Wednesday, February 25, 2009
News / News Bites More reflections on the Town Hall
Posted by Michael Miner on 02.25.09 at 10:27 AM
David Harrell, “erstwhile journalist and current salesguy who nevertheless hasn't stopped believing.”
"The newspaper is not dead. Local and niche publications live and for all I know, may even grow. But the mass-market, general circulation newspaper that tries to be all things to all people, I think, is dead. Will I miss it? Can't say. I think it was a dubious product to begin with. It became this sort of bloated, bland, homogenized product which was too afraid to offend, too tied to the so-called pillars of the community to ask deep enough questions enough of the time.
"The media of the future may not be able to support the numbers of journalism or ‘communication’ grads that found employment in the past, but c'mon -- a lot of those people were employed producing fluff or semifluff that nobody really needs. We're probably better off if the notion of what news is gets pared back to the essentials. As former NBC news head Reuven Frank said: ‘News is what someone wants to suppress. Everything else is advertising.’
"The future promises a diversity of models to serve diverse functions for diverse niches. The decentralization of the music industry provides a scintilla of hope. Musicians are finding ways to make music and get paid independently. The dream of being among the infinitesimal sliver who'll get the major-label deal, score a big national hit and become a multimillionaire, is being abandoned for the more prosaic, realistic and sustainable goal of just making a humble living doing what one loves and controlling one's own art. In both the realms of music and information, decentralization means that no longer do we have to sell ourselves to those who've amassed towering heaps of capital who can then finance and disseminate our work.
"So what will the future look like for journalists? I really have no idea, but I know what I'd like to see. We need both nonprofits and for-profits. We need both advertiser-driven and subscriber-driven media. We need media that report straight and we need media that report from the so-called ‘right’ and ‘left.’ We need most of all, more populist media that can think outside of the left-right cage and transcend (not gloss over) those rather contrived divisions. We need objective reporting from official sources and we need deep, fearless investigative reporting with attitude. In the aftermath of this shakeup we may find that trend followers and timeservers fall away, leaving only the core of true believers who still hold to the quasi-religious conviction that journalism is not about titillating us with celebrity and sensationalism but about empowering people; about afflicting the comfortable and comforting the afflicted; about using information to level the balance of power in society."
Jen Shea, student
"I think nearly everyone who spoke contributed something useful. But I also kept recalling the parable about the blind men and the elephant.
"Often people began with a worthwhile observation, then leapt to problematic conclusions. For example: the journalist who stood to say that fact-checkers and editors are necessities, not luxuries. I was listening up to that point. But she lost me, and at least a few others, when she started carrying on about journalists’ exceptional critical faculties — vs. those of the dumb, credulous public. I don’t think you can understand the current of anger that ran through other comments without understanding how it sounds when journalists say those things.
"At the same time, the ‘outsiders’ made some deeply misguided statements. Overall I was pleasantly surprised, both these guys had thoughtful comments; however:
"One of the most interesting moments came after [Chi-Town Daily News's} Geoff Dougherty’s point about free content online— when he said that train had left the station, and to prove it, asked if those under 40 would be willing to pay for news content. It was nearly an even split (from what I could tell).
"The problem with Dougherty’s question was, it didn’t adequately define ‘pay.’ First I raised my hand for ‘wouldn’t,’ because I’ve read too many arguments from older folks who think it’s as simple as putting up a subscription wall. In that sense, Dougherty’s right, it would be disastrous. But the reasons for that have nothing to do with newspapers per se, or their value to young people. It’s about interface design and transaction costs (the same principle applies to, say, crafting terms-of-service agreements: users won’t go through the process if they confront a big hassle up front). And the WSJ doesn’t count.
"My guess is most young folks who raised their hands were thinking in terms of Web 2.0 culture & behavioral patterns. Glancing at those who raised their hands for ‘would,’ and at their facial expressions, they seemed more to be answering the question, ‘Do you believe it’s reasonable to pay some modest amount for your primary source(s) of news?’
"At least that was my sense. If it’s the latter question, I’d also raise my hand; I don’t think that’s the problem. In the last few years I’ve gone from being the only person in my peer group who subscribed to anything, to hearing friends talk about shelling out for the New Yorker, NPR, the Economist, Newsweek, salon.com, etc. So I’d caution against reading too much into the habits of 19-year-olds; I’m not sure they’ve ever been willing to pay for news."
