November 11, 2007
Out in the Great Wide OpenBy now you may have heard about the implosion of Wide Open, a political blog started by the Cleveland Plain Dealer with four "outside" voices brought in from the ranks of Ohio bloggers: two left, two right. Twelve points you may not have seen elsewhere.By now you may have heard about the implosion of Wide Open, a political blog started by the Cleveland Plain Dealer with four “outside” voices brought in from the ranks of Ohio bloggers: two left, two right. They were paid as freelance contributors. Here’s the way the “reader representative,” Ted Diadiun, described the meltdown. It began when Rep. Steve LaTourette, a Republican Congressman, found out that one of the Wide Open bloggers, Jeff Coryell of Cleveland Heights, had contributed $100 to his opponent. LaTourette was unhappy that the newspaper would pay someone who financially supported his opponent to write political opinion. He complained to editorial page director Brent Larkin, who referred him to Editor Susan Goldberg, whom he had never met. LaTourette set up an appointment, then thought better of it and canceled. And that was the end of the blog, Wide Open. But the episode was just starting. (See Editor & Publisher’s account, and Jeff Jarvis once, then again. Danny Glover thinks Jarvis has been too rough on the P-D. Here is Jeff Coryell’s resignation, and Jill Zimon’s I’m quitting too post. See Jill’s blog, Writes Like She Talks, for continuing coverage.) My own conclusion tracks with what what Mark Potts said: “A classic case of a newspaper so stuck in the old ways of doing things that it shoots itself in the foot when it ventures into something new. The paper’s management has rolled itself into a defensive ball over something that shouldn’t have been an issue in the first place, making things worse in the process.” Which is especially true of Ted Diadiun’s odious explainer, “Wide Open blog bumps up against journalistic ethics,” almost a primer in legacy media sludge think. What not to do in a blog storm has rarely been better shown. Organization of Newspaper Ombudsmen (ONO), bid your members to study Ted’s work that you might warn them not to repeat it. And if you need help, Jarvis took the column apart point-by-point. “This is a story about how The Plain Dealer got itself spattered by some primordial ooze last week,” Diadiun wrote. That would be the mud—an image of ethical taint—that gets slung casually around in the blogosphere. Because a lot of people were sympathetic to Coryell’s argument that he was dumped after a Republican Congressman complained, some of the mud hit the newspaper in Cleveland. In case you’re wondering what “newspaper” signifies these days, that’s the building where they keep the ethics, at least according to Diadiun. “The fallout from all this draws a bright line between the way newspaper reporters and bloggers ply their crafts.” What he means is: bloggers can afford to have zero ethics, journalists cannot. It takes a special kind of mind to divide up the world that way, which is why I am including Ted Daidiun’s column in Cold Type, my anthology of great curmudgeon lit. (Other selections here and here and here and here.) Since so much has been written on this episode, and I am late in commenting on it, I offer a few points not made elsewhere: (Okay, so twelve points is not exactly a “few.”)
After Matter: Notes, reactions & links… Also from the Plain-Dealer, this piece may be the greatest “curmudgeon says bloggers suck” column ever— and that’s a big category. It is practically a work of art. You cannot get more old school without issuance of a death certificate. Favorite line: “Or do I mean blog? No, I think I mean blab.” “Establishing written guidelines with contributors — whether they are paid or not — is critical, says Tom Regan, news blogger for National Public Radio and former executive director of the Online News Association. I agree with Tom on this. And when the 12 newsrooms participating in beat reporting with a social network are announced on Nov. 14 (watch for it) they would be wise to establish such guidelines for the networks each beat reporter pulls together. Jeff Coryell in the comments to this post: “It may be that bloggers ought to be more rigorous with disclosures even on their own independent blogs than they are.” Kathy Gill: “Way back when (2005), the LA Times tried an experiment with wikis without really understanding what wikis are all about. It looks like the Cleveland Plains Dealer has done the same thing with a four-reader political blog.” Danny Glover of Beltway Blogroll in the comments: “The opinion wiki was a bad idea from the start and was doomed to fail based on the content it was bound to generate. All the Times did was create a new forum for an online flame war, thus giving old media sanction to that particular type of new media bad behavior. Wide Open did not fail because it was a bad idea. It was actually a great idea — and one that a smart newspaper will embrace and improve upon someday soon.” See also Glover’s Your Ethic, My Ethic, Our Ethic. “Journalists and bloggers will never be able to work together in peace until people in both worlds find some common ethical ground,” he says. “Right now, the two groups are talking past each other with an air of superiority.” Posted by Jay Rosen at November 11, 2007 1:04 AM Print Comments
