Buggy whip anyone?
Yesterday, 100 editors and journalists from all around the world met in Oslo to take part in an international conference about media and globalisation.
UN Special Envoy for monitoring of racism and xenophobia, Dodou Diene, started the conference by asking the press to actively help to create a multicultural society. He expressed concern that democratic processes can lead to immigration-limiting political parties coming to power. [As here in Denmark — MH]
Now, who should we go after - the UN for advocating for policies that diminish the very nation-states that make up its constituents, or the press that may well assume the role, once again, of trying to change the world instead of reporting the news about the world?
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Ministers and priests have a calling. If you wish to pull that mantle onto your shoulders, then start passing the plate instead of trying a weak attempt at a shakedown. [see later on for context -Skip]
Doug, Pat, and I run Meet The New Press radio show....a show by bloggers about the goings on in the blogosphere. The blogosphere, along with the 'Net in general, has assumed such importance that corporations now use consultancies to monitor how the 'Net is treating them. Bloggers (hi Pat!) have also assumed important roles within national campaigns. "Netroots" mean anything?
Yes, times, they are a 'changin....well, for most of us. The MSM still seems to be a tad upset that their gateway function (the term "flapper" comes to mind....no, not the dancers back in the 1920s and 30s, but the royal aide that would determine what the King would or would not hear). They decry the populism that now citizen journalists have in the public arena...and they are miffed.
Sniff.
Yes, with over 71 million blogs, as Technorati claims, some ARE going to be good (yup, we rank somewhere between 41K and 49K depending on the day - I like the percentage outcome). Some are also going to be bad, even atrocious. But some are good, REAL good - far better than the MSM.
Anyways, this journalism Prof is upset. Read the article here from the San Francisco Chronicle; read my comments below:
The Chronicle's announcement earlier this month that 100 newsroom jobs will be slashed in the coming weeks in the face of mounting financial woes represents just the latest chapter in a tragic story of traditional journalism's decline.
Reportedly losing an estimated $1 million a week, the paper's owner, the Hearst Corp., concluded it had no recourse but to trim costs by laying off reporters, editors and other skilled professionals, or offering buyouts to the most seasoned journalists in order to induce them to leave. The cuts reportedly will amount to a quarter of The Chronicle's editorial staff.
In the age of "new" media, this rollback in "old" media may be among the most drastic in recent memory, but it is nothing new to the public.
Nope it's not. Many of us have been caught in the "creative destruction" mode of the US economy as business models, technology, and consumer tastes change the ways that businesses compete. It is life - harrowing when you get caught by it (been there, hated it) at the micro level, but great at the macro level(compare the US economic history to the sclerotic European one -> our overall average standard of living far surpass the EU).
Also, I noted his use of the phrase "skilled professionals". Note to self: if one accepts money for providing services or products, doesn't that amount to being a professional? I see that the good professor is setting up something - that layoffs should not happen to "skilled" workers?
Indeed, across the country newspapers have suffered enormous financial losses over the past decade, with far fewer professionals today covering the news locally, nationally and internationally as a result of the industry's contraction.
The factors behind this shrinkage are sadly familiar: The rise of the Internet has produced sharp declines in traditional advertising revenues in the printed press. Free online advertising competitors such as Craigslist.com have sharply undermined classified advertising as a traditional source of revenue. While many newspapers have attempted mightily to forge a presence on the Web -- including The Chronicle, whose terrific sfgate.com is among the top 10 most trafficked news sites in America -- revenue from online advertising is paltry compared to that from traditional print sources. As a result, newspapers such as The Chronicle must make staff cuts to survive -- and increasingly it is highly skilled professional journalists committed to seeking the truth and reporting it, independently and without fear or favor, who must go.
Gee, what about all of my highly skilled computer programmer friends whose jobs have been lost due to changing needs and off-shoring? Who's having the pity party for them?
Why should journalists be treated differently? Even if they are highly skilled professionals?
Journalism, and the product that they produce, is obviously at a crisis point - the product that they are turning out is not being embraced the general public. It matters not a whit how skilled these folks are - they have set themselves on a path similar to that of the hot and cold type typesetters of years ago that put together the type that actually married paper and ink to form a paper. Technology changed - those jobs became useless as newrooms saw that computers could do the job in a more cost effective and more productive manner.