Lynn Stiefel, Pioneer Press reporter and Newspaper Guild leader
"I started feeling really uncomfortable listening to the young bloggers castigate the old dinosaurs about the changing of the guard of journalism. It wasn't our charges of theft or their charges of our self-righteousness. I think it was a fundamental philosophical difference. During a long career in radio, TV and print journalism, the one constant was that I never had anything to do with the advertising, circulation, sales, etc. side of the business. In fact, we made sure the firewall was solid (remember the Virginia Gerst debacle?). So to hear the ‘new’ face of journalism tell us old fogeys to get out there and sell was disturbing.
"I've never much liked any of the management I've worked for in the last 31 years. I detested some; I tolerated others. But it was important that I worked for someone, so that I could do the journalism stuff, and they did the rest. I always thought that was the necessary set-up -- that we reported and presented as factually as possible the news of the day in as protected a way possible so that it could be considered credible, untainted, unbiased and reliable. That, of course, is not the new model of citizen journalism. The reporter's opinion should be irrelevant. The facts should speak for themselves.
"I keep going back to what Ken Davis said about newspapers being the start of the day's dialogue, being the ‘spine.’ That's the function I still don't understand how would be accomplished with Internet-only Web sites disaggregating news on a community-of-interest basis. Paging through a paper, you see articles that interest you that you didn't know would. How do we see outside of our own interests if we don't ‘happen’ upon news we didn't know would interest us?
"And why let the most popular story of the day rule? I report about Glenview installing sewers because I monitor how village officials spend taxpayer money. That's my watchdog function. Who's going to do it if the newspaper goes away? Newspapers and media have tried to kill the beat system for decades, but it stays alive. Why? Because vigilance can be accomplished no other way.
"Newspapers serving individual suburbs, like Pioneer Press's, will probably survive one way or another, if not through Sun-Times Media Group than with whoever buys them or picks up the pieces. Whether or not they will want me or will want to pay me is another matter. We've worked hard as a Guild to establish somewhat of living wages and decent working conditions, and I'd be loathe to give that up without a real fight. That will be my Virginia Gerst moment -- will my passion for journalism outweigh my personal goals to feed my children and send them to college?
"I remember back to my 20s, when I was paid $180 a week, worked 80 hours a week, and frankly would have paid my employer anything to allow me to work at this profession. That's the passion I saw with some of those young bloggers. But don't we all eventually become the homeowners and bill payers and taxpayers that we report about? Won't they? Then what?
"Not to be totally depressing, I was heartened to see a roomful of journalists concerned about our livelihoods and democracy. Someone called it a support group meeting, and I liked that."
Linda Lutton, education reporter, WBEZ
"I'm sorry the conversation seemed to divide along generational lines, because I actually don't believe that dichotomy is as marked as it appeared to be at the Townhall. Or maybe I don't count as young anymore? (I'm still under 40!)
"Any reporter will tell you that there's a certain amount of luck in this game, but it only works when coupled with hard work and digging. Since leaving the meeting Sunday, I've thought over and over about the guy [Brad Flora] from the Windy Citizen happening upon a video of police brutality (a video that was already posted to YouTube, by the way). Compare that to the reporting that John Conroy was able to do at the Reader--reporting that documented systemic police brutality and abuse...reporting that's now gone. THAT's the sort of reporting that people are afraid to lose, and THAT's why the Townhall was called.
"I loved some of the ideas--a new City News Bureau...extracting the Sun-Times' newsroom from the rest of the company should the whole thing teeter and fall... the notion that foundations could play some sort of role for a transitional period. My takeaway from the Townhall is that there will be people interested in working on some of these ideas, and there will be others who want to continue pursuing what they're doing now... that's fine. We don't all have to agree. But those interested in saving some of the infrastructure and institutional knowledge that is being lost already should meet again, sans snarky commentators."
