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October 21, 2005
Rosen is Unplugged for a WhileTaking a break to finish a book. Back in December '05.Since October 2, I have written seven PressThink posts about the New York Times and Judith Miller. (See the list below.) Today’s post, Thanks for the Link, New York Times. Now Please Answer My Question, will be my last for a while. (Of course, others should try to get the answers I was seeking.) I’m taking a break from blogging to finish my book, which has a new title: By the People. Rather than say “blogging will be light…” I thought it was best to stop until the book is completed. (I may have some guest bloggers.) I will be back, but not before December 1. I hope that regular readers—and those who are recently arrived—will check back. The forum will resume, and if it deserves to thrive it will. Thanks to all for the 1.25 million visits so far. See you soon. After Matter: Notes, reactions & links… by Jay Rosen on the Judith Miller case…
Posted by Jay Rosen at October 21, 2005 3:38 PM
Comments
Always the best move: writing something for print! Hear hear. This is no time to take a break. Who will I mock and scorn? This is horrible news. But we'll have to manage. You've created the most vibrant blog discussion. I look forward to your return. I think you'll manage just fine. But thanks for saying PressThink will be missed. I appreciate it. Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 21, 2005 6:22 PM | Permalink Thank you, Jay. Good luck with the book. Thanks for the work you've put into this forum. We'll be here when you're ready to come back. Posted by: Cervantes at October 21, 2005 7:14 PM | Permalink Agggggg! Noooooooooo! [breathes into paper bag] Okay...okay. I'll just have to figure out if blogger can live on Romenesko alone...bravely soldiering on, that's the ticket... Posted by: Lisa Williams at October 21, 2005 11:11 PM | Permalink Ouch! we'll miss you. May the book go smoothly, and may the NY Times give you (and, by extension, us) answers. Posted by: Anna Haynes at October 22, 2005 12:37 AM | Permalink Hmmmm. Fishbow NY points out that I wrote 25,000 words about Judith Miller and the Times since Oct. 2. Hey, I'm just interested in certain things. I thought it was amusing, but I didn't put it into my post. Led by Merrill Brown, the big media guys had a running joke about me during the big confab at the Museum. It ran along the lines of, "don't annoy Rosen, he'll write 3,000 words about you...[snaps fingers] like that!" It was low key funny. Lisa: you are very sweet. Thanks, Anna, Cervantes. Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 22, 2005 1:03 AM | Permalink Eventually, I'll post this in the right spot. Like here. Thanks for the conversation, Jay. It's been perplexing, irritating, memorable and never boring. And it's opened my eyes to a different vision of the direction of journalism. Good luck with the book. Let us know when the conversation starts up again. Dave McLemore Posted by: Dave McLemore at October 22, 2005 2:18 AM | Permalink {"..PressThink will be back, but not before December 1.."} ... will the current leadership at the NY Times be around on December 1st ?? How 'bout the Times itself ? MillerGate is a Magnitude 10.0 quake for the dominant establishment media. Posted by: BerelliD at October 22, 2005 7:27 AM | Permalink It was hard to decide to stop. But there's no other way to complete the thing. I am thinking, however, there may be ways that PressThink's experienced readers (users) can help me finish the book. I'm not sure, but there might. If so, it will be discussed in this space. Lots of people asked me if I was going to "post chapters" but I always said no, not what I had in mind for use of the Web. To put it crudely, my method was real time blogging, straight "into" the themes I knew I wanted the book to be about. Now I have to go into the editing room and make a film from PressThink So Far-- if you see what I mean. (Just a metaphor, but it's apt.) This has been a matter of isolating and combining key scenes, situations, and moments of exposition, writing new material in and around that, then "stitching" it together into finished parts with mini-titles. These get put aside for incorporation when other parts are done. But unless I called a halt to the blogging the book by definition couldn't be done. Judith Miller was too rich, the events and gaps too interesting, the stakes too real. I was getting too far into it. I could see where it was going. I mean 25,000 words and the real revelations aren't even here. Now I am "pulling" from all the posts I wrote (with all their links) and the chatter they created (when bloggers and journalists responded) and the debate that got steadily catalogued at PressThink in what I think of as the Jazz section (After Matter) the threads of the real story I was blogging "into" all along. * The terms of authority are changing in American journalism. Everything is up for grabs, because the future is undetermined and the entire enterprise at risk. At moments like this ideas about the press, and what it should be count for more because there's more space for ideas to be tried. A re-definition gets underway, a next press emerges. It's not a controlled process but a live one. * The Web is distributing the powers of the press to the people formerly known as the audience. Peer-to-peer knowledge can challenge pro-to-audience communication. The Internet goes side to side as well as it goes up and down. All this upsets professional practice, which is built on top of a weakening brodcast platform, and trapped by the verticality of its "mass media" thinking. In a one-to-many world they were gods. Now: gatekeepers no more. * The traditional press--and traditional presss think--are thus under attack, a portion of which is justified, and frequently devastating to our confidence in this institution. The culture war has come to the door. There's a crisis in the professional regime-- I say, in the religion of big time journalism. We need new press think and we're getting it-- online. * Citizen