Yet, these typesetters were skilled as well - why is there no lament on the demise of their positions now?
I also have a problem with the the assertion in the last sentence - "seeking the truth"? I bet that if the truth had been found and reported straight up during the last few years (decades?), they may not be in the mess that they are right now. One thing that the Professor does not bring up is that because editorializing has leaped off the Op-Ed page and now infuses many of the actual reporters and their articles may be a good part of the reason why circulations are down:
How else can you explain it?
The average citizen may not realize how severely the public's access to important news, gathered according to high standards, may be threatened by these bottom line trade-offs.
Given the problems I have seen in the MSM (hey, remember Jason Blair? Remember the false Koran story from Newsweek? How about the blantant political bent of newsroom reporters showing up in the media?), I have huge problems with "high standards" being stated as a given. Time and time again, the MSM has been shown to be either explicitly wrong or by implicitly slanting how the reporting is done.
And given the explosion of alternative news outlets - cable TV and the Internet, I would like to see proof that our access to such news has been curtailed.
When journalists' jobs are eliminated, especially as many as The Chronicle intends, the product is inevitably less than it was. The fact is there will be nothing on YouTube, or in the blogosphere, or anywhere else on the Web to effectively replace the valuable work of those professionals.
I agree with the author - but only to a point. The blogosphere is not supposed to replace the MSM. In this case, they do have a role to fill. But so do radio reporters, and TV reports, and magazine reports, and even citizen reporters. Even here at the 'Groks (Granite and Gilford), we have broken stories and publicized them before either the local media (whom we do like working with) and the national media).
Note to the Prof: this is not rocket science! Most people can do this, and do it well. Just like in my industry - having a spiffy degree helps, but I know folks that never stepped onto a college campus that could spin code far faster and better than most degreed folks (myself included). Journalism, as practiced by the majority, is day to day stuff - Watergate only happens once in a while.
Valuable? I think it is less valuable than he thinks by empirical evidence - the simple fact that people are literally not buying it should speak volumes - and give them a clue that something is wrong and that changes have to be made.....and quick. Just as the UAW has to figure out that its members' main job is to build cars quickly and as inexpensively as the foreign competition instead of always fighting against management, journalists are going to have to figure out that the rules have changed (whether they like it or not).
Fewer resources will be available to investigate stories as nationally significant as the BALCO scandal, for example; fewer professionals to doggedly uncover shady financial practices at the University of California, forcing top officials to publicly acknowledge their mistakes and work to fix them; fewer journalists to cover local city halls, courts and schools, reporting community news that the public often takes for granted -- and which other media, including local television and radio outlets, rely upon to set their own news priorities.
There certainly won't be any less news or fewer scandals to report, mind you: Only fewer trained watchdogs on hand to do the hard work of hunting, finding and reporting it.
Oh yes, the high priestdom of watchdogs! Oh, the hubris of it all!
Look - necessary? Yes. Absolutely necessary? No. Newspapers are a high capital business - there is significant barriers of entry for the dead tree products. That is why the skilled journalists were needed - to keep those presses running (and the journalist costs were not small either). Newspapers are now subject to the same globalization stresses that the rest of us have been facing- be highly productive or be gone.
You also have to realize that you are not the only ones that can, and have the motivation, to do digging- in many cases, you merely have more time to persue it.
You are not that valuable to cry over.
Idolaters of Web-based news and information sites, "citizen"-produced journalism, and the blogosphere of individual self-publishers, often argue that old mainstays such as The Chronicle are, in fact, getting only what they deserve.
Gee, such nice emotion-neutral words for me and my ilk! Idolaters? Look, reporters do provide a useful service - we all do if we are paid for our work. No less, but no more. While he may rail against bloggers and the new media types, it is his consumers that are rejecting the overall product.
Part of the problem is not realizing that you are in a business - if you do not bring in and help to create profit for the owners / shareholds, your job is at risk.
If "old" media cannot successfully adjust to the digital age, too bad, these critics argue. The corporate media were never that good in the first place, they say, and have failed us miserably in the past. There are plenty of alternatives on the Web to take traditional journalism's place, including the millions of bloggers opining about the news, not to mention powerful news aggregators such as Google and Yahoo whose computerized search robots harvest riches of news and other content provided by others -- and generate billions of dollars in annual profits for their owners.
