Wow - You nailed him. Fox set up an invented premise so he'd have something knock down. Then he failed to support either his premise or his take down of it.

But there is less to his musings than even your analysis observes. While he offers no foundation for his assertion that conventional wisdom has declared that local ownership is best, he also doesn't bother to reveal what he means by "best." So far as I can tell, the only criteria he seems concerned about is financial performance. Every example he gives for the superiority of the corporation is economic. That may be understandable for a column in Fortune, but why then did he begin his rant by citing the difficulties at the Santa Barbara News-Press, where the issues were purely editorial?

In the end, Fox concludes that, while both ownership models have flaws, he would "rather have Wall Street calling the shots." That's funny because I had exactly the opposite conclusion. I would much rather have someone rooted in the community with a personal stake in the enterprise calling the shots, than a far-flung corporation with a myriad of conflicting editorial, economic and regulatory interests to juggle.

Posted by: Mark Howard @ News Corpse at July 14, 2006 4:14 AM | Permalink

Ouch! That's some bad-ass Dragnet journalism you got goin' on in this post, Jay.

It's long past time for Jack Webb journalism to kick ass and take some names. I'm starting to get the impression facts are considered quaint in most journalistic circles now.

The press needs to get a clue about how the unwritten rule that an opinion column is a license for fact-free stupidity is killing the legitimacy and credibility of the press as an institution and DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT (that means lower doses of psychedelic drugs in the Wall Street Journal editorial board's water cooler, for starters).

Posted by: Mark Anderson at July 14, 2006 6:27 AM | Permalink

"Of course, there can be a downside to local ownership, because buyers may not know much about journalism."

This could be a plus. Many of the issues journalism faces now are being faces by many other industries. Other threads have compared journalism to software developement. I am not sure about the comparison, but the biggest asset many software companies have are its customer base, employee talent and brand recognition.

The distribution (customer base) of paper is the vehicle for advertising and the reach of that distribution is what newspapers sell to adverstisers. The employee talent (journalists) and brand recognition are used to determine the quality of what is being distributed.

At the end of the day, if the customer base is not impressed by the delivery method, employee talent, or brand recognition they may not buy anymore.

This is not unlike many other industries. Think about a company in negotiations with Wal-mart. They could make a lot of money moving their manufacturing to China a lowering their price. On the other hand, they are cheapening their brand prestige and perhaps cutting of possible high-profit, low volume markets.

The same model can be applied to many local newspapers. But there is still a problem. Who decides whether the employees are talented and the brand is still work recognizing. At the end of the day it is everyone who looks at the company's products and business outlook.

Journalists, like some other industries, seem the think that because they provide a public service they are immune to this.

No matter what the ownership structure is, this evaluation occurs every day. Get used to it.

Posted by: Tim at July 14, 2006 8:28 AM | Permalink

Journalists, like some other industries, seem the think that because they provide a public service they are immune to this.

Which journalists make this argument? Are you mind-reading your strawman?

The top editors who make the public service plea, or the holy profession, know about the economic reality.

In 8 years working for newspapers, I've never had one single conversation with anyone in the newrsoom about how this story or that story is great public service. Reporters and editors don't go about their day and work consciously thinking about that.

The conversations we did have were, can you believe that story is on the frigging front page (i.e. instead of mine?), or begrudgling that's a good story (without analyzing what that story means to the public). Or as Lovelady, mentioned on a previous thread, how can I get raise in this sorry joint.

You might find DC TV reporters talk about being a proxy for the public, but that is more about defending their right to ask tough questions when they are stonewalled or attacked. TV isn't immuned to economic reality either since news divisions are no longer lost leaders. They're viewed as profit (or loss) centers by the networks.

Katie Couric isn't getting her huge contract for public service. If ratings don't improve at the CBS Evening News, she'll be serving the public somewhere else.

Posted by: Hue at July 14, 2006 10:18 AM | Permalink

Mr. Fox's column is particularly ironic given the perpetual bloodbath that Fortune magazine itself has endured under public ownership.

For five years running, that magazine has been the victim of one-trick ponies on the business side of Time Inc. whose sole management tool appears to be cutting costs.

That's one reason Rik Kirkland stepped down as managing editor at the end of 2004. It's also one reason Joe Nocera, a world-class business reporter, left Fortune for the New York Times shortly thereafter.

And the beat goes on ...

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 14, 2006 10:46 AM | Permalink

A life preserver or piece of ratty driftwood does not need to be desirable in the least to nevertheless act as "salvation" to a drowning man. I have seen the local-non-Wall-Street-ownership concept used frequently in such a context ... save us, Obi-Won! You're our only hope! Steve Lopez at the L.A. Times, most prominently in my world.

In this case "salvation" would maybe be hyperbole, but only just. Do not underestimate the desperation of the modern newspaper employee.

Perhaps the most curious thing of all, vis-a-vis ownership models and the Santa Barbara News-Press, is that the journalists there haven't yet figured out (at least as far as I've been able to tell) that it's pretty damned cheap to start a daily newspaper nowadays. Tomorrow's salvation could be today's gumption. If the entire staff quit, then raised money from outraged locals to start a competing daily, McCaw would have a husk of a paper, expensive outdated equipment, and a drastic depreciation on her hands, perhaps precipitating a firesale.

Maybe all these fancy ownership ideas could actually *compete* with one another, in a forum more interesting than the cud-chewing that passes for media punditry....

Posted by: Matt Welch at July 14, 2006 11:24 AM | Permalink

I think Matt is right.

There has been a good deal of "private ownership will save newspaper journalism" talk going around.

And from personal experience, I can say, private has its pitfalls.

Posted by: Howard Owens at July 14, 2006 11:42 AM | Permalink

Matt Welch
"Maybe all these fancy ownership ideas could actually compete with one another"

That would be nice. That is, in fact, the mission of most of the media reform crowd that I hang out with.

The problem is that competition is being systematically eliminated from the media marketplace. That's what Wall Street, consolidation, and the FCC have wrought.

I don't think it's as easy as renegade editors starting up their own papers, and I'm not sure what you mean by "cheap." The union representing employees of some of the Knight Ridder papers made a bid for acquisition, but didn't even get a fair hearing - and they had billionaire Ron Burkle backing them.

Posted by: Mark Howard @ News Corpse at July 14, 2006 12:14 PM | Permalink

Another thought ...

You know, the real issue here isn't public vs. non-public. It's chain vs. non-chain.

Private ownership of a single newspaper by a single person with no corporate oversight is the danger.

There are a lot of very good, privately held newspaper chains in the US. You rarely if ever hear about this sort of turmoil, or anything close to it, at these chains.

When you have a CEO who is responsible for several different properties, he doesn't have time to micromanage. And each individual publisher has to report up and be accountable to his or her peers. This provides checks and balances that help ego-based decisions in check and force executives to fit within at least some broad sense of peer conformity.

Wendy McCaw has none of that. She also didn't come up through ranks and learn the business before acquiring her power.

And that, my friends, is the biggest danger newspapers face that are passing, or could pass, from chain ownership to local ownership.

Posted by: Howard Owens at July 14, 2006 12:15 PM | Permalink

Howard's
> There are a lot of very good, privately held newspaper chains in the US. You rarely if ever hear about this sort of turmoil, or anything close to it, at these chains.

I think "it doesn't happen" is NOT the reason you rarely hear about it.

Living in a community served by a privately-held newspaper chain, I can tell you that chain ownership is no panacea either. The News-Press story had a painfully familiar ring to it.

Matt's
> the journalists there haven't yet figured out ... that it's pretty damned cheap to start a daily newspaper nowadays.

Are there any cases in recent history of editors/reporters quitting to start a competing publication? It'd be nice if we could sink our teeth into some real data here.

Mark's
> The press needs to get a clue about how the unwritten rule that an opinion column is a license for fact-free stupidity is killing the legitimacy and credibility of the press as an institution

Yes yes yes please yes. To say nothing of the lack of transparency - what on earth are people with past and present PR-industry ties doing as nationally syndicated columnists?

and Jay, a) I loved your over-the-cubicle-wall dialog, but also b) I have heard this "first we need to get rid of corporate ownership" view expressed by a working journalist. Panacea? no, but my impression was that it was perceived as a necessary first step.

Posted by: Anna Haynes at July 14, 2006 1:15 PM | Permalink

The Santa Barbara commentary and Fox's folly recall for me a situation many years ago when I was at the University of Illinois and mentioned to a colleague, a radical political economist, that a number of the journalism faculty were beginning a study on the relationship of chain vs. independent ownership to editorial quality. He sneered an answer: There's no difference! Why should a local, independent monopoly capitalist owner be any different from a chain monopoly capitalist owner? He was right, of course, and the academic literature almost invariably finds no differences, in part because there are (Champaign-Urbana is a fine example) some really wretched small independent newspapers still out there.

Posted by: Chuck Whitney at July 14, 2006 1:39 PM | Permalink

> You rarely if ever hear about this sort of turmoil, or anything close to it, at these chains.

A structural reason for this observation:
In a privately held chain, if one of its newspapers is going down the tubes due to rogue management, employees who leave can often jump to another paper within the chain - and even if they don't make this jump, they're probably also quieted by the dual carrot-and-stick of
a) perhaps being able to work elsewhere in the chain in future
b) but not if they burn their bridges with a loud and public departure

thus what happens, I think, is that the "disillusioned departure energy" gets bled off, so doesn't reach critical mass for a public explosion.

Posted by: Anna Haynes at July 14, 2006 1:47 PM | Permalink

> ... the academic literature almost invariably finds no differences [between papers run by local and chain capitalist owners]

Chuck, are these studies online? Links would be good...

