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August 20, 2007
My advice? Retire.Commentary on Blogs: All the noise that fits by Michael Skube in the Los Angeles Times, Aug. 19, 2007.Retire, man. I’m serious. You’re an embarrassment to my profession, to the university where you teach, and to the craft of reporting you claim to defend. It is time for you to quit, as you’ve clearly called it quits on learning— and reporting. Ring this guy up and ask him to go bass fishing or something. You’re not doing anyone any good— you’re just insulting your own bio. And when you’re done lecturing us on “the patient fact-finding of reporters,” tell the godforsaken LA Times they’re going to have to run a correction. The Post hasn’t won a Pulitzer for its reporting on Walter Reed Army Medical Center. Jeez. (UPDATE, Aug. 22: The Los Angeles Times asked me to write a reply to Skube and I did. See Blowback: The journalism that blogs actually do.)
Posted by Jay Rosen at August 20, 2007 12:09 AM
Comments
I especially loved this bit about the "Pulitzer Prize-winning" report: Such a story demanded time, thorough fact-checking and verification and, most of all, perseverance. It's not something one does as a hobby.What Michael Skube does, however, seems to require none of those things. Or maybe writing lame essays trashing other people is just his hobby? Posted by: Califlander at August 20, 2007 2:35 AM | Permalink For a smarter, lighter take on some of the same issues Skube is pontificating about, I enjoyed Joel Achenbach's column in the Washington Post. While you do make a point here, unfortunately you are exactly doing it in a way and style that is ridiculed in Skube's column. I understand that his style is a bit too harsh and insulting and angry and, yes, dumb. But he makes a point, too. Posted by: Szabolcs Toth at August 20, 2007 6:53 AM | Permalink "But he makes a point, too" Yes, he makes a point that the fact-checkers added a site he's never even read: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/024644.php "Now, whether we do any quality reporting at TPM is a matter of opinion. And everyone is entitled to theirs. So against my better judgment, I sent Skube an email telling him that I found it hard to believe he was very familiar with TPM if he was including us as examples in a column about the dearth of original reporting in the blogosphere. Now, I get criticized plenty. And that's fair since I do plenty of criticizing. And I wouldn't raise any of this here if it weren't for what came up in Skube's response. Not long after I wrote I got a reply: "I didn't put your name into the piece and haven't spent any time on your site. So to that extent I'm happy to give you benefit of the doubt ..." This seemed more than a little odd since, as I said, he certainly does use me as an example -- along with Sullivan, Matt Yglesias and Kos. So I followed up noting my surprise that he didn't seem to remember what he'd written in his own opinion column on the very day it appeared and that in any case it cut against his credibility somewhat that he wrote about sites he admits he'd never read. To which I got this response: "I said I did not refer to you in the original. Your name was inserted late by an editor who perhaps thought I needed to cite more examples ... " Skube is a hypocrite. And that's being nice... Posted by: melvina at August 20, 2007 8:10 AM | Permalink I agree. He's attacking punditry in a punditlike fashion. I don't think Jay's ire is misplaced or an example of the worst in blogging Skuba claims to know all about. It seems to me Skuba has gone where a lot of his buddies in print and television journalism have gone--down the easy path of opinion masquerading as journalism. From his Skube's BIO: In 1988, Skube was recognized as runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize for Criticism. Although he was disappointed with only second, Skube recalls it as a life lesson saying, “Students don’t realize that you lose sometimes.” This is false. There is no designation for "runner up," or "second," for the Pulitzer, you are either a finalist or a winner. In 1988 he was one of three finalists, with Tom Shales winning and Allan Temko of the San Francisco Chronicle also a Nominated Finalist. Posted by: Grouchy at August 20, 2007 10:28 AM | Permalink I think it's indicative of the need for blogs that Skube's editor added Marshall as an example in an article about how blogs don't do original reporting. Reporters getting things wrong is certainly a problem, but the editors are the gatekeepers who are supposed to make sure those errors don't reach the public. If the editors don't care - and it appears they really don't - reporters have little incentive to do any of their own fact-checking. That's why we still keep seeing references to how Naomi Wolf told Al Gore to wear "earth tones", and even to the Love Canal and Love Story lies, not to mention the incessant "invented the Internet" claim. And it's why we ended up in Iraq for no apparent reason and to our lasting disgrace. As a reporter, I had my work altered on re-write, and sometimes it was done well and painlessly, and sometimes it wasn't. I could sympathize with Skube if he followed that article up with a blog post about how this editorial intervention undermined the point of his piece and proved him wrong. Let me know when that happens. Since Skube does not fact check, I have my doubts that this "editor" works for the LA Times. Could have been anyone, including himself or a student, right? He didn't say the LA Times editor, just "editor." Wants to get off the hook, I think. And he should have learned his lesson the first time. This irks me no end! Because I read