Jay - Thanks for the thoughtful reaction. All very good points. I'm especially glad to see your last one, since Rep. LaTourette's role ought to be critically examined and largely has escaped attention. Part of the problem in that regard is that people tend to accept Ted Diadiun's flawed chronology. He writes that LaTourette first complained, and I first learned of that complaint, in mid-October, relatively late in Wide Open's 5 1/2 week span. Actually, LaTourette complained a day or two after we started (on Sept. 24th), before he even knew about my $100 contribution to his opponent. After the Sabrina Eaton interview with LaTourette in mid-October, Jean emailed me to say that LaTourette was "still complaining." So LaTourette's involvement seems more tangential in Diadiun's telling than in my experience of the events. The four Wide Open bloggers didn't act together partly because I didn't reach out to them (for which I have expressed some regret) -- it felt like a matter addressed specifically to me, not at all of us. There was no ultimatum presented to the four of us, just a phone call to me in which the issue was LaTourette, not contributions generally. In any event, the two conservative bloggers indicate that they do not make political contributions at all, so they are not in the same situation as I and my liberal colleague. (One of them did assist a Congressional campaign informally, which raises a slippery slope question about the newspaper's purported concern over my political contribution.) Your thoughts about transparency are important and may point to the correct resolution of the dilemma of newspaper-hosted partisan bloggers. Indeed, it may be that bloggers ought to be more rigorous with disclosures even on their own independent blogs than they are. For me, I have this sense that my political orientation is so overt, and information about my contributions is so readily available online if anyone wants to get into it, that specific, post-by-post disclosure of my contributions seems pointless. However, in light of this episode, I am close to re-thinking that, at least when I am promoting or attacking particular candidates. (At Wide Open, by the way, I generally wrote about issues rather than particular races.) Posted by: Jeff Coryell at November 11, 2007 12:17 PM | Permalink Jay, I agree a better (more accurate) frame is the difference in ethics instead of "projos have ethics, bloggers have no ethics." I also agree with disclosure being the preferred option for both groups. I do think this has more to do with varying ethics in "old media" news organizations than old vs. new media. Old media experiments in new media just highlight the ethical differences among the old media organizations. Newsroom policies vary on campaign donations 'Though not $-related: Critics Question Reporter's Airing of Personal Views "In the alternative system - sunlight ethics - trust is generated when the newspaper persuades readers that all interests and stakes that might bear on the story have been disclosed. Inexplicably, ...[they haven't] explained why they didn’t respond to the discovery of the troublesome $100 by instituting the transparency system at Wide Open." Maybe there's a reluctance to acknowledge the value of transparency because, once it's acknowledged, readers will wonder why it's not implemented elsewhere in the paper. Posted by: Anna at November 11, 2007 3:46 PM | Permalink It was only a matter of time before someone brought up the L.A. Times' wiki experiment as a parallel. I thought about raising the issue myself -- but to shoot down the parallel. The opinion wiki was a bad idea from the start and was doomed to fail based on the content it was bound to generate. All the Times did was create a new forum for an online flame war, thus giving old media sanction to that particular type of new media bad behavior. Wide Open did not fail because it was a bad idea. It was actually a great idea -- and one that a smart newspaper will embrace and improve upon someday soon. It failed because of poor communication at the outset from both newsroom to blogger and blogger to newsroom, and then because of the Cleveland editors' impulsive reactions to a bad situation. The paper should have given the idea more thought to process before starting Wide Open, and they should have done the same once they realized they had goofed. The same is true of the bloggers. This experiment didn't have to end as it has for anyone involved -- and I'm hopeful that someone will learn from the mistakes made along the way. The L.A. Times wiki, not so much. That one deserves to stay dead and buried. Posted by: Danny Glover at November 11, 2007 8:06 PM | Permalink The notion that reporters can't have opinions or express them outside of their work product is absolutely nuts and just another ruse by press "victims" to a) change the subject and b) get revenge. Now commentators can't have a life? Everybody in this business knows someone or of someone who has been left to twist slowly, slowly in the wind over a breach of the Caesar's Wife rule. A Washington Post reporter has just been disciplined [http://tinyurl.com/3dr4wa] for writing a nasty reply to an email blast on behalf of DC Councilman and former Mayor Marion Barry. Tim Page admits he went over the top but it is unlikely that the reporter, a Pulitzer-prize music critic, would ever have occasion to write about Barry, so the nexus there is hard to fathom. Judges have opinions and they sentence people to death. A little perspective, please. Posted by: John C Abell at November 12, 2007 9:04 AM | Permalink From Gill: What I don’t understand is why online media aren’t using hypertext as a means to provide transparency for every by-lined story.... This is no different from the type of transparency that Jay outlines — and