In praise of journalistic legends

I spent Thursday in the company of giants in the field of journalism at Columbia University’s conference on Watchdog Journalism. (Some Columbia Journalism students and recent grads blogged today’s sessions; Twitter coverage here.)

In responding to one of my twitter reports, Dan O’Neil pointed me to a piece he wrote last year that articulates some of the thoughts  that rattled around my head today as listened to courageous journalists from around the world:

It’s good for me to take a break from whining about this or that city official not calling me back, or some municipal department that turned down my Freedom of Information Act request, or some agency that provides partial data rather than every field I requested. I’ve got it made. For some, it really is life or death, captivity of freedom, torture or awards. And there are legends of this business that still live and breathe. Let’s try to keep them free, and appreciated, and keep working as hard as we can, wherever we are.

When We’re forced to Replace Journalism with Google

This Chicago Tribune piece on a pending protest at the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops may be a harbinger of the future of journalism, and of the demands placed on consumers who want to know more than a soundbite. The 250 word “article” (published on the unwieldy Chicago Breaking News site) tell us that SNAP (the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests) has called for Chicago’s Cardinal Francis George’s resignation without ever mentioning the reasons why. For that the enterprising consumer must search (alas, no links from CBN) for SNAP’s blog, where we are told that the demands stem from “recent disclosures about “several pedophile priests and corrupt supervisors” in his archdiocese.” SNAP is responding in particular to recent reports that the Cardinal has placed confessed pedophile, and “personal friend” Kenneth J. Martin as a consultant in offices adjacent to a school. (Wikipedia has details on a similar case involving the Cardinal’s failure to remove another priest. charged with abuse.)  The Tribune article shares none of this. In the past, we looked to professional journalists for such details, but increasingly we must fend for ourselves if we want details.

Real News: War in Congo kills 45,000 monthly

If the production of news was just, this would be lead news every day.

A decade of fighting in the Democratic Republic of Congo is continuing to kill about 45,000 people each month – half of them small children – in the deadliest conflict since the second world war, according to a new survey.

The International Rescue Committee said preventable diseases and starvation aggravated by conflict have claimed 5.4 million lives since the beginning of the second Congo war in 1998, equivalent to the population of Denmark. Although the war officially ended in 2002, malaria, diarrhoea, pneumonia and malnutrition continue to claim thousands of lives.

Participatory Media and UGC: Myth or Building to Symbiosis?

Via Chuq, Scott Karp makes the case that User-Generated Content is a myth:

A whole mythology is emerging around the idea of “users” — consumers, fans, regular average folk — creating content that media companies and brands can leverage. It’s a compelling idea — but it’s a myth. The reality is that “average people” don’t create a lot of content — at least not the commercially viable kind. Most people are too busy. Those that do “create content” — and who do it well — are those who are predisposed to being content creators. The have some relevant skills, training, raw talent, motivation, something.

Good discussion in the comments.

Chuq wants us to distinguish identity, and I would add sharing, from content creation. “What goes on on facebook isn’t necessarily content creation. Setting up a profile isn’t really getting involved in content creation.”

On the other hand,  Nate Ritter and Josh Catone review the ways in which participatory media has contributed to our understanding of the SoCal fires. Writing at ReadWriteWeb Catone says the fires have highlighted “the emerging symbiotic relationship between citizen journalists and the mainstream news media.”

Many news outlets have solicited, and subsequently used, submissions from people capturing news with cell phone cameras and on blogs (and Twitter, Flickr, YouTube, etc.) Multimedia platform Veeker, which last week signed a deal with NBC to handle viewer uploads in 10 major cities, said that NBC San Diego recieved over 2000 submissions of pictures and video related to the wildfires. CNN’s I-Reports section reportedly received about the same number of fire-related submissions.

 (Not unrelatedly, NewAssignment.net’s Off the Bus project was covered in the NYT the other day.) 

