We know one thing about the new executive editor of AOL.com: he&'s not afraid to prevaricate, or at least to parrot his bosses.
Stephen Bromberg, formerly the editor of Foxnews.com, told Mediabistro.com soon after he took that job in 2004 that neither the cable channel nor its Web site was meant to appeal to &''any specific conservative or liberal audience.&'' And: &''I think that our viewers and our readers clearly have an interest in fair and balanced newsa4‚¬¦&''
That he ran editorial operations for the Web site of a propaganda network, of course, doesn&'t mean he&'ll do the same at AOL.com. Before Foxnews.com, Bromberg worked for newspapers (for a long time &''at a Gannett paper in the suburbs,&'' according to Business Insider, meaning the suburbs of New York.)
And Foxnews.com is much more of a news site than Fox News is a news channel. The site runs a lot of straight wire copy, for example, and much of the repurposed television material and original Web content is presented in straight-ahead, traditional fashion. ‚ (The nutty stuff is saved for Foxnation.com). The site is far less garish and ugly than the cable channel, too. There is nothing to indicate that AOL is joining the Tea Party by hiring Bromberg.
Forbes&' Jeff Bercovici reported last week that AOL.com has set a goal to double traffic to its homepage. A &''potential overreach,&'' says Bercovici. A &''pretty insane goal,&'' says Business Insider&'s Jay Yarrow. Insane, indeed, especially if the goal is to double homepage traffic before the warm weather comes, which apparently is the idea since the program has a codename: &''Winter Luge.&''
Luges, of course, speed downhill fast. Bercovici notes that AOL&'s homepage visits are up in recent months, after a year of declines. But he wonders whether &''increasing homepage visits ought to be a priority given AOL&'s other stated goals of diversifying its sources of traffic and finding new audiences for its many content Web sites other than readers who get there via links on the welcome screen.&''
In other words, homepages of &''portals&'' are increasingly irrelevant a4‚¬a4œ just ask Yahoo.
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Companies: aol.com, Fox News, News Corp
People: stephen bromberg
Companies: aol.com, Fox News, News Corp
People: stephen bromberg
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