the fact that it’s not used (shout if you’ve seen it anywhere) speaks volumes about where publishers and producers see themselves relative to their readers/watchers.Ditto. A hyperlinked byline is too easy. Hyperlinks in the online story should be required by now and I consider it a rhetorical choice (a dumb one) not to have links. More Undercurrent: Action in Greensboro on Open Source Journalism Here’s my initial round of advice: I'd sympathize with those who insist journos of whatever stripe be purer than Caesar's wife--if that's the term. Because, right now, you have a credibility problem and no amount of shuckin' and jivin' is going to fix that until you fix that. Little stuff, like absolute transparency...important. Currently, in France, the journos' reaction to the staged/faked al Durra footage is..."so what?" Even if that isn't you, you're part of "everybody". So if dumping a blogger over a $100 contribution is de minimis, it's still a good idea. Considering the larger circumstances. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at November 12, 2007 3:53 PM | Permalink Jay, couldn't this whole thing have been averted by the PD determining ahead of time that bloggers who'd donated money couldn't appear on its site? I'm not saying that's what they should do, just that the PD seems to have made a complete, and totally avoidable hash of this situation. Or, to salve its conscience, invite bloggers from two different sides to contribute material? What a completely unavoidable mess. Posted by: Redactora at November 13, 2007 11:44 AM | Permalink The answer is yes, Redactora, could have been avoided with some precautions upfront. The editors in Cleveland have said that, too. This is just bad decision-making. And following that a miserably bad column by the "reader's representative." Posted by: Jay Rosen at November 13, 2007 1:19 PM | Permalink The editors got smart after the fact. Posted by: Richard Aubrey at November 13, 2007 7:25 PM | Permalink Who in their right mind would expect political bloggers to be uninvolved in politics? The fact that the other three have not contributed is more worrisome to me than the fact that one did. A contribution is easily disclosed, and if two brain cells are alive and talking to one another it ought to occurr that a "liberal" blogger would support somebody/anybody other than LaTourette. If I, from the wilds of NE OR, know where LaTourette stands I'd think the PD could figure it out. For disclosure's sake - I'm a left wing Democrat. If you check around you'll also find that LaTourette is a whiner about politics and hasn't exactly played "nice-nice" himself. I'm religious about links, accurate use of quotes, attributions, and disclosure - and even (Jay) appologies for sloppy characterizations. I also am an uncompensated writer...but it wouldn't make any difference if I were, since the agenda is not hidden. That is the PD's problem, not that there is an agenda, but that it's public without public acknowledgement. There is always an agenda - make it public, let it go. A person without an opinion simply doesn't know anything about the subject or doesn't care and neither is a recipe for accurate information. Oh well, I make no pretence to being a jounalist... Posted by: chuckbutcher at November 19, 2007 4:45 AM | Permalink Presentation to MTV Street Team 08 on... The Art of Blogging: How to Get Into the National Conversation. And break news, get noticed, while etching yourself into the Web. Jay Rosen, NYU Journalism, OfftheBus.Net and pressthink.org. The Web: Google. Live Web: My top ten suggestions for Street Team bloggers who want to do real journalism and get talked about for the right reasons... 1. Monitor the Live Web. Follow the news, and what's being said about it on blogs and user-generated sites. Memeorandum, Real Clear Politics, the Page , CNN's Political Ticker, plus Drudge , Huffington Post. 2. Link out to any conversation you want in on. Learning to use blog search: Google Blog Search, Technorati, Ice Rocket. 3. Adopt a state beat AND a national (or community of interest) beat. Appoint yourself beat reporter for both, and monitor the key sources of political news for both. * Sara Benincasa has to cover New York, but she's interested in comedy-- writing and performing. National beat could be: what comedians are saying and doing about the election, nationwide. * Kyle de Beausset, Massachusetts, is dedicated to chronicling the migrant experience through new media ever since. National beat: subjecting what the candidates say about immigration to the experience test. * Or: Work backwards from constituency to beat: Ron Paul anyone? 4. Filter the flow of political news--and chatter--for the communities you serve, state and national. Filter and comment blog: Instapundit. 5. Develop your own social network of beat sources and actors within a subculture, interest group, emerging community or demographic, and let them speak through you. 6. Be the only one there--recording, observing, taking notes--when something important to the national conversation happens. How? Your network tells you! 7. Do some original reporting: dig and investigate for yourself. The New Republic just did it. 8. Save the users time by condensing, summarizing and pulling scattered things to together in one place. Daily Briefing. 9. Interview someone who adds to the conversation; edit and package and background it properly. 10. Guide us in to a world we may know of but don't know about. Posted by: Jay Rosen at January 9, 2008 10:07 AM | Permalink |
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