As a teacher of journalism, I see the situation differently. I see a world where the craft of reporting the news fairly and independently is very much endangered; ...
As a blogger, I do see someone that is embittered that the high value and status once held by journalists is disappearing. I see someone that doesn't understand or accept the fact that no matter how much the craftperson values his own worth, or that of his craft, it is the marketplace that ultimately determines that worth - and what it once gave is now being withdrawn. Yes, the almost non-existent barriers to entry made possible by "citizen" level technology has had a part - but journalism had better get out of its current navel-gazing / lamenting stage and quick - it must adapt instead of whine (heck, I see the local journalists here thriving and meshing well with the new media!).
I see an group that is losing its singular grip as the gatekeepers of information, deciding what should or should not be reported, and then deciding on the manner of how the news that is reported is handled. And they are not happy campers about relinguishing that role or that power....and with it a society increasingly fractured, less informed by fact and more susceptible to political and marketing propaganda, cant and bias.
And make no mistake - it is real power - the ability to shape the mindset of the public at large. And this what is at stake.
And once again, I see a bias in the words here that basically state " believe in our words, we are the truth and we will educate you". THAT went out the door when I learned by my friends in journalism school that the mantra was not "report the news" that the rest of us though was the deal but the phrase "make a better world".
The first is a straight up and down reporting. The latter assumes that reporters know what that better world should be and that we do not. Study after study has shown that most newsrooms slant heavily Democratic and Liberal. And, unfortunately, biases will show even when the reporters say it doesn't (as opposed to me, who cheerfully makes no bones about the fact that I am conservative, I am an Evangelical, and that my views are happily enthrowned in the venue).
I see a world in which the pursuit of truth in service of the public interest is declining as a cultural value in our society amid this technological tumult; a world where professional journalism, practiced according to widely accepted ethical values, is a rapidly diminishing feature in our expanding news and information systems, as we escape to the Web to experience the latest "new" thing.
Did it ever occur to these folks that perhaps we are streaming to the 'Net because we see holes in the product you churn out? That only by cross referencing multiple sources can we hope to discover the wheat from the chaff?
I'm tired of the slanted reporting - I no longer watch the major TV networks and I review the national papers with a jaundiced eye. News I want - keep the opinions on the Op-Ed pages.
However, this is when it starts to get laughable, as he really looks for a cliff to jump off of in trying to find a scapegoat. He thinks he has found it, but shows that it is time to search for a clue...
I see a world where corporations such as Google and Yahoo continue to enrich themselves with little returning to journalistic enterprises, all this ultimately at the expense of legions of professional reporters across America, now out of work because their employers in "old" media could not afford to pay them.
The assumption here is that the Prof ASSUMES AND EXPECTS that these folks really indeed owe something back to "journalistic enterprises" as search engines should be classified as "journalistic". Sorry, they are not....their business is returning answers to questions - it just happens to be that your "journalistic pearls" just happen to be included.
Oh, I get it - once more, the victim card is used for the "professional reporters". What has happened is that the MSM is getting skunked, and they don't like it.
Not long ago, billionaire real estate executive Sam Zell, who earlier this year purchased the Tribune Co. family of newspapers, including the Los Angeles Times, made this point quite bluntly. He likened Google and Yahoo to modern- day pirates ripping off treasure produced by others. According to the Washington Post, Zell told a gathering at Stanford University in April, "If all the newspapers in America did not allow Google to steal their content, how profitable would Google be? Not very."
Bad investment dude, you shoulda kept to real estate. Pirates? Stealing content? Umm, let's see if I get this straight - Google spiders your online content, indexes it for you, presents it to billions of people around the globe, brings them to your web site when it provides the link to your article,
AND YOU CANNOT MAKE MONEY FROM THE PEOPLE IT DELIVERS TO YOUR DOORSTEP?
Are you that incompetent so as not to make a profit when the eyeballs are brought to you? You deserve to go out of business, because you have made journalism such a high calling in your own eyes that you have failed to realize that YOU ARE IN A BUSINESS. Simple rule: make a profit or go out of business. If you all are such talented people, you should be able to figure it out.
