It’s been a big week for ‘personal brand journalism’, following star policy blogger Ezra Klein’s departure from the Washington Post.
The title of Klein’s declaratory post on the Verge seems to trail off mid sentence, no ellipses and no noun to indicate what is to come. A lack of clarity, a technical fault or a tantalising hanging sentence to generate column inches?
The pioneer behind the Washington Post’s popular Wonkblog is shacking up with Vox for his new ‘personal brand journalism’ venture which will seek to “…build and continuously update a comprehensive set of explainers”, and he’s attempting to transfer his loyal readers with him. Klein was described as a ‘wunderkind’ twice in his departure statement from The Post, adding to the mystique of his personal brand.
As we previously noted in our blog, just as brands now create content in an attempt to engage with their audience, content creators are now brands in their own right. We built NewsWhip Creators in order to track the biggest personal brand journalists generating shares on social media.
While there’s not much evidence to suggest that it’s a financially rewarding shift so far, emphasis seems to be moving from the company to the individual for some high-profile journalists. Klein certainly isn’t the first reporter to strike out on his own. He joins a recent spate of notable departures including Nate Silver (from the New York Times) and Glenn Greenwald (from the Guardian), both of whom will see sites launched this year.
Personal brand journalism has risen in tandem with the success of socially optimised advocacy sites, such as The Blaze and Think Progress. Both publish content which is subjective in its nature – generating more comment, debate and ultimately more clicks. Our social publishers rankings shows the viral success that many of these publishers have been enjoying in recent times – could the new ventures promised by the likes of Klein see similar success?
In the constantly evolving landscape of digital media, that remains to be seen.
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