Posted by: Anna Haynes at July 14, 2006 1:51 PM | Permalink

Thanks, Jay, for all the loving attention!

I've got a few responses. The first has already been mostly covered by Matt Welch and Howard Owens above, but really: Of all the many straw men I've attempted to bat down over the years, that was one of the least flimsy. I'll go with Matt's verdict: "maybe hyperbole, but only just." And all the examples you cite pretty much back that up. Yes, my 12 words are less nuanced than Joe Nocera's two paragraphs, but I was just trying to get on to the next point.

Now as to what the next point was, there I think you're on to something. I was writing for the CNNMoney readership--people interested in business news, not debates among journalists--and I was trying to very briefly explore the larger debate over corporate ownership and governance that has been going on at least since the early 1930s. My comments about publicly traded being the best among many flawed options applied to corporate America as a whole. But by starting with the Santa Barbara example I certainly implied that publicly traded newspaper companies are best. And the more I thought about that after the fact (especially when Bob Garfield started asking me about it for 'On the Media') the less certain I was of what exactly I was trying to say. There are just too many great, innovative newspapers governed by unconventional means (the Guardian and the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, both run by foundations set up by previous owners, are two that I spent some time yesterday learning about), to say that a stock market listing is best for a media company. Although I definitely still think it's better than being owned by Wendy McCaw.

Finally, as to all the self-righteous hooey about the bar having been raised on opinion journalism: I write my opinion pieces for CNNMoney (this one did not appear in the pages of the magazine) with the intention of starting a discussion. I don't mean for them to be the final word, I want to start a discussion with readers, etc. The site isn't really set up for that at this point, I admit, but it will get there. What you seem to be saying, though, is that it's impermissible for professional journalists put up such not-yet-fully-developed musings on the Web. Is that what you're saying?

As for Steve Lovelady's comment about Fortune. He's worked here at Time Inc., so he's more than entitled to his views about the place, but the main reason Fortune went through a "bloodbath" in the early part of this decade was not because it's part of a soulless, publicly traded corporation, but because it's a business publication and business-to-business advertising totally collapsed. Times weren't exactly great at the WSJ, Business Week, or Forbes, either. And maybe I'm wrong here, but I think Joe left because he was offered a sweet gig at the New York Times.

Rosen's reply.

Posted by: Justin Fox at July 14, 2006 2:26 PM | Permalink

> I don't mean for [my columns] to be the final word, I want to start a discussion with readers, etc.

Making this explicit would be a simple, high-ROI way to inform your readers and prevent misunderstandings.

> There are just too many great, innovative newspapers governed by unconventional means...to say that a stock market listing is best for a media company.

And local ownership will be all over the map too - on one hand the Pt Reyes Light (coincidental quote: "I had more than one newspaper broker tell me the only buyer I'd ever find would be a newspaper chain, and that scared me to death"), on the other hand the (former) Anderson Valley Advertiser (see 2004 NY Times article; Google "He called me a 10th-rate McCarthyite")

Posted by: Anna Haynes at July 14, 2006 3:15 PM | Permalink

There have been around 100 daily newspapers launched in the United States so far this young century. Very very few, if any, by disgruntled newsrooms. But just because newspaper reporters don't know about a viable business model in their own industry, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Posted by: Matt Welch at July 14, 2006 4:01 PM | Permalink

Actually, a group of reporters (in the form of the Newspaper Guild) did try to buy some of the former Knight Ridder papers, or rather it allied itself with and threw its weight behind one prominent would-be buyer, Ron Burkle.

Unfortunately for them, Burkle & Co. either did not bid or bid too low on the properties it was interested in. So none of us know (well, Burkle knows) just how close we came to an ownership that would have been heavily influenced by employee input into editorial, managerial and financial decisions. (As a consequence, we also don't know if that idea would have produced a a viable, vibrant publication or a fiasco.)

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 14, 2006 4:17 PM | Permalink

"Journalists, like some other industries, seem the think that because they provide a public service they are immune to this."

What I was thinking about when I wrote this sentence was the discussions we have have on PressThink about the importance of the White House Press corps and the rollback of Bush Administration. There seemed to be the feeling among journalists that the WH has to deal with us, because we are a public service informing the American public. I see the same attitude at times with teachers (we are educating your kids), lawyers (everyone needs protection) and Doctors (I heal the sick).

At times these professions can get so focused on their goal they think they are immune to normal business pressures and restraints. This is not an unusual occurrance in many companies (see American auto industry).

Posted by: Tim at July 14, 2006 4:20 PM | Permalink

Matt, what is the largest circulation of new dailies?
For midsize cities, (Richmond, Va.) or some big cities (Houston) few dailies have launched. We have tons of one newspaper towns.

Tim, I didn't mean to sound so harsh. I'm saying that those DC reporters are (hopefully) not unaware of their industry's economic situation. And it's easier, better argument (we represent the public) to persuade the WH to engage the media, than for the WH to engage the media because we produce content for publicly-traded companies. Please, please talk to us.

Media is one of the few industries with a public service component. The Big Three isn't doing any public service, they're just trying to make money. If they don't make cars that sell, Japanese and European makers will fill the void. Who will fill the void if newspapers fail? I don't think newspapers will fail, but they will be very different.

The work force for online newspapers will be much, much smaller. Fewer ads for the advertising, smaller circulation department. How much smaller will the newrooms be? Readers in Atlanta, where I live, will only go the AJC for local sports and news. Atlanta readers will go to the LATimes, NYTimes, WSJ and WashPost etc. and blogs for national and international news and opinion.

Sorry about the repitition, but these comments from previous threads are more apt here.

Posted by: Hue at July 14, 2006 4:43 PM | Permalink

Justin
"I write my opinion pieces for CNNMoney...with the intention of starting a discussion. I don't mean for them to be the final word"

It's a little hard to take you at your word for this when there is nothing in your column that even hints to that, and there is no way for readers to engage in a discussion online if they wanted to.

Yet, you put these words in Jay's mouth:
"What you seem to be saying, though, is that it's impermissible for professional journalists put up such not-yet-fully-developed musings on the Web."

So now you tell us that your musings are "not-yet-fully-developed," and then criticize Jay for comments he didn't make about something you only just revealed. C'mon...

Posted by: Mark Howard @ News Corpse at July 14, 2006 4:52 PM | Permalink

public service = immunity from capitalism?

No matter what the ownership structure is, this evaluation occurs every day. Get used to it.

time out. information ain't widgets. trusting in market forces to sort out winners in terms of media isn't the same thing as letting VHS and Betamax duke it out.

anyway, the point is, there's no single best solution for ownership for all media. the argument some of us have been making lately isn't that corporate ownership should be replaced with a different system, but that we need more diversity in ownership situations (including non-profit approaches).

corporate-owned mass media is producing monocultures, not ecosystems. it's a tree farm, not a forest, and it isn't healthy.

Posted by: daniel conover at July 14, 2006 4:54 PM | Permalink

Thanks for stopping by, Justin. Good luck on "On the Media," too.

Here are some replies to your replies.

Of all the many straw men I've attempted to bat down over the years, that was one of the least flimsy.

Groan. Your original statement was bull, this is bull with rising steam. That local ownership is widely seen as the salvation of the newspaper industry is not hyperbole-- basically accurate but exaggerated for effect. It is an untrue statement. Untrue, unsupported, and I believe unsupportable. Right now there is no agreement whatsoever on what the solution to the daily newspaper's problems are.

That Matt Welch thinks Steve Lopez is up a tree because Lopez believes local owners will "save" the LA Times is evidence that it was great to bring the iconoclastic Welch on board in Los Angeles. It helps you not all. You had no links or quotes then to support your made-up generalization (when you were trying to be brief for an audience of non-specialists, you tell us) and you have no links or quotes now, where you have all the space you need and a very interested readership.

And all the examples you cite pretty much back that up.

Back you up? @#*%$#@#!@&&*+$! What is the international symbol for disbelief? Justin, I don't know you, or a thing about your native capacities, but on this point you are just thick-headed. I chose examples of people who are, yes, enthusiastic about local ownership, but that doesn't back you up. For these observers go out of their way to avoid the very claim you say is now accepted everywhere. Local ownership is not a perfect solution. That's what they say. That's what you say.

And I would say to Howard Owens: Go ahead, Howard, show me some samples of all the talk going around claiming that "private ownership will save newspaper journalism" that doesn't acknowledge "private has its pitfalls" too. I don't believe you can.

I was just trying to get on to the next point.

Now you are making sense. You just wanted to get to the next point and you didn't care whether your statement was true, because it had truthiness enough for the extremely low standards you accepted for your column. (I guess because it was "just online.")

And the more I thought about that after the fact (especially when Bob Garfield started asking me about it for 'On the Media') the less certain I was of what exactly I was trying to say.

Exactly. Because you didn't do your homework the first time. And if you had gone into what people are actually saying about local ownership vs. other models--which is a lot more complicated than "salvation is at hand, folks"--you would have gotten to some of the complications you now realize are at the core of the question. That's why when you think you know "what everyone is saying" you go and get examples. You have to test your belief. The testing takes you places.

Finally, as to all the self-righteous hooey about the bar having been raised on opinion journalism...

Justin, Justin. You can't be this clueless. Of all things journalists do, writing opinion columns about things that have been in the news is the activity most transformed by the Web. It is the one area where barriers to entry have truly fallen and there are many more competitors. Of course the bar has been raised. If you truly don't realize that I would advise you not to write any more columns online. It will be bad for your career.

What you seem to be saying, though, is that it's impermissible for professional journalists put up such not-yet-fully-developed musings on the Web. Is that what you're saying?