 

Finally, Stephanie Kanowitz reminds us that even august journalistic entities like CNN can feature goofy news by summarizing some recent CNN “Latest News” headlines:

• Sheep costume turns man into human torch
• T.I. released on $3 million bond
• When Britney Spears went bad
• TV sex scenes getting so hot they rival porn
• Ghouls, goblins gather for happiest day
• Shatner zapped from new ‘Star Trek’ movie
• Boy, 4, kisses beluga whale

The Onion and Nichey News Models of the Future

Greg Beato’s homage to The Onion in the November issue of Reason Magazine is finally linkable.

At a time when traditional newspapers are frantic to divest themselves of their newsy, papery legacies, The Onion takes a surprisingly conservative approach to innovation. As much as it has used and benefited from the Web, it owes much of its success to low-tech attributes readily available to any paper but nonetheless in short supply: candor, irreverence, and a willingness to offend.

While other newspapers desperately add gardening sections, ask readers to share their favorite bratwurst recipes, or throw their staffers to ravenous packs of bloggers for online question-and-answer sessions, The Onion has focused on reporting the news. The fake news, sure, but still the news. It doesn’t ask readers to post their comments at the end of stories, allow them to rate stories on a scale of one to five, or encourage citizen-satire. It makes no effort to convince readers that it really does understand their needs and exists only to serve them. The Onion’s journalists concentrate on writing stories and then getting them out there in a variety of formats, and this relatively old-fashioned approach to newspapering has been tremendously successful.

Are there any other newspapers that can boast a 60 percent increase in their print circulation during the last three years?…Too many high priests of journalism still see humor as the enemy of seriousness: If the news goes down too easily, it can’t be very good for you. But do The Onion and its more fact-based acolytes, The Daily Show and The Colbert Report, monitor current events and the way the news media report on them any less rigorously than, say, the Columbia Journalism Review or USA Today?…Despite its “fake news” purview, it’s an extremely honest publication. Most dailies, especially those in monopoly or near-monopoly markets, operate as if they’re focused more on not offending readers (or advertisers) than on expressing a worldview of any kind….Until today’s front pages can amuse our staunchest defenders of journalistic integrity to severe dyspepsia, if not death, they’re not trying hard enough.

Also today (via Romenesko) The Naperville News reports on “Our Dumb College Speaking Tour: The News Business and How it’s Done – An Evening with Two of the Most Important Writers in Journalism History,” featuring The Onion’s Todd Hanson and Chris Karwowski. Says Hanson: “The Onion is about one thing, and that is having the courage to tell the truth in ways that other newspapers are afraid to print….None of this stuff is actually real. We make all of this stuff up. It’s all made up. But you’d be amazed by how many people don’t figure that out.”

Meanwhile, some sketches on what news might look like in the future from Rob Paterson and the World Association of Newspapers. First, Rob:

• The new will be “nichey” – headlines and regular news are commodities – the more “nichey” the more likely to meet the needs of a community – the more a community is served – the more likely that the community will have a value – the more likely some kind of economic model can be arrived at
• The “reader” will pick from the many niches the areas that they want not the “editor” – no reader will go in the front door – they will want it “their way” – for instance I could not care less about sports BUT many would kill to find a real insider – if the writer was some one like Michael Lewis even I would read it – I want to build my newspaper
• Make it easy for me to find and read/view/listen to great material – make it easy!!!!!! I will pay for my time – I want great stuff about things that I find important – I want a person’s opinion about it all too
• Key being personality – I don’t read the Times – I like certain writers – they stimulate me – I don’t want an institution – I want to relate to people – then I want to have my say
• Comments can be awful – most are crass – many are crap – but what if a hosted community was added – look at Leroy at NPR and at how his community acts – now imagine if this was expanded so that cancer sufferers and their caregivers could speak in some kind of privacy with each other?

From the WAN report:

“The printed newspaper will get smaller and become mostly free. New technology and combination probably with mobile phones will make even the printed newspaper much more interactive than today. Low voltage e-paper or other paper-replacing foldable screens will be available to offer an alternative to the paper version, but very little interactive or cost efficient in regards to information retrieval.” Moritz Wuttke, CEO, APAC Publicitas, China