Comments (12)
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Re-"I was listening up to that point. But she lost me, and at least a few others, when she started carrying on about journalists’ exceptional critical faculties — vs. those of the dumb, credulous public" I think you misunderstood my point. Some people who do not work in this profession, assume anything they see in print is true - vs. those of us who remember what we were taught in journalism school "if you mother says she loves you, check it with two sources." Editors do provide a critical function. And I never referred to the public as dumb - as a matter of fact I said the public is smart and would likely pay for news if that is the only way they could get it.
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Ms. Berger, I know you didn't mean to cause offense. But I'd suggest there's a contradiction in saying people "assume anything they see in print is true," then insisting you're not looking down on them. My point was: your profession is widely perceived as haughty and self-important. Instead of taking a hard look in the mirror, some journalists seem to be looking to people even haughtier and less reflective. Say someone with a young face swaggers through the door, claims to be the future of journalism -- and proceeds to display a stunning ignorance of not only journalism, but also print v. online metrics, comparative advantage in new media, the difference b/t costly investigations and CD reviews, the economy, healthy democracy... I mean, the list goes *on.* For hard-bitten cynics, a lot of your colleagues seem awfully eager to conflate Young Turks and young opportunists. I noticed young people in the room who didn't fit that mold. But they weren't the ones running their mouths about some utopian brave new media future. And yes, I know editors are critical [in more ways than one... ha]. I wasted a lot of my own time arguing that to some of the bean counters at a paper you've written for (you're welcome).
Even considering the flaws in Geoff's "poll," isn't it relevant that the results provided were from an audience that actually attended a journalism townhall? Is it safe to assume that, if the same question was posed to a bunch of non-journos on a rush-hour bus, that the results would be at all similar? I ask because, in following this debate for some time now, it strikes me that most of the people involved who are journos have a somewhat unrealistic perspective as to how all this relates to the public at large, which I imagine represents the vast majority of those who would need to pay.
Susan and Jen need to take the gloves off and take a breath. There's a long tradition of he public wanting to shoot the messenger and thinking journalists are haughty ... but that may have more to do with 1) people preferring on occasion to stay blissfully unaware of the trouble around them and resenting being drawn into pubic matters that ought to concern them, 2) taking out their anger/resentment about ineffective government, crime, corrupt politicians, greedy corporations, or whatever, most of which they can't affect, and aiming it at the reporters instead, and 3) the wobbly self-esteem of some readers. Envy, suspicion, annoyance and resentment are very easy emotions to kindle if you're a journalist and you're good at it. That doesn't mean people don't want you to do your job; they'd despise you even more if you were bad at it. And when asked, most people aren't sorry that the press broke the news about Watergate, Iran-Contra, Love Canal, bribes for license, or [fill in your own favorite story here]. They're mad that all this went on for so long without their knowing about it, and it's just as easy to blame us as it is the people really responsible. As a reporter, I consider myself an analyst, yes, but also an iconoclast, a gadfly, a muckraker at times -- and for every 'idol' I topple, every bit of muck that gets raked, every pompous statement I deflate or just plain ignore (I don't owe every idiot a quote), and every inconvenient question I ask, somebody's going to be pissed off. And some of those pissed off people will also be readers. Tough: comes with the territory. I've stopped worrying about whether or not the public likes journalists z people and am only concerned with whether or not they think they can trust my work. I maintain civility, but I'm more concerned about getting the facts right and, even more than that, covering the right stories. The public is not a homogeneous mass. Some people think there's a huge left-wing conspiracy running the press. Some think that if a thing makes it into print or onto the internet anywhere, well then, it must be true. And some people think that a thing or event showing up on TV is the ultimate truth. Others think nobody and nothing in the media can be trusted. A few even think we're doing a good job. Listening Sunday to the dissing between generations, I was reminded of my Media and Mass Society class and the lecturer hammering home that each medium has its limitations regarding how information is presented and understood. It's simply a fact that even things of grossly unequal value look far more equivalent if presented visually on TV or film, whereas it's easier to make clear in writing those things that have or deserve more weight in a story; those are characteristics particular to these media. Different media also have limitations as to how you structure the narrative. We all know this, but we forget to apply the same principle to the Internet, which carries a combination of print and other media: a paragraph or voiceover may say one thing while the pictures create a totally different impression. Confusing. We need to be aware of how the stories we report may be seen differently than we intend and to what degree the limitations of online are responsible. Then