Hell no, Justin. The Web is great for that. But if you are putting up not-yet-fully-developed musings, then you do it in a far more humble way than "Justin smashes conventional wisdom to bits" (and later realizes his bold counter-intuitive statement is wrong.) Second, if you can't learn to link like a pro, then don't venture into online debate. Your skills are behind the curve. Cheers.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 14, 2006 7:18 PM | Permalink

Justin --

I'm well aware that Fortune's bloodbath was the result of a collapse in business-to-business advertising. But that avoids the question at hand, which is: Might Fortune have fared better under private ownership in the 2001-2006 period ?

Let's do a little exercise in "what if?'

In 1954, having had much success with Time, Life and Fortune, Henry Luce started Sports Illustrated.

It took a lot of time and a lot of tinkering to refine the idea. In fact, for 11 years Sports Illustrated lost money, and yet Luce continued to pour money into a seemingly losing proposition. Finally, in 1965 things came together, and in the 40 years since the magazine has not only produced superb journalism every step of the way but it has been a cash cow for Time Inc.

The point is, Luce was willing to fund the losses for 11 years, in hopes of a quality magazine emerging.

Do you imagine for one second that Ann Moore (the current head of Time Inc.) would continue for 11 years to funnel money into a magazine trying to find its legs ?

Or that she, under the watch of both her corporate masters and Wall Street, would do so for even 11 months ?

I don't think so. I think she would shut it down quick.

And that is the case for private ownership. Sure, it can go badly wrong -- e.g., Wendy McCaw. But it can also go spectacularly right -- e.g. Henry Luce.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 14, 2006 10:25 PM | Permalink

Matt, what is the largest circulation of new dailies?

Not sure; these would be among the top 10:

325,000 New York Metro
318,000 AM New York
260,000 DC Examiner
250,000 Baltimore Examiner
170,000 Boston Metro
143,000 Philadelphia Metro

I don't think it's as easy as renegade editors starting up their own papers, and I'm not sure what you mean by "cheap."

In Santa Barbara, it is as easy as that. Renegade editors starting up their own paper = competition. And by "cheap" I mean an annual budget of around $10 million, maybe less for SB. Nashville's got a decent little daily with tons of local reporting; started for a fraction of that.

The problem is that competition is being systematically eliminated from the media marketplace.

Really? Twenty years ago there were three networks, very little cable news, no satellite radio, no blogs, little (compared to now) AM talk radio, and certainly not a clutch of new daily newspapers launched for less than $15 million each.

Are there any cases in recent history of editors/reporters quitting to start a competing publication? It'd be nice if we could sink our teeth into some real data here.

It'd be nice if editors/reporters had the gumption & awareness to notice a low-hanging business model dangling in front of their faces.

Posted by: Matt Welch at July 14, 2006 11:26 PM | Permalink

Yes, Fox's article starts with a straw-man. Very few are seriously claiming that private ownership is the magic potion to what ails the newspaper industry.

His mistake was in writing a weak lede. Big deal. It is not the crux of his argument.

The crux of his argument lies at the nexus of the virtues and problems of corporate governance and the role of the newspaper in a democracy. Furthermore, he is reasserting some concepts already familiar to most regular readers of FORTUNE, and probably to most regular readers of CNN/Money - specifically, a variant of the efficient market hypothesis, which is EXTREMELY well-established and widely accepted among investors:

And here's the thing: If you had to pick the one governance model best equipped to reconcile the conflicting priorities of owners, employees and customers over time, it is that of the publicly traded corporation.

That's because, at a publicly traded company, legions of sharp-eyed, independent observers (a.k.a. investors and potential investors) are constantly investigating the business, weighing short-term against long-term rewards, comparing performance with that of similar companies. They don't always do a good job of it, and can be maddeningly fickle slaves to fashion. It's a good thing that there are alternatives to the public-corporation model, so there's a place to turn when market values are particularly out of whack. But it's not clear that any of those alternatives really work out better over the long run.

This probably doesn't make sense to an audience of non-financial journalists. But it makes perfect sense to an audience of investors and capitalists, which is who Fox was writing for.

Yeah, If I were the editor, I would have sent it back for another go-round with the lede. But the lede is just the garnish.

Jay, I think you're making a mountain out of a molehill.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 15, 2006 12:14 AM | Permalink

Right-on, Jason.

"Markets are efficient." I had never heard of that. Thanks for bringing it to my attention, though. I will have to do some reading in this thing you call capitalism. Has it been around a while? Normally I would know about something like that.

By the way, Fox abandoned the crux of his argument in his comment above. He no longer thinks it's clear that the Wall Street model is the one best way. It was clear Wednesday, though. Before he thought about it.

As for the crux of my argument, it really isn't about local ownership, or newspapers, even. It's about low standards of proof, verification and illustration. If you're going to practice "trust me" journalism (where users can't see for themselves whether you have characterized prevailing wisdom fairly because you don't link to any of it) then you better be right.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 15, 2006 12:21 AM | Permalink

Jay, I've responded in my own blog.

And if you visit, you might like to scroll down a few posts and find the one where I talk about my experiences at The Daily Californian, a now defunct newspaper from San Diego.

Posted by: Howard Owens at July 15, 2006 1:19 AM | Permalink

325,000 New York Metro
318,000 AM New York
260,000 DC Examiner
250,000 Baltimore Examiner
170,000 Boston Metro
143,000 Philadelphia Metro

Matt, it was my impression that we were discussing journalism here. I don't know about all of them, but I do know that the "Metro" papers are "newspapers" only in the most expansive sense --- they are purely and simply marketing tools with crap editorial content (mostly drastically pared down wire service reports.)

In other words, if this is your "evidence" of how there are lots of new daily newspapers being created, you need to go back and read the definitions of "relevance" and "evidence"

Posted by: plukasiak at July 15, 2006 7:05 AM | Permalink

Thanks, plukasiak, for illustrating my point beautifully.

1) The DC Examiner & Baltimore Examiner do not very much resemble the Metro papers; they provide much more coverage, and pretty lively opinion sections.

2) This may be really, really hard to grasp, but the existence of a good *business model* -- cheaply printed dailies handed out for free using smaller staffs -- does not preclude different *editorial strategies* from being grafted onto them. For instance, the Metro papers (and big-paper attempts, like the Red Eye) are often criticized for just regurgitating wire & syndicated copy, yet in Nashville, a local daily (started by a software executive, not a journalist, natch), refrained from using syndication & wire for the first 18 months, focusing instead on flooding the zone with local coverage.

3) Let's follow this thread of conversation above:

Matt: It's pretty damned cheap to start a newspaper these days.
Mark: I don't think it's as easy as renegade editors starting up their own papers, and I'm not sure what you mean by "cheap."
Matt: an annual budget of around $10 million, maybe less for SB.
Anna: Are there any cases in recent history of editors/reporters quitting to start a competing publication? It'd be nice if we could sink our teeth into some real data here.
Matt: Just because newspaper reporters don't know about a viable business model in their own industry, it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
Hugh: What is the largest circulation of new dailies?
Matt: (Provides list of six with 143,000-plus.)
plukasiak: If this is your "evidence" of how there are lots of new daily newspapers being created, you need to go back and read the definitions of "relevance" and "evidence."

Phenomenal work, people. If I'm following the logic right, the existence of a new newspaper business model that has led to the creation of scores of newspapers this century is irrelevant to the discussion of maybe having disgruntled News-Press staffers start their own paper, because we haven't heard about a newsroom doing that before, and those Metro papers aren't very good. Now *that's* a recipe for action!

There is a Perpetual Disappointment Machine at work here. When you only allow for roughly one *type* of acceptable daily newspaper, with (roughly) one *type* of acceptable comportment from the publisher (namely, keeping their hands off unless you agree with what their hands are doing; and otherwise maintaining current staffing & bureau levels, etc.), then you are going to wake up every morning feeling let down, while sitting on your own hands in the name of artistic cleanliness rather than attempt explore something new.

Posted by: Matt Welch at July 15, 2006 12:22 PM | Permalink

Matt: "Twenty years ago there were three networks, very little cable news, no satellite radio, no blogs, little (compared to now) AM talk radio, and certainly not a clutch of new daily newspapers launched for less than $15 million each."

I'm sure you're aware that the quantity of media outlets does not speak to the depth of competition. Most of these outlets are owned or managed by a handful of conglomerates. Ben Bagdikian's The New Media Monopoly, shows that only 5 huge corporations control most of the media industry in the U.S. That's down from 50 twenty years ago. And the FCC's efforts to deregulate has produced less competition by allowing more consolidation and audience reach.

The series of tubes that comprise the Internet offer some hope, but that avenue is also at risk of being consumed by the same big conglomerates that control the old media. They already own most of the top Internet destinations for news.

Posted by: Mark Howard @ News Corpse at July 15, 2006 4:05 PM | Permalink

I've never really understood how five-way competition = "monopoly," but then I've never been a particularly good journalism student.

And it's weird how "5 huge corporations control most of the media industry in the U.S.," yet they can't even manage to run a single print publication of note in Los Angeles County. Hop to it, Overlords!

Posted by: Matt Welch at July 15, 2006 9:36 PM | Permalink

Jason heaps accolades on "the efficient market hypothesis, which," he assures us, "is EXTREMELY well-established and widely accepted among investors ..."

Would that be the same "efficient market" that produced the dot.com boom of 1997 to 2001, in which start-ups worth nothing were assigned insane values ? Or would it be the other "efficient market" that came to its senses four years after the fact and sent valuations of those same empty business models into the toilet ?

A market that catches on four years late to an utter fiction that has been inconveniently interrupted by facts doesn't strike me as terribly "efficient." But it happens. It happens in the financial markets. And it happens in politics. (See war in, Iraq.)