talkingpointsmemo every day. And I feel he has maligned not only Josh but his readers. I feel personally insulted here! And last night, when I saw this, it was my dearest hope to see Jay Rosen call this like it is! So thank you, Jay Rosen. I have enormous esteem and respect for you and what you are doing. And none for the ilk of Skube. (By the way, based on google, it looks like he changed his name - to something he may have thought was cooler. A fake in every way!) Posted by: TheraP at August 20, 2007 11:28 AM | Permalink This is getting tiresome, isn't it? It seems one of these comes down the pike every three or four weeks. Speaking of corrections, Skube also writes that the Walter Reed story "was first mentioned in a blog." Well, maybe -- I honestly don't know -- but the first media outlet to report on it in a serious way was Salon, hardly a blog. Skube's original sin, and one we see over and over in such critiques, is his attempt to characterize blogs, period. It's as though someone thought you could describe the New York Times, the National Enquirer, the New York Post, the Weekly World News, and the Christian Science Monitor in a three- or four-word phrase. There's only one way to complete the phrase "All blogs are ..." And that is this: "All blogs are published on the Internet." Posted by: Dan Kennedy at August 20, 2007 1:40 PM | Permalink It's as though someone thought you could describe the New York Times, the National Enquirer, the New York Post, the Weekly World News, and the Christian Science Monitor in a three- or four-word phrase. The "the" group or Dead tree media both 3 words Posted by: fatbear at August 20, 2007 3:10 PM | Permalink First a correction to Grouchy's post above, Skube *did* win the Pulitzer in 1989 according to the Pulitzer website. As is being discussed on Ed Cone's WordUp, this is not the first time that Skube has pulled this (as regards blogs). In 2005, he published a piece in the News and Record (Greensboro, NC) having done no research on blogs at all. Ed's follow up interview with Skube shows what makes the LA Times piece even more of a crime against good journalism. Posted by: Paul Jones at August 20, 2007 3:58 PM | Permalink While you do make a point here, unfortunately you are exactly doing it in a way and style that is ridiculed in Skube's column. I understand that his style is a bit too harsh and insulting and angry and, yes, dumb. But he makes a point, too. Um... so what? You know who also makes a point every now and then? Crazy street people. And you're entirely free to waste your entire afternoon attempting a rational discussion with them. Be my guest. So what if some highly paid, out-of-touch asshole thinks blogs are bad? I work in a room full of such people, most of whom reject blogs without really knowing anything of substance about them. And there's nothing -- not a cotton-pickin' thing -- that anyone from the blogosphere can say that will change some of those opinions. Not that it matters. In case you haven't noticed, the other side lost years ago. We aren't going away, we aren't asking for permission and anybody who is out there groveling for the approval of these "gatekeepers" deserves all the humiliation that comes with being obsequious. Yes, the blogosphere is full of assholes, too, but that's an issue that isn't going to be resolved by Skube and his ilk. This is simply a link that future historians will use as examples of how the pro-jos kept fighting long after the war had been decided.
http://www.reason.com/news/show/120764.html What a long drawn out way of that beat up ol' line, "Give a man a fish he will eat for a day..." That's why it was so refreshing to read you hammerin' down on this dude. It's not that I'm asking for your suggested readings to be Vice Magazine--- but I do like it so much when the writer gives the readers credit... or realize halfway through the article they've got nothing to say and stop writing in circles. Seriously, have I been reading the wrong articles? These assigned websites make me so frustrated! With respect and regards, I am an incoming student to your intro journalism class professor, and have recently scoured the blogs and news sites you've recommended (or rather, mandated) in the syllabus. They all seemed so polite, stiff, and peppered with inside jokes between ivory towerites. Best case scenario: they draw out common sense to result in convoluted conclusions. It would be all good times if the pieces were that thought provoking kind of complicated instead of being so rife in pedantic verbal vomiting that the effects of reading it rivals the effects of tryptophan. http://www.reason.com/news/show/120764.html What a long drawn out way of that beat up ol' line, "Give a man a fish he will eat for a day..." That's why it was so refreshing to read you hammerin' down on this dude. It's not that I'm asking for your suggested readings to be Vice Magazine--- but I do like it so much when the writer gives the readers credit... or realize halfway through the article they've got nothing to say and stop writing in circles. Seriously, have I been reading the wrong articles? These assigned websites make me so frustrated! With respect and regards, Lisa: I don't know what syllabus you are pointing to, but that article is not one I am familiar with or assigned myself. Do you mean someone else's intro class? Jay, Well, what can you expect from a Pulitzer Prize winner? Here's my take: "News in America was intended to sanctify opinions, not facts. LA Times column illustrates Journalism’s fatal misunderstanding. (Steve Boriss, The Future of News) Posted by: Steve Boriss at August 20, 2007 7:17 PM | Permalink They all seemed so polite, stiff, and