we can stop carping at each other and get back to work. And then add in the underlying assumption some people have that the Internet is simply chock full of info that corrupt governments, corporations and the incompetent mainstream media Don't Want You To Know, but the Internet will tell you and will make you free!! Yeah, right. Those folks need to be burned several times by such 'secret' information before they begin to realize, to their dismay, that a lot of what's on the Internet really IS crap before they start looking around for more reliable sources. Which is why, despite their occasional troubles, many still come back to The New York Times, The Washington Post, BBC, PBS's The News Hour, and so on. It takes reliability over time to establish a news purveyor as one you can count on to tell you the truth most of the time and correct errors when they do occur. It may be that, in time, some of the fledgling online operations will come to be seen by the public as every bit as credible and reliable as the top papers and networks, but it won't be overnight. Thier success won't eliminate the need for the big 'legacy' news operations, because the boutique operations won't be able to do some important aspects of the job those newsroom do now. However, you're still going to have that segment of the public that will look to news sources in print, via broadcast, or online that simply tell them what they want to hear. They will go to those niche or specialized or frankly partisan sources and will damn everything else. And you should keep that in mind. Finally, there is this: even amid all this fragmentation of interest on the part of readers/viewers, what one of my old teachers at Mizzou once said still stands -- if you tell people not what they want to hear but what they absolutely need to know in order to make intelligent decisions (about their lives, their government, their jobs, whatever), they can't help but come to you -- you'll have your readers. The problem comes when people no longer *want* to know about those hard news stories that are important for them to know, because either they're so cynical that they believe nothing will change, or they'd rather just be entertained. We never talked about that Sunday, but we should have. I worry about a public that would rather just be entertained: it means they're doing a shit job of being citizens and I'm going to be stuck with the government they create by default. And the younger generation ought to be worried about that, too -- because if all the public wants is entertainment with a mere gloss of information, it won't matter which medium we're using: we're all in trouble. I put it to the younger generation: do you think your non-journalist contemporaries really value the news in **ANY** format? Because I wonder exactly how much of an attention span the Gameboy-XBox crowd still has for hard news. And if they're not interested, they won't read it even if it IS free. Then we're really screwed. However, I'm just ornery enough to like a challenge like that ...
Susan, I'm incredibly amused at how perfectly you've twisted the old "if your mother says she loves you check it out." You write "check it with two sources." The change, from checking it out - meaning testing it against the facts and for credibility - did she beat you? malnourish you? - to checking it with two sources - "did my mother really say she loves me?" is the essence of what's gone wrong. Even my high school Latin teacher saw the flaw in this model of fact-checking. The Edith Glosecki retort, emitted in a high-pitched horror at our calumny, was "one lies and the other swears to it." I'm not making idle charges. Newspaper "factchecking" failed the WMD test. That was one of the biggest impulses behind the news blog phenomenon. It would have happened anyway, but we're at least five years ahead of the curve because of "Curveball" and Judy Miller. Because fact-checking of administration sources meant merely going to two other administration sources to see if this was really the administration line, not verifying whether the administration was telling the truth. Many readers were far better at real fact-checking than the editors, and we know it. You can't put that genie back in the bottle. At this point, blithely asserting that the on-line folks are too gullible, and need the help of public-spirited editors, is way beyond arrogant. Jen is too kind. You're showing a kind of willful ignorance about what happened, to the country and to journalism.
Ryan - you so missed the point. I was merely paraphrasing the "If your mother says she loves you..." - check it out OR check it with two sources - same thing. WMD is a whole different discussion and really not to the point here. I am merely saying editors are necessary - to say readers are better is ridiculous. Sure- mistakes are made - But for the most part big papers like the Chgo Trib, Sun-Times and New York Times do a very good job of making sure what is in the paper is accurate, fair and balanced. And by the way, plenty of on-line folks also strive to be accurate, fair and balanced.
Um... I don't want to get into the Judy Miller thing or whatever, but I did just want to clarify... I wasn't trying to criticize Susan so much as to suggest that journalists be more cognizant of how their comments sound to non-journalists' ears. (Saying something is *perceived* as X doesn't equate to saying it *is*.) I'm not sure it's helpful to talk about journalism as this different culture that separates them from the average reader -- because it breeds mistrust, and frustrates readers who would basically be on their side (or at least hear them out) otherwise. Also, I think there's a key difference between recognizing that something's broken, and supporting efforts to fix it, versus throwing the baby out with the bathwater.