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 15, 2006 10:24 PM | Permalink

Steve,

Once again, you're using your keyboard to write checks your fund of information can't cash.

See Burton Malkiel's paper here for an encapsulation of why.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 15, 2006 11:26 PM | Permalink

Hey, Steve...

"The efficient market hypothesis is probably the widest-adopted theory in the financial markets."

Under the Efficient Market Hypothesis, which is widely accepted by economists,

Now, I never claimed that it was universally adopted. And you have to differentiate between the strong-form EMH, the semi-strong, and the weak-form EMH.

You're probably a weak-form EMH adherent yourself, if you looked far enough into it.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 15, 2006 11:45 PM | Permalink

Matt: Hop to it, Overlords!

Please, don't encourage them.

Posted by: Mark Howard @ News Corpse at July 15, 2006 11:51 PM | Permalink

Richard Brenneman's letter makes the case for private ownership in this statement:

"The doctrine of fiduciary responsibility mandates that an oficer of a shareholder-owned paper, given the choice between an action that serves a vital public interest and one that confers a greater profit to the shareholders, must always choose that action which serves the financial gain of the shareholders. It's the law."

When your allegiances are to shareholder value rather than to the public, the public loses.

Stocks vascillate for many reasons that are unrelated to the company or its products. Some things are poorly suited to have their value be determined by market forces, which are often unpredictable and wrong, as Steve notes above. Journalism is a good example of an enterprise that should not be valued by equity markets, as is healthcare. It's the same resaon that I don't think corporations should be permitted to contribute to political campaigns. Their loyalty is to their stock portfolio, not their community.

Posted by: Mark Howard @ News Corpse at July 16, 2006 12:50 PM | Permalink

I know what the conventional wisdom is, Jason.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 16, 2006 3:00 PM | Permalink

I know what the conventional wisdom is, Jason.

Asserts facts not in evidence. If you knew what the conventional wisdom was, you would not have taken issue when I pointed it out.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 16, 2006 7:05 PM | Permalink

Jay, this is comment may seem at first glance to be entirely off-topic, but it is not. It refers to a reluctance to accept prevailing dogma, whether it be journalistic or financial.

Jason:

You assert with your usual arrogance that if I had known what the conventional wisdom was (in this case, efficient market theory) I "would not have taken issue" with it ??

What kind of logic is that ? I knew what "conventional wisdom" was for the invasion of Iraq in 2003, and I rejected it in its entirety. (You could look that up.) And I first read Malkiel's "Random Walk" 33 years ago, probably before you were born, and I dismissed it out of hand. (Thank God!)

In short, I have spent a lifetime, both journalistically and financially, going against conventional wisdom, and I gotta tell you, it's paid off almost every step of the way in both arenas.

Tell Benjamin Graham, Peter Lynch, Bill Miller and Warren Buffett that they can't outperform the market over long periods of time. They'll laugh you out of the room. How did they do it? They identified markets where prices did not accurately reflect the available information -- in opposition to the efficient market hypothesis which explicitly implies that no such opportunities exist. As Buffett has so dryly put it: "If markets were always efficient, I'd be a bum on the street with a tin cup." He has also observed that the big mistake of Malkiel and his disciples was that in "observing correctly that the market was frequently efficient, they went on to conclude incorrectly that it was always efficient."

Which is why Buffett is worth $44 billion, and Malkiel is worth -- what ? Tenure at Princeton ?

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 16, 2006 8:34 PM | Permalink

I think it's a good idea to question, and occasionally to subvert conventional wisdom. It's an even better idea to be accurate (and nuanced) in one's estimate of what the conventional wisdom is.

The New Republic writers have lately been digging themselves into holes because they are trying to subvert what they think of as conventional wisdom in Left Blogistan, but they keep blowing the paraphrase of what Kos and other liberal bloggers are saying.

Remember when Ben Bradlee returns the pages to Woodward and Bernstein and says (in All the President's Men) "you haven't got it." Next time, he says, "get some hard information." I would add that, on the Web, if your post doesn't link to samples of the wisdom you say is conventional, then you haven't got it.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 16, 2006 11:07 PM | Permalink

You assert with your usual arrogance that if I had known what the conventional wisdom was (in this case, efficient market theory) I "would not have taken issue" with it ??


No, that's not what I wrote.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 17, 2006 7:45 AM | Permalink

"information ain't widgets"

It is if you can get the same type of information from multiple sources. Here I am talking from a very simplified "Joe six-pacs" point of view. Imagine a customer who find that the local newspapers' national and international feeds, network news shows and the leading national magazines have nearly the same outlook on the news. These are sources that that stood the test of time and government gives them special access to information.

The determination of whether a product becoems a comodity worth paying extra for is in the hand of the consumer. Every company is trying to differenciate their product to increase their price, or they are trying to cut costs so that make money. The last 20 years the newspaper industry has been trying to cut costs because the information they deliver is like a widget, the same everyone else delivers.

Posted by: Tim at July 17, 2006 8:10 AM | Permalink

The model I'm beginning to see emerge (at least out here in the Midwest) is a loose (grassroots) confederacy of multiple independent owner/operators. You should be hearing a lot more on this later in the year. At least from me.

Posted by: kpaul at July 17, 2006 8:52 AM | Permalink

Not that anyone has the same fascination I do with this totally lame episode in columnizing, but Justin did appear on "On the Media" this weekend. Here's the show.

Both the host (Bob Garfield) and the guest avoided any mention of subverting conventional wisdom, or Howard's "before we all rush headlong into this new utopia.” He also didn't mention or defend his "main" point: that shareholder-owned is the one best way.

And here's the super counter-intuitive, icon-smashing conclusion from Fox: "Private ownership is a mish mosh. Sometimes its great, sometimes its horrible. It doesn't solve all the problems that newspapers are having."

Another bombshell revelation from the interview was how crummy a newspaper the Chicago Tribune was in the days of Colonel McCormack.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 17, 2006 10:37 AM | Permalink

Justin wrote:

"Finally, as to all the self-righteous hooey about the bar having been raised on opinion journalism: I write my opinion pieces for CNNMoney (this one did not appear in the pages of the magazine) with the intention of starting a discussion. I don't mean for them to be the final word, I want to start a discussion with readers, etc. ... What you seem to be saying, though, is that it's impermissible for professional journalists put up such not-yet-fully-developed musings on the Web. Is that what you're saying?"

Others have addressed the logical flaws and lack of substantiation in Justin's article, but what bothers me most of all is that sloppy journalism such as this makes it even more difficult for those of us who are trying to teach the craft.

First, there is a difference between musings that aren't fully developed (and are described as such) and unsubstantiated assertions. Justin's article presented us with the latter, and that is what Jay was complaining about. Second, even musings have to have some factual basis, and this was not supplied.

Without some evidence, Justin's piece (and his defense) sounds too much like the protests we sometimes get from first semester composition students -- "Well it's my opinion, and you can't grade me on my opinion!" Of course, we grade them on their evidence and reasoning. I certainly hope that Justin is not saying that professional columnists should be exempt from standards of argument that even beginning undergraduates are expected to master.

Posted by: Kim Pearson at July 17, 2006 12:36 PM | Permalink

Honestly, I'm so accustomed to seeing nonsense - sloppy argument, questionable or downright false postulates, unsubstantiated assertions, in news stories every day that this column doesn't bother me all that much. It's an opinion column, number one, and number two, while Fox doesn't substantiate his argument himself it's not wholly a red herring, in that there have been others who have made the same argument, as Howard Owens points out. And the tendency of newspaper people to romanticize small, scrappy underdogs is real.

My central point is that Fox's not-quite-red-herring is fluff. It's tangental to his argument.

He's not the first guy to come up with a germ of an idea, and then write a weak lede to get into it. I mean, Maureen "the-moral-authority-of-mothers-who-have-lost-a-child-in-this-war -is-absolute" Dowd is legendary for it (though her columns, unlike Fox's, remain wholly devoid of merit throughout.)

Ok, Fox flubbed a column. But unless you're using this to illustrate a larger trend - that either Fox is this bad all the time and should be fired - or that journalism is this bad all the time and should be remade from scratch - then I just have a hard time getting excited about this.

His sin is venial, not mortal. My inclination is to have him say a couple of mea culpas a few times and cut the brother some slack.

Oh, and guess what - Fox DID start a conversation - even without a comments section under his own article.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 17, 2006 4:59 PM | Permalink

Jason,

Make up your mind.

First you say: "I'm so accustomed to seeing nonsense - sloppy argument, questionable or downright false postulates, unsubstantiated assertions, in news stories every day that this column doesn't bother me all that much."

Then you say: "...unless you're using this to illustrate a larger trend...or that journalism is this bad all the time...then I just have a hard time getting excited about this."

In summary: It happens so often that you don't get excited about, but you don't get excited about it because it doesn't happen very much.

Posted by: Mark Howard @ News Corpse at July 17, 2006 7:52 PM | Permalink

It's not hard. If Jay wants to wage Jihad to improve journalism in order to better serve the readers and this great Republic, then I'll be manning the barricades with him - sharpening our swords and swapping Kool-Aid shots.*

But Jay's article reads like a jihad against Justin Fox himself - and that just doesn't motivate me.

I mean, I see worse than Fox's stuff every day.

Here's a treatment of one example.

I mean, if Time Magazine is reporting that Bush is only now joining in multiparty talks which have in reality been going on for three years, that multilateral negotiations on North Korea are a brand spanking new phenomenon, and that a coalition of 24 countries = "unilateral" (a particularly stupid and galling formulation), and that, particularly laughably, the Iraq war represents the "first laboratory" of wars of preemption, then Justin Fox's weak lede is the least of my concerns.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 17, 2006 9:14 PM | Permalink

Jason is spot-on. As if a journalist has never phoned-in a template-driven column (ever hear of Bob Herbert? Tom Friedman? Maureen Dowd?). There is now an "automatic Bob" column generator, not to mention this classic.