peppered with inside jokes between ivory towerites. Best case scenario: they draw out common sense to result in convoluted conclusions. Lisa - if you want passion When you want more, let me know.... Posted by: fatbear at August 20, 2007 9:28 PM | Permalink Live crowdsourcing and you can help... This morning, I posted My advice to Michael Skube: Retire at the Daily Kos site, which was implicated in Skube's op ed: In the afternoon I spoke to Matt Welch, Assistant Editorial Page Editor,LA Times, whom I know from when he was a blogger and writer for Reason magazine. He asked me if I wanted to write a "Blowback" piece for LATimes.com that would be a reply to Skube. (Example of one.) Updating the post, I asked the Kos readers if they wanted to help by nominating diverse examples of blog sites doing original reporting. The kind of thing Skube wouldn't know about because he didn't check it out. Markos then picked up on it and this evening front-paged my updated post. "See his update below the fold for how you can help Jay respond to this nonsense -- kos." 249 comments and counting. Not all are valuable of course but some are. I would make the same request of PressThink readers; use the comment thread for replies. text of crowdsourcing request: UPDATE: wanna help me with my reply in the LA Times? Posted by: Jay Rosen at August 20, 2007 10:42 PM | Permalink December 2006. DallasFood.org investigates Noka Chocolate: Gourmet food blog provides the only in-depth investigation into "world's most expensive" chocolatier's deceptive marketing practices. Posted by: Sven at August 21, 2007 12:15 AM | Permalink August, 2004 Chris Allbritton goes to Najaf during the major fighting around the Imam Ali Shrine, manages to get inside to interview the Mahdi army and report what's happening and then gets arrested by the Najaf police under live fire and lives to write about it. Posted by: fatbear at August 21, 2007 1:13 AM | Permalink June 2007. EdCone.com covers layoffs at the News & Record. As the paper clams up, its staffers, ex-staffers, and readers use blog comments and email to create the only detailed public account of layoffs at the daily newspaper in Skube's backyard. As a degreed journalist (Univ. of Maine, 1986) and professional reporter for 20 years and a blogger, the "tut-tutting" of blogs by some print journalists strikes me as stupid as linotype operators warning us that desk top publishing software will destroy journalism. Posted by: Douglas Watts at August 21, 2007 11:31 AM | Permalink August 20, 2007. Jay Rosen Refutes Skube Through Crowdsourcing. NYU journalism professor Jay Rosen goes meta to dispute LA Times columnist's inaccurate comments on the accuracy and utility of blogs. :) Posted by: p.lukasiak at August 21, 2007 11:58 AM | Permalink Ahhh a chance to do good and some blogwhoring at the same time. Well I don't want to pass up the opportunity to mention one of my small bits of reporting. July, 2007 Grrr...my URL didn't work http://realwomenvoices.blogspot.com/2007/07/first-hand-account-of-clinic-protest-in.html Jay - I forgot that Chris Allbritton was reader-funded also x-posted at D-Kos thread Posted by: fatbear at August 21, 2007 2:49 PM | Permalink fatbear, glad you mentioned reader-funding, because another factual problem with Skube's piece involves money. "No man but a blockhead," the stubbornly sensible Samuel Johnson said, "ever wrote but for money." Yet here are people, whole brigades of them, happy to write for free. And not just write. Many of the most active bloggers -- Andrew Sullivan, Matthew Yglesias, Joshua Micah Marshall and the contributors to the Huffington Post...Markos Moulitsas Zuniga... While many bloggers do it for free, I think every blogger mentioned by name in the preceding graf gets paid for it by a company or by a business they've created. BTW, one of my readers emailed Skube to invite him into the conversation at my site. No sign of him yet. New post: By this afternoon I need a better list. Click the link to see the list so far-ish. "Yet here are people, whole brigades of them, happy to write for free" Can you HEAR the eidritch scream behind those words? That is the objection to blogs in a nutshell - MSM has its own crosses to bear about accuracy and fact checking. No, it's the writing for free, without a high priced journalism degree/license that is killing reporters everywhere, and it is why many even refuse to read blogs. Posted by: Peter Porcupine at August 21, 2007 3:44 PM | Permalink Somewhere, somehow, we all owe Mr. Cone a big debt of gratitude. His original effort to track down Mr. Skube, talk with him about his article from Dec. 2005, and do a blog post on that, along with the discussion that went on then. That original effort, preserved here on the web, easily located by many of us who googled Mr. Skube's name, was able to make this story - one that began in print - a story with legs. Because we could see that it had happened before. In a similar way. With similar results. We could see that an author had failed to learn from criticism, that he had failed to engage then, as he has failed to engage now. So I think, Jay, that Mr. Cone deserves two mentions in your article. One, the piece above. And also what I have just noted. Except for the pathetic showing of Mr. Skube, in his article and in his failure to even engage the public in this debate going on now, this has been an amazing experience in itself... and is an example of exactly what I'm guessing Jay is writing about at this very minute. Posted by: TheraP at August 21, 2007 5:30 PM | Permalink fatbear; Posted by: Brian H at August 27, 2007 10:58 AM | Permalink |
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