journalism, stand alone journalisn, political blogging, open source methods, social media are struggling to establish themselves but they point the way on the Web-- the news industry does not. People in Big Media are slowly coming to see that. * Professional authority and truthtelling heroics are still possible in journalism, and an "elite" press still makes some sense. The fleet needs a flagship. But it will never go back to what it was because media power has been re-destributed, forcing even the elites to change. This was known in Greensboro before it was realized in New York. John Robinson took his newspaper over The Divide, and he became a blogger. * Journalism by the people formerly known as the audience is here to stay. So is the stand alone journalist. We're at the dawn of a creative explosion in media that will bring new forms--new powers of the press--into journalism. The old press gods have no choice but to plunge into it with the public at their side. But it won't be a bad thing at all. The amateurs will teach the pros. The pros will pick from the best amateurs. My method, I said, was to blog right "into" these themes. I did that, 2003 to 2005. Now I have to cut the film. Posted by: Jay Rosen at October 22, 2005 3:41 PM | Permalink If you have any interest in having guest writers for Pressthink let me know. I bet you're itching to write about Dowd's column today - I just blogged about it - so that could be a partial compromise. Drop me an email sometime. Posted by: Scott Butki at October 22, 2005 4:18 PM | Permalink I've been thinking of keeping up the debate in the previous post about Andrew Heyward's omniscience. I don't know if we'll sustain it or not. But it was interesting that several people have continued to comment, and I've been composing an answer today. There's been something happening here that's pretty powerful. The conversation has been brisk, witty, amazingly insightful and challenging, low and mean, sometimes smart, sometimes stupid, sometimes ideological and repetitive. But it's been rich and interesting. That's remarkable given that we are thousands of miles apart, and still talking and talking. There are other rich conversations too, but few as constant as this. I've had the good fortune to have spawned one or two at my own site. I'm going through a little "Pressthink withdrawal" I think. It's tough. Requires more wine. Jay, I can predict with some accuracy that most of us will check back often, to look for any book updates and for each other. (Truth be told, I will miss Lovelady and kilgore together.) The book is good, go write it. We know you have to focus and take time and do it. But the conversation is equally valuable, and if you'll come back and help direct it again, I know we'll appreciate it. Don't take this too personally, Jay, but I think you're making a mistake if you read your creation at PressThink as being only what you write for it. Yes, what you write is the key ingredient, but PressThink is as much a community of users as it is your personal thoughts. You're not a frequent poster, so why do so many people check you daily? Why do we come here even when there's clearly no RSS update? You created PressThink, you animate PressThink, you inform, shape and direct PressThink, but you are not PressThink. I think it's great that you're taking time off to write a book (I will buy the first edition, too), but I think you're missing a trick here. Why not find some experts, scholars and wise folk you trust to keep things going here during your hiatus? Why not step back and see the creation for what it is? Posted by: Daniel Conover at October 23, 2005 12:55 PM | Permalink Why not find some experts, scholars and wise folk you trust to keep things going here during your hiatus? I'd like to nominate Dan Conover and "Jenny D"! (and I really miss Jay's take on Calame's piece, which seem like..... well it seemed like an emasculated version of Jay Rosen. Calame had nearly nothing new to report --- instead he wasted a lot of space telling everyone what they already knew. I mean, the Calame has the access to provide an answer to the question regarding Miller's claimed advocacy for a story on the "Wilson-Plame" connection; we know that Abramson said it never happened, but its not like Judy Miller wasn't capable of asking Keller or some other editor for permission. Did Calame even ask Keller about it? It is extremely difficult to imagine what an emasculated version of Jay Rosen would read like. Can you provide a link to this Y-chromosome free prodigy? The Miller Mess: Lingering Issues Among the Answers by Byron Calame digby at Hullabaloo has details on the "Miller did/didn't urge an editor to do a story on Plame-Wilson".... Howell Raines and Gerald Boyd were tossed on their keisters thanx to the Blair fiasco on June 3, 2003 --- well before Miller talked to Libby. They should have been asked about this --- just to confirm that Miller was unaware of the Wilson/Plame connection prior to her conversation with Libby. Interim managing editor Joseph Lelyveld should also have been asked -- he was in charge until Keller was made editor on July 14, 2003 (same day as the infamous Novak column). But Calame (apparently) didn't bother to question any of these people about Miller's account, instead he chose to simply imply that Miller is flat-out lying based on Abramson's denial. I'm the last person to defend Miller's conduct, but for Calame to not do his job on this issue --- a job that he is perfectly positioned to do --- demonstrates his complete lack of sincere concern about the larger story --- and the credibility of the Times. Please, s/emasculated/colorless/ From Calame's above-linked piece: "[Keller:] I fear I fostered an impression that The Times put a higher premium on protecting its reporters than on coming clean with its readers." "[Calame:] ANOTHER troubling ethical issue that I haven't yet been able to nail down is whether Ms. Miller holds a government security clearance." Posted by: Anna Haynes at October 26, 2005 11:52 PM | Permalink |
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