Re:"...it was important that I worked for someone, so that I could do the journalism stuff, and they did the rest." And I am sure the someone you worked for had no agenda, nor ever pulled a story or refused to let you report critically about a big advertiser... Being a printer was a respected trade. With "cold type" that craft was wiped out, but did that mean there was no more page design? Today, when the cost of publication approaches zero, everyone is their own brand. You can get out there and build your brand in a variety of ways, from crassly commercial to relying on the merit of your content alone. The days of being a wage slave are waning. What all America needs is to separate health insurance and pensions from paternalistic single employers. Take work-- now imagine a system where your pension traveled with you, and everyone had affordable healthcare. You could sell yourself as a brand at whatever level you needed or wanted to aspire to. That is where we are going economically, though politically the way will not be smooth. Oh, and here is a link to specific models that news organizations, big and small are using today. http://biverson.com/?page_id=2399 barbara i
There's a sad video at the Rocky Mountain News website regarding their final edition on 2/27/09 and the effect it has on the staff and readers. One person interviewed started at the City News Bureau in Chicago. http://www.rockymountainnews.com/
Just to amplify the point, Brad Flora did not say that he happened upon a video-- he claimed in the Town Hall that he "broke" the story and that the Chicago Tribune owed him credit for doing so. He was roundly applauded for this, though he did not "break" the story at all, as Linda points out. Moreover, the video was not merely posted to YouTube, it was fully reported-- with time, date, location, and even the officer's badge number-- on a Web site that has been doing this kind of reporting for more than a year: http://chicagocopwatch.org/2009/02/cta-bus-incident-02-13-09-1014pm/.
Susan, The way I wrote that, you're right. It's ridiculous to think most readers individually are better than editors at fact-checking. I meant collectively, but I didn't write it that way. I have a suspicion that you'd still say I'm "ridiculous." But the thing is, editors "fact-checked" the WMD claims the way they fact check everything else. They made sure that someone actually said it. "Is there really someone who was introduced by the codename 'curveball'? Check. Did someone in the Office of the Vice President really say such-and-such? Check." So the ludicrousness of the evidence was never looked at. Meanwhile, Josh Marshall and a group of interested amateurs walked a lot of it back. Some of us helped translate Italian to pull together strands of the story like the ridiculous Niger uranium claims. So yes, I can say with a straight face that a blogger who really opens himself up to the intelligence of his readers gets the story straighter than a reporter who files with his editor. Compare Friday's Northern Trust story in the Trib: http://www.chicagotribune.com/business/chi-northern-trust-tarp-feb27,0,1587026.story with Talking Points Memo: http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/2009/03/every_day_now_i_see.php And tell me exactly what was the point of "fact-checking"? Did the Trib fact check that Northern Trust is giving anything back? Or did they just fact-check that Northern Trust said they're giving something back? So the Trib wrote a press release for Northern Trust, and Josh Marshall asked the question a reporter is supposed to ask. Until that question is answered, there is really no story there. Or if anything, the story is that Northern Trust would like to defuse public anger, would like people to believe they're giving money back, except they don't actually have the money to pay the taxpayers back yet. (Which is why they became beggars in the first place!) The newspaper paradigm remains that you print whatever official sources say, with mild doses of skepticism. They do not "check out" the facts, but like you, they often insist that their big advantage over the mere bloggers is that they have editors fact-checking. As long as the pros refuse to acknowledge the distance between the ideal and what really happens, they're never going to understand the lure of blogs. That's the WMD test that papers continue to fail.
ryanwc - I think you're right in that investigative reporting has moved to the blogosphere. I did my share of official-source stenography, and although that has its place (without it, you can't prove when they're lying), that can't be the end of the matter. But all too often, it is. So I grew frustrated with that paradigm. That said, while it's to their credit when a blogger does check the facts, it's better still to have multiple sets of trained eyes to check the facts and how they are presented -- as well as prevent other problems, such as libel suits.
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