I love the New York Times.  Have taken home delivery for almost 20 years. Visit the Time’s Web site several times a day, share articles on my Facebook page, and even post the occasional comment or question online.  And I can’t even imagine the weekend without the Sunday magazine crossword.  

Like every other traditional media outlet, the Times is struggling with new paradigms for the distribution of information.  In its favor, the paper’s Web site is among the most credible sites on the Internet, and is visited by more than 15 million people each month.  But even the Times' site blows it occasionally, which points out a truism that gets lost in the explosion of communications channels now available on the Internet: even if you can communicate in a certain online manner (Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, etc.), it doesn’t mean you should.  

I’m thinking specifically of a feature on the Time’s Web site called “Bloggingheads,” in which the Times finds two people who face off in a split-screen video format to debate an issue.  This week’s Blogginghead feature demonstrates its multiple weaknesses.  

The debate asks if male circumcision should be promoted as a means of avoiding the spread of HIV/AIDS and other sexually transmitted diseases.  Two women, “both of Double X” (whatever that means) face off, each appearing in an out-of-focus, ill-lit, and poorly miked video, apparently shot in their respective offices, or maybe their basements or an undisclosed location, it’s hard to tell.  One of them is seen holding the phone to her ear, so we get to watch her making a phone call. She spends much of her time explaining how she really doesn’t know much about the issue, only what she’s read in the paper (!).  When one is talking, we get to watch the other stare blankly at the screen and say things like: “uh-huh,” and “right.” It’s visually interesting—not.  The exchange ends abruptly after about five minutes, practically in mid-sentence, though there is a teaser that you can watch the “rest of the diavlogue” (a word combining “dialogue” and “video.”  Get it?) at another Web site.  

Thank you, New York Times, for nothing.

I know what the Times is trying to do. It sees crummy looking videos on YouTube and figures, hey, crummy looking videos must be OK. It knows that in the online world, anyone with an opinion (i.e., everyone) is an expert, and, hey, we can find two anonymous people and make them experts too.  Unfortunately, what the Times ends up with, in the Bloggingheads feature at least, is lousy, ill-produced content that carries no more weight than two guys sitting at a bar.  I expect more from “the paper of record.”

“The medium is the message” Marshall McLuhan wrote in 1964, and that is especially true today, with the multiple channels available for communicating online.  Before you run willy-nilly after the latest communication trend, you need to think seriously about whether the message you want to send makes sense for that medium.  Being on Twitter “because everyone’s on Twitter” is not very thoughtful, and could ultimately be counter-productive to your brand.