Two essays about watch media's funding crisis prompted my annual rant. Adams wants brands to fund independent journalism. Remontoir wants collectors to pay. Both are making moral arguments in a system governed by incentives. Here's why neither solution works - and what might actually be viable.
Never not a fascinating read. I think one among many relevant points you make is that conflict-of-interest-free consumer journalism never existed in the first place. I used to work in advertising and even back in the days when print was king, advertisers and publications were joined at the hip – I remember one camera journalist who said that when he started his first job at a photography magazine, he was told, "We have one big rule here: no one says anything bad about Leica." You have the power to be critically sharp in consumer journalism to the extent that there are no negative repercussions – even in the pre-internet print days, major advertisers could and did threaten to pull advertising if they didn't feel they were treated respectfully. The power media had historically to be honest, was that the big publications had big audiences and absent the Internet, they had tremendous power in terms of how brands looked to consumers. There was never a golden age when objectivity was ubiquitous. I love reading snarky restaurant reviews – AA Gill is just one example of a restaurant critic who was a master of of the form – but the truth is, a single restaurant has almost no leverage in terms of pushing back against a negative review.
The closest example I had to your advertising gig which disallowed negative commentary on Leica, was when I lived in LA and worked in a prop house renting props to the film and TV industry.
One of our clients was Playboy Magazine who would use our props for various photo shoots. We had one occasion where a few months after renting out props for a specific setup, they came back and asked to have every single item packed up and sent off for a re-shoot.
We asked why they were redoing the shoot, and I heard that they had already shot the Playmate of the Year photo shoot but at the corporate level, there was some maneuvering to change the model selected.
I heard that at the corporate levels, it was decided that Anna Nicole Smith, rather than the woman who had been selected by "fans", was to bePlaymate of the Year. She had been featured in one month of Playboy and also had begun a campaign with Guess jeans, but alas was not the fan favorite that year.
The corporate plan we were told, was to prop her up as the PMOY with a symbiotic campaign by both Playboy and Guess planned to raise her visibility for the benefit of both companies. The rest is history.
All this to say that if you can't trust the voting process behind Playboy Playmate of the Year, it proves that nothing is sacred, and you can't trust the system when they tell us about their favorite Watches of the Year, GPHG winners, etc.
LOL truly, if an American institution like PMOY is suspect, what hope does watch journalism have 😂 . I will say that over the years I have found "my favorite watch of" (insert year) stories to be generally honest, most editors welcome a chance to support what they really like without having to wonder about strategic considerations, even if like Christmas it comes but once a year. I was on the GPHG jury for three years running and I will say, although the entire selection process has its well known problems, at least the debate over what should win was always vigorous and as far as I could tell, reasonably honest (reasonably).
Oh, man, this is exactly the sort of thing that makes me cough up a little bit of my savings for a subscription!
To a great extent, the answer to the questions asked here depends on what the reader is seeking. If they're looking for nothing more than a series of "introducing the new [x] limited edition" or whatever, then places like Hodinkee or ABTW are sufficient; anyone older than age four knows those "articles" are lightly edited press releases. They're also okay if you're looking for occasional interviews with WatchWorld bigwigs, and are willing to live with the fact that every word those bigwigs speak has been carefully massaged by a battalion of PR minions. (Okay, with the occasional but delicious exception of a certain Mr. Stern, whose uncensored eruptions provide morbidly fascinating glimpses into the mindset of the mega-wealthy class: Let the peons wear Tissot!) And, of course, if you're looking for thoughtful, insightful essays from people who care deeply about watches and are highly knowledgeable about WatchWorld and its wares, there are sites like this one, and Mr. Forster's.
But what I would love to see, even though I agree with you that it's probably impossible, is a sort of Consumer Reports for watches. Not to critique the design or style of the case or dial or bracelet; those things, in all but rarefied cases, can very easily be assessed in person by an interested potential buyer. But instead to point out real problems, in a credible, systemic manner that's more reliable than the anecdotal stuff that comes out on Reddit etc. Things like the hand-setting problems with Oris's early in-house movement run. Or the problems with the co-axial escapement early on in Omega's incorporation of it. Or the apparent reliability issues that (maybe) plagued early UN Freaks and many of the HYT movements. The one thing that all of those problems have in common is that I didn't read about them anywhere I consider reliable until months or even years after they occurred. At which point they're useless except as retrospective "damn, I sure am glad I didn't buy one of those" moments.
And the only thing that makes this lacuna tolerable is that for the most part, watches work as they should, right out of the box, and keep on working that way year after year. Over all my years, I've only had two that were problems that way, which is an acceptably low percentage.
Well as far as the Freak goes, one of the first watch dinners I ever went to was for the Freak launch in New York, and Rolf Schnyder was quite frank about the problems with the early series production of the Freak ... he said, "The first time mine stopped for no reason I did what any watch guy would do" and mimed shaking it 😂 ." there's a reason the original Dual Direct escapement was replaced with the Dual Ulysse (in 2005 I think).