Jay frequently rails against bias-hunters who hype specific examples of lazy, agenda-driven writing. But when his ox is gored, 2000 words is just the beginning...

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at July 18, 2006 1:05 AM | Permalink

Brad Delong, Where Are the Heirs of Walter Lippman?

Attention must be paid to this one...

Suppose your mother owned a Florida condo that she rented out during the spring and summer. And suppose your siblings asked you how the agent she hired to rent out the condo was doing. How you would report to them--that's how the press should report on government. In the case of Judd Gregg, the proper report is analogous to, "Well, he's worked really hard and he's said he's saved a lot on maintenance, but actually the savings are really small." In the case of George Bush, the proper report is, "Well, he said that cutting the rent would mean that we'd get more money because we'd be able to rent the condo more weeks, but it turns out he's completely disconnected from reality."

But that's not a task that it seems that our daily newspaper press can carry out. Reporters describe themselves as under pressure to do "hard news" rather than "analytical" pieces, and "hard news" seems to mean a "he said, she said" story which opens "the President said X" and goes on to say "experts differ" leaving readers with absolutely no clue and no way to judge whether the guys whom we hired last election to do the public-finance equivalent of the family-finance job of managing our mother's Florida rental property are in fact doing a good job.

Note that my examples are budget examples. I'm one of the budget people. But I have peers in other issue areas. They see the same deficiencies. Whether they are bombs-and-bullets people, striped-pants-diplomacy people, welfare-and-social-policy people, science-and-technology-policy people--they all see the same patterns.

Jason: If Jay wants to wage Jihad to improve journalism in order to better serve the readers and this great Republic, then I'll be manning the barricades with him.

I want no association with Jihad thanks, but as for trying to improve journalism in order to better serve the readers and this great Republic of ours, yeah, that's why we're trying to do here.

My book, What Are Journalists For? tells you how I went about this 1989-99. The archives of PressThink do the same for 2003-06.

I am not attacking Fox personally, or telling you what a rotten character he is, or even suggesting he cannot be trusted. I'm showing readers how thin his writing is. It's not a jihad, it's just criticism.

What's the larger point? "The day when you could get by with that standard is over... The bar has been raised on opinion journalism. The Web did it, especially the magic of linking and the powers of Google." Aggregation, linking, archives and search, along with the rise of bloggers and sources who can publish (like Brad Delong) have changed the game on writers like Fox.

That you would point to and jump up and down about other examples of thinness is beyond dispute. Also, no one's asking you to be excited, Jason.

Professor Kim Pearson is right. If that Fortune column came to me in an opinion writing class I was teaching, I wouldn't grade it; I would send it back to be re-written. "In your next draft, show me you know this debate--the virtues and vices of local owners--inside out," I would have said to the student who submitted it.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 18, 2006 1:10 AM | Permalink

Yeah. Ok, I'm with you.

And I think one of the big reasons the standard for opinion journalism has changed isn't just because of Google. Actually, I think Google works in the pro-journo's favor, because thanks to this tool, a reporter covering an unfamiliar subject can climb that learning curve an order of magnitude faster than was possible 15 years ago. (Using the "scholarly papers" function helps to sort out the sh*t from the Shinola on my usual beat).

The paradigm shift came when real experts in thousands of fields were able to instantly publish - and debunk the work of journalists - and do so for the lay audience. Now the lay audience can link.

I would love to see the destruction of the editorial page as we know it. Why should we bother with a know-nothing like Maureen Dowd on the left, or take-your-pick on the right, opining on subjects over which they have zero grasp - when a sharp editorial page editor can agressively troll the web and blogs for voices which are truly experts on any number of voices, and have them in print within a day.

I mean, at least Dave Barry's funny!

But the model of the staff editorial writer, drawing a salary to write a weekly column of nothing, when so much more is available so much more economically - it's embracing the reptilian business model when the mammals are already eating the eggs.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 18, 2006 12:36 PM | Permalink

Nevertheless, Fox obviously did get by with that standard, because he's an "editor-at-large" at Time Inc.'s Fortune Group.

I always wondered what those people did, anyway?

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 18, 2006 12:37 PM | Permalink

Fox obviously did get by with that standard, because he's an "editor-at-large" at Time Inc.'s Fortune Group.

Exactly. Which is what my Gomer and Barney dialogue is about. Turns the whole "standards" debate on its ear.

What I mean is I think Captain Ed sets a standard that a Charles Krauthammer column struggles to meet, most of the time falling short. It would be relatively easy to upgrade Chuck's page so that it does more for you. The hard part would be getting K. to see that there's anything amiss.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 18, 2006 2:37 PM | Permalink

Jason wrote:

I would love to see the destruction of the editorial page as we know it. Why should we bother with a know-nothing like Maureen Dowd on the left, or take-your-pick on the right, opining on subjects over which they have zero grasp - when a sharp editorial page editor can agressively troll the web and blogs for voices which are truly experts on any number of voices, and have them in print within a day.

I mean, at least Dave Barry's funny!

But the model of the staff editorial writer, drawing a salary to write a weekly column of nothing, when so much more is available so much more economically - it's embracing the reptilian business model when the mammals are already eating the eggs.

Absolutely true. Is there any part of the newspaper that is more obviously outdated than the editorial page? Is it any wonder that newspaper editorials so often express disdain -- or, at the very least, at least smug distrust -- for all things webbish?

Posted by: Daniel Conover at July 18, 2006 3:30 PM | Permalink

I'm certainly not coming to the defense of op/ed pages. I've long subscribed to the idea that navels and opinions are something we all have.

But are we suggesting here that such half-baked frippery as The Corner or Instapundit's reliance on links without appended thought are inherently superior because they're not on the printed page?

I've always assumed that the quality of thought and the standards behind a piece of writing resulted from those who created it rather than the medium chosen. Nor, as in Jason's examples,is it a matter whether we agree with the thoughts expressed.

Posted by: David McLemore at July 18, 2006 4:12 PM | Permalink

But are we suggesting here that such half-baked frippery as The Corner or Instapundit's reliance on links without appended thought are inherently superior because they're not on the printed page?

No. I don't think anyone here is suggesting that at all. Those guys are linksters, and what they do isn't even comparable.

But when it comes to the operational situation at battalion and brigade level, Bill Roggio is absolutely reporting CIRCLES around the mainstream news outlets. And until recently, he was doing it while doing a day job!

If I had a newspaper, I would have syndicated his content in a heartbeat - and hollered at my military beat guys, saying "how come he's getting this stuff and you bozos are doing nothing better than trolling for body counts?"

That's how bad our professional reporters have gotten - they can be outhustled and out reported by part-timers.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 18, 2006 6:47 PM | Permalink

How do we know if the press has got the politics part right?

When we have a press that is discursive with the public. It is not, currently, but is capable of becoming so. The press adheres to an expository epistemological system too often, and only becomes discursive with the public when attempting to "regain" trust.

Press politics currently is the commodification of eyeballs and ears. When press politics becomes the commodification of thought and speech by the public, then they'll have their politics right.

Jayson: ... a sharp editorial page editor can agressively troll the web and blogs for voices which are truly experts on any number of voices, and have them in print within a day.

IOW, be a better utility sorter by being in/of the public discourse.

Dave McLemore: But are we suggesting here that such half-baked frippery as The Corner or Instapundit's reliance on links without appended thought are inherently superior because they're not on the printed page?

No, we're suggesting that Glenn Reynolds is the better utility sorter than the current editorial page editor. Links are his shortcut to success.

Posted by: Tim Schmoyer at July 18, 2006 7:23 PM | Permalink

Auggghhhh !

Tim Schmoyer has returned and brought the "noetic field" with him.

God help us, every one.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 18, 2006 10:10 PM | Permalink

Tim -- I think you need to use smaller words so that the journalists can understand you. (The rest of us are doing just fine.)

Posted by: Neuro-conservative at July 18, 2006 11:15 PM | Permalink

I understand the concept of enriching the copy with links, Tim. Acknowledging the collaborative nature that the web brings, etc.

I suppose I'm still wrestling with where quality of writing and ideas plays into it.

When you say No, we're suggesting that Glenn Reynolds is the better utility sorter than the current editorial page editor. Links are his shortcut to success. it still sounds like you're saying a mediocre opinionist with links is superior than a well-crafted and thought-provoking opinion piece published in print.

Fox is taken to task here for not enriching his opinion piece via links. I would argue, links or no, it would still be a half-baked and formless op/ed.

Crap is crap. With links, it's just crap with reference points.

Posted by: Dave McLemore at July 19, 2006 12:29 AM | Permalink

You really think that all I am saying to Fox is put in some links? Print very bad, web so very great? Good grief.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 19, 2006 12:52 AM | Permalink

Fox is taken to task for making stupid assertions debunking fictional assumptions (CW) without having done any research.

I do like your "reference points." Fox has none. It would have been much more difficult to get the "free pass" if he had any.

Posted by: Tim Schmoyer at July 19, 2006 6:55 AM | Permalink

Dave McLemore: I suppose I'm still wrestling with where quality of writing and ideas plays into it.

I think "quality" is the operative term. For example, who are the insiders and outsiders of journalism's changing epistemic court?

Posted by: Tim Schmoyer at July 19, 2006 8:56 AM | Permalink

Let's steer this away from the notion that we're talking about only either/or choices. There is now room for both crap and quality, insider and outsider. Our problems aren't problems of scarcity, but surplus.

