At a time when scores of top journalists are bailing out of traditional media and leaping on the digital train, Walter Isaacson is one of the few who can say, "Been there, done that." A Rhodes scholar, Isaacson established a career in newspapers before joining Time magazine in 1978, where he worked his way up to assistant managing editor. His well-received 1992 book Kissinger: A Biography was adapted for a cable-TV movie. In 1993, he left Time to become editor of Time Warner's New Media business. That didn't last long. We caught up with Isaacson on his final Friday afternoon way up on the executive's floor of the Time & Life building in New York. He was tossing out papers and other leftovers from his two-year New Media stint. Come Monday morning, he was to report 10 floors below as Time's new managing editor.
Wired: You got a round-trip ticket to the world of digital media. Now that the trip's over, I'm guessing you're glad to be going home.
Isaacson: I'm not getting away from new media. Time has got to be on the forefront of the digital revolution.
Your Kissinger book shows a lot of personal style; it's written with a strong voice and a sharp point of view. But even some of Time's writers have said the magazine muddies their point of view, kills opinions and panders to the lowest common denominator. Lack of opinion and pandering do not win in the digital age. Do you aim to tackle these problems as managing editor?
Time has to be a sharply intelligent magazine, with analysis and opinions based on common sense, not political prejudices. I'm in the process of hiring writers who have sharp voices and editors who know how to encourage analysis. Avoiding the muddle of group journalism is also a challenge. And it's going to be a high priority. I'm eliminating a layer of editing. Most front-of-the-book news stories will now have just one editor.
As a journalist, how do you view the fact that Time Warner may be getting too big to be understood?
Now that I've moved to Time, I view Time Warner as a news story that I'm going to cover, not as a company I speak for. Time covered the Turner deal in a cold and sharp way. And its coverage of the Warner Music rap lyrics controversy was tough as well.
Is there a danger that Time Warner will treat you as just another business? Are you wary of media concentration in your own back yard?
All media are becoming more diverse; people now have more sources, and the Net assures that concentration is the least of all worries. There is no monopoly on voice. And we at Time are very well shielded from interference from the business side of the company.
What did you think of Time's coverage of the "porn on the Net" issue, when the magazine based a rather sensational cover story on an erroneous study?
The method of the study was flawed and should have been put into better perspective.
What is the role of a general-interest weekly in a country glutted with news - one that will soon have up to four 24-hour cable news channels?
When Henry Luce invented the news magazine, his prospectus said: "At a time when people are being bombarded daily with more and more headlines and more and more information, they are, ironically, becoming less informed." That's even more true in the digital age. When you're swamped with information and you have 1,000 different sources for each piece of data, you look to certain brand names and a certain type of journalism you trust to make sense of it, to be your intelligent agent, to sort it out.
What was the original vision behind Pathfinder, and is it succeeding?
Pathfinder began as an umbrella for a variety of Web services we wanted to create. In the end, what we have is just like what's in any of the popular online services: a great package of material put together in a coherent way, with old and new brand names. The big difference is that it happens to be on the Web rather than on some proprietary technology.
With 60 to 70 employees, is Pathfinder's cost structure too cumbersome for a start-up? Will there be a break-even point any time soon?
It's easy to see how these services will make money. Already, there are lots of advertising dollars. But I believe we not only can but should create premium services that users will pay for. If you are not creating a product users value, then you're not creating any value.
Let's talk about Time Warner's interactive TV service in Orlando. I went down there (see "People Are Supposed to Pay for This Stuff?", Wired 1.04) and concluded that people don't really want to interact with their TV in a meaningful way.
We're a content company at heart. It doesn't matter to me if the content is used on a TV, a PC, a toaster oven or a personal digital assistant.
Why did you take the New Media job in the first place?
The digital revolution offers the most exciting challenge to journalism since the invention of television. Because since then, everything has been broadcast. Now it's no longer mass media; it's personal.
What specifically are you doing to make sure that Time leads this digital revolution in journalism?
You'll see Time working on new projects that will provide daily, up-to-the-minute journalism using the Net as a mechanism. On Pathfinder and on the news area on CompuServe, it won't be just the magazine dumped online every Sunday night. You'll see Time Daily use wire feeds and news analysis from our reporters. We're hiring additional people to do that.
Isn't it true that paper, to journalists, is more prestigious than bits?
Online journalism is in its infancy. We started doing it at Time Warner three years ago. We started printing the magazine 73 years ago. I assume it won't take another 70 years for digital journalism to have the same impact.
Evan I. Schwartz (evan@cis.compuserve.com) is a Boston-based contributing writer for Wired. He wrote "How to Get a Web in Advertising" in Wired 2.02.