Never not a fascinating read. I think one among many relevant points you make is that conflict-of-interest-free consumer journalism never existed in the first place. I used to work in advertising and even back in the days when print was king, advertisers and publications were joined at the hip – I remember one camera journalist who said that when he started his first job at a photography magazine, he was told, "We have one big rule here: no one says anything bad about Leica." You have the power to be critically sharp in consumer journalism to the extent that there are no negative repercussions – even in the pre-internet print days, major advertisers could and did threaten to pull advertising if they didn't feel they were treated respectfully. The power media had historically to be honest, was that the big publications had big audiences and absent the Internet, they had tremendous power in terms of how brands looked to consumers. There was never a golden age when objectivity was ubiquitous. I love reading snarky restaurant reviews – AA Gill is just one example of a restaurant critic who was a master of of the form – but the truth is, a single restaurant has almost no leverage in terms of pushing back against a negative review.
The closest example I had to your advertising gig which disallowed negative commentary on Leica, was when I lived in LA and worked in a prop house renting props to the film and TV industry.
One of our clients was Playboy Magazine who would use our props for various photo shoots. We had one occasion where a few months after renting out props for a specific setup, they came back and asked to have every single item packed up and sent off for a re-shoot.
We asked why they were redoing the shoot, and I heard that they had already shot the Playmate of the Year photo shoot but at the corporate level, there was some maneuvering to change the model selected.
I heard that at the corporate levels, it was decided that Anna Nicole Smith, rather than the woman who had been selected by "fans", was to bePlaymate of the Year. She had been featured in one month of Playboy and also had begun a campaign with Guess jeans, but alas was not the fan favorite that year.
The corporate plan we were told, was to prop her up as the PMOY with a symbiotic campaign by both Playboy and Guess planned to raise her visibility for the benefit of both companies. The rest is history.
All this to say that if you can't trust the voting process behind Playboy Playmate of the Year, it proves that nothing is sacred, and you can't trust the system when they tell us about their favorite Watches of the Year, GPHG winners, etc.
LOL truly, if an American institution like PMOY is suspect, what hope does watch journalism have 😂 . I will say that over the years I have found "my favorite watch of" (insert year) stories to be generally honest, most editors welcome a chance to support what they really like without having to wonder about strategic considerations, even if like Christmas it comes but once a year. I was on the GPHG jury for three years running and I will say, although the entire selection process has its well known problems, at least the debate over what should win was always vigorous and as far as I could tell, reasonably honest (reasonably).
Oh, man, this is exactly the sort of thing that makes me cough up a little bit of my savings for a subscription!
To a great extent, the answer to the questions asked here depends on what the reader is seeking. If they're looking for nothing more than a series of "introducing the new [x] limited edition" or whatever, then places like Hodinkee or ABTW are sufficient; anyone older than age four knows those "articles" are lightly edited press releases. They're also okay if you're looking for occasional interviews with WatchWorld bigwigs, and are willing to live with the fact that every word those bigwigs speak has been carefully massaged by a battalion of PR minions. (Okay, with the occasional but delicious exception of a certain Mr. Stern, whose uncensored eruptions provide morbidly fascinating glimpses into the mindset of the mega-wealthy class: Let the peons wear Tissot!) And, of course, if you're looking for thoughtful, insightful essays from people who care deeply about watches and are highly knowledgeable about WatchWorld and its wares, there are sites like this one, and Mr. Forster's.
But what I would love to see, even though I agree with you that it's probably impossible, is a sort of Consumer Reports for watches. Not to critique the design or style of the case or dial or bracelet; those things, in all but rarefied cases, can very easily be assessed in person by an interested potential buyer. But instead to point out real problems, in a credible, systemic manner that's more reliable than the anecdotal stuff that comes out on Reddit etc. Things like the hand-setting problems with Oris's early in-house movement run. Or the problems with the co-axial escapement early on in Omega's incorporation of it. Or the apparent reliability issues that (maybe) plagued early UN Freaks and many of the HYT movements. The one thing that all of those problems have in common is that I didn't read about them anywhere I consider reliable until months or even years after they occurred. At which point they're useless except as retrospective "damn, I sure am glad I didn't buy one of those" moments.
And the only thing that makes this lacuna tolerable is that for the most part, watches work as they should, right out of the box, and keep on working that way year after year. Over all my years, I've only had two that were problems that way, which is an acceptably low percentage.
Well as far as the Freak goes, one of the first watch dinners I ever went to was for the Freak launch in New York, and Rolf Schnyder was quite frank about the problems with the early series production of the Freak ... he said, "The first time mine stopped for no reason I did what any watch guy would do" and mimed shaking it 😂 ." there's a reason the original Dual Direct escapement was replaced with the Dual Ulysse (in 2005 I think).
looking forward to reading this!