MediaPost Discredits its Own Article

MediaPost –  in a piece that boldly proclaims “WSJ.com Winning Formula: Target Female Readers” – manages to do something FishbowlNY thought was impossible: Say absolutely nothing with lots of words.

The article references recent female-friendly subjects in the Journal – such as the infamous Tiger Mom piece – as proof that the paper and website are reaching out to women.

Aside from the fact that there are only three articles to back up this claim (three articles out of thousands isn’t exactly a trend), the author repeatedly refutes that they’re totally female-centric:

It didn’t hurt that they also courted controversy by touching on hot-button issues, such as race, gender relations, and teen sexuality.

Okay…

On one hand it played to the grievances of some female readers, but was also guaranteed to provoke interest (and no small number of indignant responses) from male readers.

Male

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