I think the real game now is how we connect to material. Jason says that the part-time military writers he follows do a better job than the full-time pro-jos covering the military for the traditional media. So what's the problem if he can find them and read the stuff he wants? Scale. Jason knows, as we all know, that the audience for the pro-jo work is far larger, and therefore far more pursuasive to public opinion.

What we're talking about, then, is asymmetry and meritocracy. Traditional media start with huge built-in audience advantages, but new media have begun to both fracture that audience and transform it into something new (TPFKATA). It's a situation that's ripe for revolution, but as most of us know, it's still lacks mobility. What's the best way to drive traffic to your blog? Have a popular blog. It's a loop, and what separates the popular from the obscure isn't always quality.

Several things can happen now. Perhaps the trad media will respond by hiring the best of the new-media talent, annointing it to a larger audience. Perhaps the audience will simply fracture into so many slivers that society will begin to lose continuity. Or maybe we'll figure out ways of connecting the user to the "right" material in meaningful ways that reward the qualities we talk about here.

We live in a media saturated world, but there's a random quality to much of the news information we encounter. If we can create a system that finds the "best" stuff in real time, then we can remove institutional advantages and create a more mobile sense of meritocracy.

In theory. I also think we're in an information/technology arms race that will last as long as civilization does.

Posted by: Daniel Conover at July 19, 2006 10:33 AM | Permalink

You really think that all I am saying to Fox is put in some links? Print very bad, web so very great? Good grief.

Not at all, Jay. You've been very clear that is NOT what you're saying.

But there are enough triumphalist voices out there saying pretty much that, so I felt the need to seek definition and detail of precisely what is being said here.

I'm saying that wherever Fox's piece appeared - indeed, it appeared on cnn.com - it would be a bad piece of opinion writing had he provided links for his assertions. What is the transition point, then, for quality, in this news-reporting revolution?

Daniel addressed some of my concerns. A key part will be the creation of that system for moving the best stuff into a real-time consideration. How that's to be accomplished is a mighty big "if."

I'm a little more sanguine than Daniel about what will diminish traditional media's institutional advantage. If traditional media continues its half-assed and panicky approach to diving into the web pool, it will take care of the institutinal advantage all by itself.

My big fear is that the audience for news will continue to fragment and fracture, that we as a society will focus more on what separates us, not what binds us together. It's not just that we need more voices. We also need more ears.

Trad journalism's sense of proprietorship of the news is rightly under attack. I'm all for meritocracy. And though I appreciate Jason's idea about better use of people like Roggio, I think he unnecessarily devalues the Dexter Filkins of news world.

So, Jay, no, I'm not saying you're being simplistic. I'm saying that you raise more questions than you answer. And that's a good thing.

Sorry if I'm slowing down the process. I fully realize I'm not the fastest kid in class. But I've spent three decades doing this stuff and I see great adventure and frightening possibilites for journalism in the future. I'd just hate to see the good stuff disappear with the bad.

Posted by: David McLemore at July 19, 2006 1:24 PM | Permalink

Okay, thanks, Dave. I understand what you were asking now.

Wherever Fox's piece appeared - indeed, it appeared on cnn.com - it would be a bad piece of opinion writing had he provided links for his assertions. What is the transition point, then, for quality, in this news-reporting revolution?

As a matter of general principle, the transition point is where you begin to save the user time by mastering the arguments, summarizing them well, and pointing to two or three representative examples that open on to more.

This is saving time from the point of view of a user who wants to quickly know what people are buzzing about in the biz, a user who wants some familiarity with the facts and arguments under the buzz, and a user who wants depth and detailed knowledge beyond the buzz. All three find value in a properly done piece.

Fox's piece costs you time. You have to go unlearn what he told you "everyone thinks." He kills interest in a subject by being glib about it.

As for why should I care if there's links in a column that's low quality even with links...Maybe you missed this one:

If you had gone into what people are actually saying about local ownership vs. other models--which is a lot more complicated than "salvation is at hand, folks"--you would have gotten to some of the complications you now realize are at the core of the question. That's why when you think you know "what everyone is saying" you go and get examples. You have to test your belief. The testing takes you places.

This was my attempt to show the connection between getting good links and writing a better column. It is, of course, silly to say a piece on the Web is "better" because it has links, or flash animation. No. A weak column is a weak column.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 19, 2006 2:44 PM | Permalink

Rosen says: "You really think that all I am saying to Fox is put in some links?...Good grief!"

Then he adds the commonsense advice to all journalists, opinion-piece thumbsuckers and everyday reporters alike: “Go and get examples. You have to test your belief. The testing takes you places.”

And then he points out that this simple act of gathering information is superior if it is shared with readers through links, rather then kept, duly performed but unshared, in the notebook.

Why is it superior? Because it allows readers to use a given piece of journalism with varying degrees of depth or superficiality. One may be “a user who wants to quickly know” or who wants “some familiarity with the facts and arguments” or who wants “depth and detailed knowledge.”

Good grief!

This argument comes perilously close to asserting that journalism (even bad journalism) is superior when it includes links. That may not have been “all” Rosen was saying to Fox -- but it was certainly a large part of it.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at July 19, 2006 3:02 PM | Permalink

Jason says that the part-time military writers he follows do a better job than the full-time pro-jos covering the military for the traditional media. So what's the problem if he can find them and read the stuff he wants?

If we were simply talking about the difference between boxers and briefs, this is not an issue at all.

Now, I am not suggesting you are taking this argument. But if you believe a free and vibrant press is essential to the workings of a constitutional democracy, you cannot claim that it's not a big deal if everyone can find his niche.

American voters must make decisions. They rely on the media for accurate and complete information upon which to base these decisions.

If media coverage is retarded, then the Republic is retarded as well.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 19, 2006 3:12 PM | Permalink

Andrew: What I was saying is that the linking part, properly done, is the end point of an act of filtering the online writer should do for the online reader, and it's that, the filtering, not "having links," that proves valuable.

I will say it again: There is nothing magical about putting links into a work of dead prose. If they're lazy and superficial pointers they will contribute to a lazy and superficial column. No magic there, either. Bad journalism does not become good journalism by including links.

But if a writer is trying to do a good job, and because this is Web journalism and she wants to meet standards, she has to get three or four representative-of-the-debate links, then, to do a good job, she is going to have to look at 20 to 30 contributions in that debate, and examine what they say, looking for the thread. And now she has a chance to add value.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 19, 2006 3:45 PM | Permalink

Now if you want to point out a REAL example of lousy journalism, check out THIS doozy!

Don't bother with the article. It's stupid beyond measure.

Just read the comments.

As I said...when you have journos this bad (and this writer has written for several financial trades, the New York Times, and has two books to her credit), then Fox's weak lede is simply not something to concern ourselves with.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 19, 2006 7:52 PM | Permalink

Yes, Jason. And I've known financial consultants who didn't know a debenture from a tin whistle. In the Army, I had a officers who couldn't lead themselves out of a closet with the light on.

And they were no more representative of their occcupation than the Parade writer is to hers.

There are practitioners of crap wherever you go. So what is your point?

Posted by: Dave McLemore at July 19, 2006 8:35 PM | Permalink

Andrew, I think there's something you're missing.

Links are especially essential if you're writing a piece critical of someone else's work, which is what I and my crew do at CJR Daily.

It's the writer's way of saying, "Look, don't take my word for it; read the work in question yourself and decide if it holds water or not."

The reader is invited to test the credibility of the writer.
That represents a radical shift in the writer-reader relationship.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 19, 2006 8:53 PM | Permalink

I have to agree with with Dave here , Jason.

In 42 years as an adult, I have never met anyone who considered Parade magazine "journalism."

As for Bill Roggio, yeah, he does some good stuff, from a very particularized point of view. Like every reporter, he has his own narrative and he pursues it.

But can you really put him in the same league as Joe Galloway ... John Burns ... or Dexter Filkins ?

Those are the guys who have consistently filled me in on what's happening on the ground in Iraq. Without them, I would be lost.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 19, 2006 9:09 PM | Permalink

Forgive the intrusion of a side topic: Does anyone think Gomer and Barney have potential as characters who might drop by now and then? Got any ideas?

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 19, 2006 11:46 PM | Permalink

Like we need more characters at PressThink?

;-)

Posted by: Tim Schmoyer at July 20, 2006 6:20 AM | Permalink

Jay,
Gomer and Barney work for me. There are times when dramatization is more effective than description. Such an approach likely improves the odds that people who aren't necessarily paying such careful attention or who come to the issues from a pragmatic rather than intellectual perspective might pick up your point.

Of course, this approach also raises the likelihood you will get appraisals of your playlet or talent for script-writing competing with your pedagogical point. Most tactics have vices that are tied to their virtues. I think this approach is worth trying a few more times to see how effectively it works.

Do you mind my asking if the Mayberry, RFD overtones are intentional? In an era of executive branch Mayberry Machiavellis (as described by one of their former colleagues), what might this frame mean for discussion of the journalistic world? It occurs to me that it may implicitly counter the rightist propaganda about mainline institutional journos as effete, latte-sipping, urban liberals with a downhome, Jack Webb-style authenticity and sincerity while nevertheless concretely demonstrating specific examples of what practitioners are missing or getting wrong.

(You may count this as perhaps the first response to Barney and Gomer as drama and its possible effects on how they might work as pedagogy.)

Posted by: Mark Anderson at July 20, 2006 7:21 AM | Permalink

No, I don't put Roggio in the same league as those guys, because he's not even playing the same sport.

Filkins and Burns do a pretty good job of describing what they see with their own eyes.

They just don't understand it, from an operations viewpoint.

