powers, why don't you first explain what you mean by personality?

WILLIAM POWERS, The National Journal: Well, what I was talking about, Jeffrey, was the idea that, in this vast product launch that CBS was doing last night, they were participating in a grand experiment that's happening across the media today, which asks the question, can you sell news with personality?

Personality was the key product being launched last night, Katie Couric's personality. And we tend to think of this as a network commodity, but it's actually something that's happening all across media, as all these competing news outlets struggle for audience. There are millions, literally, of news outlets now, if you include the blogs. And personality is just a crucial factor in the sales job.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, start with last night. What did you see? Put it in terms of your thesis on personality.

WILLIAM POWERS: Well, it was all about Katie, obviously.

I mean, the months-long run-up and the listening tour that she did, and really the show itself, it was very much, how is Katie going to do? And they were attempting to deliver the news to us and to draw us as viewers on the wings of personality.

And, if you watched it, you know it was an enjoyable show from that perspective. It was a lot of drama in whether she was going to pull it off. She did pull it off, I think, basically. As many critics noted today, there were some flaws.

But I think the longer-term question is, in this day and age of so many news outlets, and this explosion of the media all over the place, where we all have so many choices, can one personality, or a personality- driven product, like "The CBS Evening News," really draw in the kind of audience the network news traditionally has drawn for decades? And the jury is still out on that.

WILLIAM POWERS: Right.

JEFFREY BROWN: ... but with all other kinds of new technology and changing behavior among audience, right?

WILLIAM POWERS: Right. Exactly.

I mean, personality, broadly defined, it's not just about the movie star qualities of someone like Katie Couric. Under the heading of personality, I would include such things as ideology. You know, people who are very ideological, pundits who appear on TV, on cable and so forth, have big personalities.

And there's an assumption in many corners of the media today, that the more personality you use in the product, the more you're going to draw people, the better your numbers, and the more you're going to succeed.

I argued in the column -- and I actually feel personally that there's a fallacy there -- that, long range, I think personality bumps up against a limit, and that people, many people, are driven away by too much personality.

The best evidence is cable, cable news, which has never approached the numbers of the networks, and perhaps never will. And, on cable, it's a more personality-driven product.

JEFFREY BROWN: So, then, it becomes calibrating the right amount of personality.

WILLIAM POWERS: Exactly.

And that's what's fascinating to me in this experiment on CBS and beyond CBS, the idea that people are attempting to adjust how much personality people want. How much should we should we foist on them, in an attempt to draw them in?

And it will be interesting to watch, for example, the Katie experiment. How much will she lean on her personality? How much will the show lean on her personality? How much will they bring in other big personalities to help sell the product? We have already heard about some of the commentators being big-brand names.

And we will see. Will people be drawn to it? I think, you know, there's a lot of doubt, in my mind, that it will work, again, because people have so many questions. And many of the options open to us now, including wire stories on our computers, blogs, are less personality driven.

And, for many people, including me, that's very attractive. I think a little personality goes a long way.

WILLIAM POWERS: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: And we have done stories about newspapers in trouble that are trying to figure out how to reach people with a particular local personality.

What do you see media doing to break out of the mold?

WILLIAM POWERS: Well, they're all taking different approaches. I mean, if you look at the blogs, there are blogs that are basically subject-driven blogs, blogs where it's all about the news happening in a particular city or on a particular topic or within a particular profession. And the person doing the blog perhaps injects a little bit of personality around the edges, but it's not about that person.

And, at the other end of the spectrum, there are blogs that are completely personality-driven. There are blogs that are all about attitude, whether it's sarcasm or jadedness, you name it. There are just blogs of all stripes. And, across that spectrum, I think you see this dynamic happening.

At the moment, the personality-driven blogs are getting, like Katie Couric, a lot of attention. But I don't know what kind of staying power they're going to have. I do think that the news-driven blogs, the blogs that let the story be the main story, for me, have more staying power.

And interestingly, you know, in the network tradition, the network news tradition, that was how it worked. That's the Walter Cronkite tradition. It wasn't mostly about Cronkite's personality. It was about the story. He injected himself very rarely into the news. And people liked that. And maybe we're living in a different culture now, and times have changed. I think this Couric experiment will tell us.

JEFFREY BROWN: Well, that's what I was going to ask you.

I mean, presumably, CBS did all kinds of testing in...

WILLIAM POWERS: Yes.

JEFFREY BROWN: .. bringing Katie Couric out, as do all the networks. So, they must be finding that people want this kind of personality to put forward in their newscasts.

WILLIAM POWERS: They do.

You know, I think people are sort of trained by entertainment, by the shows they watch, the reality shows, you know, whether it's "The Amazing Race" or "Survivor" or whatever, to want these personalities sort of looming large in their lives. And, perhaps, when they answer questions like that about the news, that's what they say.

But I really think, in terms of integrating the news into our lives, and having a daily diet of keeping up with what's happening in the world, I think, again, too much personality can become overwhelming and fatiguing. And, really, you want to move away from it. There are options that are much more appealing to a lot of people, you know, public radio, this show.

You know, there are so many less personality-driven news outlets that have followings. And I think those -- that following is going to grow for a lot of those outlets. And I'm not sure that the personality-driven model, which I think is part of what is CBS is doing, we have only seen one day of it, so, you know, we can't say for sure -- but I think that model may be flawed.

JEFFREY BROWN: All right, well, thanks for the plug. And we will all keep watching.

JEFFREY BROWN: William Powers...

WILLIAM POWERS: My pleasure.

JEFFREY BROWN: ... thanks a lot.

WILLIAM POWERS: Thank you.