Can't? Your fault, not anyone or any technology's fault. Don't like the fact that search engines index your stuff? Go ahead, take it offline.....
For their part, Google executives maintain that the travails of the American newspaper industry today are hardly their fault. They argue that their informational enterprises simply help the public find whatever it is looking for. They insist that the problems of newspapers are the result of market forces, driven by the continuing technological revolution.
Indeed last week, at a conference on the state of American newspapers at Stanford, Google Vice President Marissa Mayer reportedly made this argument quite clearly. She said simply: "We are computer scientists, not journalists."
Nothing can be more stunning at times than simple, black and white truth. In this case, look at the case - Google tells journalists that they aren't in the journalism business - they are in the information business.
Gee, maybe that's where the mistake went wrong - journalists believing that they were in the journalism business instead of the information business?
While that may be true, the time has come for corporations such as Google to accept more responsibility for the future of American journalism, in recognition of the threat "computer science" poses to journalism's place in a democratic society.
Whine, whine, whine. Google has no more responsibility to you than Exxon does. Google uses much more than just newspaper articles to populate its massive server farms - the Prof once again make far more of his 'calling" than needed.
This is capitalism, baby - adapt or die. Or whine for a little while longer.
I guess my biggest beef is the assumption that computer science poses a threat to journalism? That's like saying that mechanics threatened buggy whip makers...think about it.... Yes, computer science has automated the heck out of the process of producing a newspaper, but a search engine cannot report on the newsworthy events. That is what reporters are for.
It is no longer acceptable for Google corporate executives to say that they don't practice journalism, they only work to provide links to "content providers."
Sure it is! They have a responsibility to their stockholders. Period. Not to a self selling high caste of folks who are running into a brick wall. Believe them, sir, when they say they don't provide content - that used to be your mission! Have you abandoned that?
Journalism is not just a matter of jobs, and dollars and cents lost. It is a public trust vital to a free society.
I understand that the free flow of information is critical to a well functioning democracy with the intended result of a knowledgeable electorate. But no where is it written that this information must come from newspapers...or journalists. Journalists have to realize that this is a capitalistic society - they must create a product that others wish to pay for in order to keep producing that product.
It is not an entitlement!
It stands to reason that Google and corporations like it, who indirectly benefit so enormously from the expensive labor of journalists, should begin to take on greater civic responsibility for journalism's plight.
No it does not, and saying it does will not make it true. The plight of journalism is laid strictly upon those that "practice that craft" - the responsibility to for you to analyze those changes and come up with a way to stay relevant in today's world.
Is it possible for Google to somehow engage and support the traditional news industry and important local newspapers more fully, for example, to become a vital part of possible solutions to this crisis instead of a part of the problem?
The assumption still remains strong, and wrong. I see a collective mentality at work here - my failings are your fault and you must make me whole. News to clueless - Google and the other search engines are already vital and are the solution for many of us. What you are asking for is a tax and protection of a single class of citizen that, in my mind, should not receive it.
Is it not possible for Google and other information corporations to offer more direct support to schools of journalism to help ensure that this craft's values and skills are passed on to the next generation?
Possible? Sure. But why should a commercial industry that is not part of journalism support it (oh yeah - direct financial implications - a journalism prof asking for funding!) Cynical of me? You bet!
Is it not possible for these flourishing corporations to assist and identify more closely with the work of venerable organizations, such as the Society of Professional Journalists, in support of their mission and to preserve this important calling?
Ministers and priests have a calling. If you wish to pull that mantle onto your shoulders, then start passing the plate instead of trying a weak attempt at a shakedown.
I like to think such things are possible. Meantime, I can't help but fear a future, increasingly barren of skilled journalists, in which Google "news" searches turn up not news, but the latest snarky rants from basement bloggers, fake news reports from government officials and PR cleverly peddled in the guise of journalism by advertisers wishing only to sell, sell, sell.
Where there is a vacuum, something will rush in to fill it. If 'traditional journalists' disappear, I bet we'd find that someone else will figure out how to fill that niche in a cost effective way and with a competitive price.
After all, isn't this what this is all about - competition? And losing in that competitive marketplace?
Be thankful that the 100 let go from the newsroom was not a higher number. For computer software doesn't care.