They're great at picking up a piece, and describing it. But they don't have any sense about what that piece is, or how it fits in with the operational or logistic picture as a whole.

As an ops guy, it's pretty easy for me to see that Roggio "gets it." He's able to see the logic of operations at brigade level and above, and understand how the pieces fit together.

We need good people doing both of them.

Roggio did a series of flash demonstrations a while back that were just superb, and illustrated the clear and hold operations and handover work in Western Iraq when no one else could. Why couldn't our high-gloss media, with all their resources, have done the same thing?

Answer: When it comes to the Iraq war, our media is simply a team of blind men trying to describe an elephant.

Filkins and Burns are two of the most eloquent of our blind men. But they're blind men, nevertheless. Or, to cut these guys some deserved slack, they are micrologists. Roggio's a macrologist.

We need both. And the newspapers need a lot more Roggios.

They're getting them to an extent, on television, because they're getting retired officers on TV for guest commentary. But those guys aren't making an obsession over following the operations picture like Roggio and it shows.

Roggio's a better military analyst than some of the military analysts they bring in on TV.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 20, 2006 7:25 AM | Permalink

Link for Mayberry Machiavellis reference:
Ron Suskind, Why Are These Men Laughing?
Esquire, Jan. 1, 2003

Posted by: Mark Anderson at July 20, 2006 7:28 AM | Permalink

Lovelady -- concerning the intrinsic virtue of links:

Rosen seemed to be arguing that any piece of journalism (even bad journalism) is improved by the presence of links. He offered two reasons. First, the presence of links proved that at least minimal legwork had been performed on the topic; links were literal evidence that the writer was not making stuff up out of thin air. Second, links offer the reader different levels of engagement with content, a choice either to take the reporter’s word for it or to check out assertions and references.

Then Rosen corrected my false impression, offering the example of “lazy and superficial” links. If a piece of journalism is embedded with links that are spurious or self-serving or redundant, those links do not only fail to improve it -- one could argue that they actually make the piece worse, since they offer the false veneer of thoroughness and force the reader to go through the extra work of following the links in order to discover its true worthlessness.

Presumably, for PressThink readers in the academy, these arguments have been long rehearsed over the use, and misuse, of footnotes in treatises and papers. The rest of us rubes must get up to speed on the ethos of the link.

Posted by: Andrew Tyndall at July 20, 2006 8:22 AM | Permalink

Dave Winer, The Rule of Links.

Thanks for those reactions, Mark. Mayberry associations were intentional, yes.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 20, 2006 9:26 AM | Permalink

Incoming transmission from the future...

(NETWIRE)--NEW YORK--Playwright Jay Rosen will pay an undisclosed sum to the estate of actor Andy Griffith, settling a copyright infringement suit that has dogged Rosen's long-running Broadway hit, PressThink: The Musical!

Posted by: Daniel Conover at July 20, 2006 10:35 AM | Permalink

I wouldn't mind seeing Gomer and Barney drop by again.

Or maybe Calvin and Hobbes, who reminded us: "Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us."

Posted by: David McLemore at July 20, 2006 11:47 AM | Permalink

Dammit, Daniel!!!!

We're not ready to publicly promote FutureWire(TM) yet!

Hang on...I gotta log on to some offshore on line sports betting sites in a hurry!

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 20, 2006 1:24 PM | Permalink

"There are times when dramatization is more effective than description."
Which is why more people are getting their news these days from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report than 20-20. :-) Or is that a strawman premise? Probably a lesser offense: flawed observation in support of an acerbic comment.

Posted by: Bill Watson at July 20, 2006 4:11 PM | Permalink

Does anyone think "Gomer and Barney" have potential as characters who might drop by now and then? Got any ideas?
Posted by: Jay Rosen

Jay --

I think Gomer and Barney have potential, but not as an insight into Fortune magazine -- or even as an insight into CNNMoney.com.

I briefly worked at Fortune 10 years ago, and I had a good time there. But I never ran into any "Gomers" or any "Barneys." I did, however, run into a few "Heathcliffes" and "Eldridges."

I think you're going to have to, on a case-by-case basis, tailor the names, and all the connotations they carry, to the publication in question.

Steve

(or is it Stephan?)

;-)

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 20, 2006 8:00 PM | Permalink

Which is why more people are getting their news these days from The Daily Show and The Colbert Report than 20-20. :-)
-- Bill Watson

Well, sure. Come on, Bill. After hours of Wolf Blitzer, the only thing that can keep any of us from running screaming over a cliff is half an hour of Jon Stewart.

Me, I like to think of it as the equivalent of those quick antidotes to snake bite that they used to give us at Boy Scout camp.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 20, 2006 8:19 PM | Permalink

I would have to agree that Gomer and Barney are not really Fortune magazine names.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 21, 2006 1:12 AM | Permalink

Can 500,000 journalists really be this dense?

...So the International Federation of Journalists thinks the Hezbollah in-house TV station is "free-press."

Geez. What the heck does it take to qualify as a propaganda and enemy mass communication node?

If they were around today, they'd probably object to the prosecution of Goebbels, too.

Any members here?

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 21, 2006 10:11 AM | Permalink

Say what, Jason?

Do you really think this group speaks for journalism?

Again I ask, what is your point?

Posted by: Dave McLemore at July 21, 2006 12:04 PM | Permalink

Jason,
In other words, "bad" journalists deserve to die and you are saying "Hell yea!" as their bodies continue to smolder, but the "good" journalists may be allowed to live--and the distinction between a "good" journalist and a "bad" journalist is to be determined by the Israeli "Self Defense" Force? Is that really the point you are so proud to associate yourself with? If broadcasting the wrong message makes a civilian technician into a legitimate military target, effectively there are no civilians in a modern, developed society.

Think about it from the perspective of enemies of the US. By your own logic, enemies of the US or Israel may justifiably bomb every working US or Israeli journalist at every operating US or Israeli broadcast station that has gone on air pimping Cheney's or Olmert's catastrophes in Iraq and Palestine and Lebanon and you won't have jack to say about it because they were obviously propagandists for the US and Israeli causes. How could rational enemies of the US pass up targeting major propaganda nodes such as the television broadcasting networks of the United States or Israel and still look themselves in the mirror in the morning?

This leads me to a second question:
I seem to recall you were quite outraged by the reality-based suggestion that the US army has been intentionally killing journalists. Why not "Hell, yeas!" all around if you think it's such a great idea?

By the way, I've never knowingly met a member of the International Federation of Journalists so my disgust with your remarks is no reflection on them.

Posted by: Mark Anderson at July 21, 2006 1:26 PM | Permalink

Wow. I hadn't heard of them either. 500,000 journalists and nobody's a member.

I'm surprised you aren't discerning the difference between a free and independent media and a communications asset in the literal employ of an armed and hostile force? I mean, you really think The Hezbollah Television Network is the same as, say, "every working journalist" for NBC News?

Al Manar itself proclaims itself part of Hezbollah. And the U.S., via an executive order signed in September of 2001, formally categorizes al Manar as a terrorist organization. Al Manar is banned from accessing US airwaves. It's not like we're acting unilaterally - several European countries have similar sanctions against al Manar.

You know, these are the guys responsible for planting the rumor that 4,000 Jews were playing hookie from work at the WTC on Sept 11, 2001.

They serve as Hassan Nasrallah's principal means of mass communication. It's also one of Hezbollah's principal tools for fundraising. Yes, they have telethons, just like NPR. Except their fundraiser buy bombs for school busses and Pizzarias.

One of al Manar's senior officers publicly declared its purpose as "to help people on the way to what you in the West call a 'suicide mission.'

It calls for and incites the killing of US soldiers in Iraq. It has called for the murder of Israelis many times. Its children's shows pay homage to suicide bombers.

And you're going to try to draw parallels between al Manar and, say, Fox News?

Al Manar is no independent or inconvenient media outlet. Al Manar is, in effect, the Ministry of Communications for a brutal and murderous quasi regime.

And they made themselves a target when the first dime they raised went to Hezbollah.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 21, 2006 4:29 PM | Permalink

Media is a dimension of modern warfare. All media are, in one way or another, using various means, a "target" of military importance.

There are certainly operational reasons to target media outlets and facilities, even media personnel. "Operational reasons" isn't necessarily the same thing as saying that targeting the media is a "good idea." Or that it's ethical. But it is to say that we've probably entered an era when those determinations will be made on a case-by-case basis.

You've got mass media voices in America saying that the editor of The New York Times should be shot as a traitor. People are spoiling for a fight with the media and the press. Read the comments at Little Green Footballs. There are Americans who want liberal media blood spilled, and they want it displayed as a warning to others.

Posted by: Daniel Conover at July 21, 2006 4:35 PM | Permalink

And you're going to try to draw parallels between al Manar and, say, Fox News?

And you're not? Jason, radical organizations do not parallels make. Journalism is no more represented by The International Federation of Journalists than Christianity is by the hate-filled folks at Westboro Baptist Church (Google, if you wish. I won't sully this site with the URL)

So why do you keep trying make it so?

Posted by: David McLemore at July 21, 2006 5:18 PM | Permalink

Off topic (sort of):

Especially for the local press corps, Katrina unleashed opportunities to explore the human condition at its margins and to provide information and comfort to a readership that may never need it again so desperately. And now we're in the unique position of covering the rebuilding of a truly great American city, almost from scratch, a privilege few other journalists have ever had or ever will. The complexities blow the mind of both writer and reader on a daily basis. And complexity fuels good reporters like gasoline fuels race cars.

More gratifying than anything has been the close, almost intimate connection the newspaper has forged with its readers through our shared struggle. Like most reporters, I've grown used to dealing with the kind of people who love to hate the media, including their hometown paper. But those people have all but vanished in the post-Katrina media landscape.

No one here complains about the paper anymore, and I can't count the number of regular readers I've met recently who have gushed with gratitude when they learned I work for the Picayune. As I took a long walk down St. Charles Avenue recently, I ran across a newspaper box with a heart spray-painted on it. Another recent day, I sat in a bar watching a young woman read the paper, then heard her remark to a friend, "This paper has just been fantastic lately."

And it has, if I can be forgiven for bragging. Before the storm, I always thought the Picayune excelled on the most important stories, on breaking news, politics, corruption investigations and long, meandering feature stories that captured this singular and sacred place. But day to day, we could be raggedy, inconsistent. For the last nine months, the paper's been solid almost every day, owing both to the substance of The Story itself and the reporters and editors who have covered it like it happened to them personally – because it did.

Times-Picayune reporter Brian Thevenot, writing in the AJR

Posted by: Daniel Conover at July 21, 2006 5:19 PM | Permalink

> the close, almost intimate connection the [Times-Picayune] has forged with its readers through our shared struggle

may I humbly suggest that newspapers wanting that connection start by engaging their readers on the issue of global warming.
(and denialists, please see AIT before commenting on this - and use your real names, for posterity)

Posted by: Anna Haynes at July 21, 2006 6:35 PM | Permalink

Brad Delong made a post out of this comment I left at his blog:

From Brad's Where Are the Heirs of Walter Lippman?: "Note that my examples are budget examples. I'm one of the budget people. But I have peers in other issue areas. They see the same deficiencies. Whether they are bombs-and-bullets people, striped-pants-diplomacy people, welfare-and-social-policy people, science-and-technology-policy people--they all see the same patterns."

Brad: Those "patterns" begin to find some explanation when you realize that categories like "hard news" rather than "analytical piece" are simultaneously serving as a reality-reporting system, and a risk-reduction method. Hard news is supposed to be lowest risk, not necessarily harder information. It's lower risk to just say what happened ("Rove said...") without saying what's true. An "analysis" piece means you can speculate about motives and what might happen from here. Slightly higher risk, but not necessarily more "analytical."

Or let's take the classic in press watcher frustration... He said this happened, she said that happened. It tries to inform you in a half-hearted way, but it secures protection from being wrong in a full-throated way. "I'm just telling you what they said." It's not truthtelling but innocence-establishing behavior-- see? no agenda.

Here's the catch: officially, journalists only engage in truthtelling. That they would the choose the more innocent account over the more truthful one contradicts the professional self-image. So it doesn't happen, even though it does. When what journalists are doing makes no sense at all to you on the reality-reporting scale, switch yourself over to the risk-reduction (or "refuge") scale and measure it there.

Why don't journalists work together and coordinate their assaults to get a better answer from the President? Might make sense on the reality-reporting front, but fry the circuits on risk reduction. They'd open themselves to "cabal" charges, or so they think. Why didn't Leonard Downie join with Bill Keller and Dean Baquet in their joint op-ed explaining the need to report on classified programs sometimes? (He was asked.) He didn't want to risk the impression that news organizations act together to "get" something.

For we are dealing not only with the risk of being wrong, but of coming under effective attack in the culture war's politicized theatre of news. Outside actors can influence the news by raising the perception of risk.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 21, 2006 6:55 PM | Permalink

Jason, radical organizations do not parallels make. Journalism is no more represented by The International Federation of Journalists than Christianity is by the hate-filled folks at Westboro Baptist Church

Man, you're hilarious.

Of course it is. What percentage of Christians worship at Westboro? What percentage of journalists are represented by International Federation of Journalists member unions?

After all, the International Federation of Journalists is the parent organization of The Newspaper Guild, The American Federation of Radio and Television Artists, Writers Guild of America, East, The National Writers Union.

The Newspaper Guild alone boasts more than 34,000 members, and represents workers at such radical-left underground publications as The Washington Post, Agence France-Presse, the Baltimore Sun, and (drum roll) the New York Times.

This isn't any fringe radical organization. Well, I guess it does have Linda Foley at its head.

I'm waiting for American journos to grow a spine.

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 21, 2006 8:00 PM | Permalink

Actually, I should amend that to what percentage of newspaper or major media workers, which comprise a much larger number than just journalists alone. Some times you'll have the pressmen represented by a union but not reporters, etc.

Nevertheless, every one of these newspapers sold is an enabling of the IFJ.

Will their members stand up and repudiate the IFJ?

Posted by: Jason Van Steenwyk at July 21, 2006 8:06 PM | Permalink

"Outside actors can influence the news by raising the perception of risk." -- Jay

No shit.

Which is why "risk reduction" and "innocence-establishing behavior" overwhelms truth-telling every time.

The parameters for both were set long ago; the tragedy is how many editors and reporters, including some very good ones, even to this day allow themselves to operate only within those parameters.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 21, 2006 8:21 PM | Permalink

Oh, for Christ's sake, Jason.

Just because a group has signed on as a "member" of a federation doesn't mean that said federation becomes that group's "parent organization."

I'm a "member" of AARP. Does that make AARP my "parent organization" ?

I don't think so -- since I disagree with more of AARP's policy initiatives than the ones I agree with.

This is exactly the kind of sophistry and intellectual dishonesty that makes you so hard to take seriously.

You have some smart things to say. Say them, instead of creating these bullshit straw men just so you can light them on fire.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 21, 2006 8:55 PM | Permalink

That they would the choose the more innocent account over the more truthful one contradicts the professional self-image. So it doesn't happen, even though it does--Jay

You've really nailed this one. Contemporary US journalism is a protection racket that likes to tell itself it's a truth-telling racket. Their paranoia is justified and they need protection. But that doesn't make the act of covering their asses into an act of telling the truth.

What sort of protection might make press truth-telling a less threatening proposition? What sort of experience might make working journalists begin to recognize or admit the difference--make them contemplate moving away from "truth last" journalism?

Posted by: Mark Anderson at July 21, 2006 9:49 PM | Permalink

Jeff Jarvis said this:

...Then she said that news is “an industry with a lot of oversupply that is now exposed.” I liked that hard economic talk about the business. It reminds us that we are an industry and need to reexamine our business assumptions like every other industry. ...

... But rather than treating this as an endless retrenchment, the ballsy editor would take this bull by the horns and undertake an aggressive reinvestment strategy. Why not cut that staff today? Find your essence — hint: it’s local, local, local. Streamline now to put out a better focused and better print product.

And an interesting comment by, “Think of the kids...?”

"In other words, if the smart publisher moves toward the distributed newsroom that relies on citizen journalists, does the smart j-school dean give up the pretense that his program is providing a “professional” degree?"

Posted by: Kristen at July 21, 2006 10:16 PM | Permalink

> What sort of protection might make press truth-telling a less threatening proposition?

If the truth-tellers were rewarded, rather than punished, for attempting to do so

> What sort of experience might make working journalists begin to recognize or admit the difference--make them contemplate moving away from "truth last" journalism?

If there were negative consequences for failing to do so

How could you measure how well a newspaper or journalist was doing at informing the readers? What doesn't get measured doesn't get improved.

Posted by: Anna Haynes at July 22, 2006 12:06 AM | Permalink

Steve Lovelady: Which is why "risk reduction" and "innocence-establishing behavior" overwhelms truth-telling every time. The parameters for both were set long ago;...

Agree. Isn't this what Gaye Tuchman argued in 1972 was a "strategic ritual" for journalists?

Mark Anderson: What sort of protection might make press truth-telling a less threatening proposition?

Cline's recommendation ... Good News, Bad News: Journalism Ethics and the Public Interest

Posted by: Tim Schmoyer at July 22, 2006 12:35 AM | Permalink

Rolled Back Under Cover
Over at Tom Dispatch, Karen Greenberg has an interesting piece on the journalistic challenges of covering the vast continent that falls under the current administration's information blackout. The office of the Vice President refuses even to discuss who works there or what their responsibilities are!

Karen Greenberg, The Color of "Transparency" is Black

Posted by: Mark Anderson at July 22, 2006 6:56 PM | Permalink

I'm not sure I agree with Jarvis on this one.

Sure, we shouldn't have had 10,000, or whatever it was, "journalists" covering the Michael Jackson trial. (We shouldn't even have had 10.)

But should we be comfortable when the Miami Herald's, and the Baltimore Sun's and the Philadelphia Inquirer's of this world shut down their Moscow bureaus to save a few bucks ?

Do we want a situation where the only people covering Moscow for an American audience are half a dozen reporters for the highest-profile U.S. news outlets ? (I'm not even sure it's half a dozen anymore. Hell, even Time magazine recently sacked its Moscow and Beijing bureau chiefs.)

Could it be that occasionally the Miami Herald reporter in Moscow or the Philadelphia Inquirer reporter in the Mideast came up with a story that illuminated the darker corners of Moscow or the bizarre intrigues in the Mideast in a way that none of the bigfoot reporters from the networks or the New York Times or the Washington Post had done ?

Yeah, it could be. In fact, it happened all the time. But it won't again. Those reporters aren't there anymore.

And that's not a good thing; it's a bad thing.

Posted by: Steve Lovelady at July 22, 2006 9:19 PM | Permalink

Could the smaller papers cultivate Moscow bloggers?

The Moscow blog
MoscowBlog
Cyber-Generation: Two Zero's Diary (Moscow Blog)

Posted by: Tim Schmoyer at July 23, 2006 8:17 AM | Permalink

New post coming tomorrow (a biggie.) Thanks to all participants.

Posted by: Jay Rosen at July 24, 2006 10:38 AM | Permalink