…the cult of the individual has caused the commonwealth to wither. – Roger Cohen
Roger Cohen of The New York Times wrote a splendid op-ed on the culture of Wall Street and how the nation needs to move beyond this epoch of unchecked greed into something better, something wholesome and sustainable.
The leverage party’s over for the masters of the universe. Shed a tear. When you trade pieces of paper for other pieces of paper instead of trading them for real things, one day someone wakes up and realizes the paper’s worth nothing. And Lehman Brothers, after 158 years, has gone poof in the night.
We’re witnessing the passing of more than a venerable firm. We’re seeing the death of a culture.
Cohen taught a journalism class at Princeton recently, where he saw first hand how attractive the high paying jobs in the financial sector are to the young minds coming out of Ivy League schools.
According to the Harvard Crimson, 39 percent of work-force-bound Harvard seniors this year are heading for consulting firms and financial sector companies (or were in June). That’s down from 47 percent — almost half the job-bound class — in 2007.
These numbers mirror a skewed culture. The best and the brightest should think again. Barack Obama put the issue this way at Wesleyan University in May: beware of the “poverty of ambition†in a culture of “the big house and the nice suits.â€
Maybe all the ex-paper pushers could be put to work, building things of value to the community. It seems far fetched at the time of this writing, but it might be less so in the not too distant future.
I enjoyed reading Mark Bowden’s piece in The Atlantic on changes being made to The Wall Street Journal under Rupert Murdoch’s ownership.
Bowden makes the point that Rupe lives by the scoop and that he sees news as a commodity, not literature or, God forbid, public service.
This is how Murdoch understands journalism—as content, a word he uses all the time, rather than as a form of literature or public service, and as a commodity whose value largely derives from its instant retail malleability. A short, crisp scoop that dramatically advances a major developing story—Obama’s poll numbers down! Britney back in rehab! Steinbrenner to fire another manager!—can be neatly packaged for a dizzying variety of media: print, radio, TV, the Internet, or even cell-phone screens. It doesn’t matter much to a fully integrated media conglomerate like News Corporation how its customers choose to access this content, as long as the transaction pays. He wants his reporters out in front of every competitor on the planet.
This means that, at a time when every big newspaper is tinkering with futuristic business models, Murdoch is doing so with both feet planted firmly in the past. His strategy for success in 2008 is to behave as though the year is 1908.
I might add that the above argument is about content, not distribution. Rupe, like every other pedaller of content, is investing in the medium of the day, the net. Here Bowden gets worked up.
The Internet is in many ways a superior medium for journalism. It costs virtually nothing, in contrast to multimillion-dollar printing presses, giant rolls of paper and tankers of ink, and fleets of delivery trucks, to say nothing of the thousands of laborers needed to operate the equipment and distribute the product. But while the Web is rapidly destroying the business model that sustained all of the above, it has yet to develop institutions capable of replacing print newspapers as vehicles for great in-depth journalism, or conscious of themselves as upholding a public trust. Instead, the Web gives voice to opinionated, unedited millions. In the digital world, ignorance and crudity share the platform with rigor and taste; the independent journalist shares the platform with spinmeisters and con artists. When all news is spun, we live in a world of propaganda.
The worst part of this is, the public doesn’t seem to care.
Neither does Rupert Murdoch.
I added the emphasis in the above passage, because I have invested years of effort in online content creation. My work is far from institutional, for it’s just me and a few friends doing what we do. Yet, in this chaotic media environment, I see opportunity. Opportunity to go well beyond blogging.
I like the term micro-media for it’s obvious connection to micro-beer. Micro-brewers recognized that the big players in beer treat their beers as a commodities and nothing more, so they chose to make something markedly better and the market responded favorably. Now many micro-brewers are themselves well established entities with national distribution and legions of fans. Essentially, that’s what we’re striving for with sites like HuskerZone and AdPulp. We’re pursuing a different flavor of coverage around niche subjects we care about.
We’re a long ways from an ideal editorial product at this time, but I hope to get there by dedicating to the work. I want to see our micro-media experiments excite people. To some degree they do now, but I want to get to where Sam Adams and New Belgium are. I want our published products to become side-by-side options for consumers. To achieve this, we will need to stop blogging and start breaking news. If we can garner the resources–time and money–we can do it.
The interesting thing is online content creators can learn from the both poles—the scoops and short format favored by Rupe’s papers and the values-based, facts first reporting of papers like The New York Times and Washington Post.
Rocky Mountain News asked Ralph Nader, an independent candidate for President, if Barack Obama is any different than Democrats he has criticized in the past, considering Obama’s pledge to reject campaign contributions from registered lobbyists.
Nader’s response is on the shocking side, which makes sense as a media strategy. Although I suspect this is how Nader really thinks and really talks, no matter who might be listening.
“There’s only one thing different about Barack Obama when it comes to being a Democratic presidential candidate. He’s half African-American,” Nader said. “Whether that will make any difference, I don’t know. I haven’t heard him have a strong crackdown on economic exploitation in the ghettos. Payday loans, predatory lending, asbestos, lead. What’s keeping him from doing that? Is it because he wants to talk white? He doesn’t want to appear like Jesse Jackson? We’ll see all that play out in the next few months and if he gets elected afterwards.”
“I mean, first of all, the number one thing that a black American politician aspiring to the presidency should be is to candidly describe the plight of the poor, especially in the inner cities and the rural areas, and have a very detailed platform about how the poor is going to be defended by the law, is going to be protected by the law, and is going to be liberated by the law,” Nader said. “Haven’t heard a thing.”
“He wants to show that he is not a threatening . . . another politically threatening African-American politician,” Nader said. “He wants to appeal to white guilt. You appeal to white guilt not by coming on as black is beautiful, black is powerful. Basically he’s coming on as someone who is not going to threaten the white power structure, whether it’s corporate or whether it’s simply oligarchic. And they love it. Whites just eat it up.”
I love that we have someone, anyone, willing to speak truth to power. Doing so is heroic in these times. It might not be welcome, or even all that smart, politically or otherwise, but still I respect that Nader is doing it. He’s a man of action and he would like to see some people in D.C. snap to attention, as improbable as that eventuality seems.
On a totally unrelated note, I wish Nader had some sharper looking creative. Obama really has the graphic designers in his camp.
Sara Lloyd of Pan Macmillan is offering “A book publisher’s manifesto for the 21st century” in six parts on the firm’s blog.
Here’s one paragraph from the initial entry:
Publishers – and, importantly, authors – will need increasingly to accept huge cultural and social and economic and educational changes and to respond to these in a positive and creative way. We will need to think much less about products and much more about content; we will need to think of ‘the book’ as a core or base structure but perhaps one with more porous edges than it has had before. We will need to work out how to position the book at the centre of a network rather than how to distribute it to the end of a chain. We will need to recognise that readers are also writers and opinion formers and that those operate online within and across networks. We will need to understand that parts of books reference parts of other books and that now the network of meaning can be woven together digitally in a very real way, between content published and hosted by entirely separate entities. Perhaps most radically, we will have to consider whether a primary focus on text is enough in a world of multimedia mash-ups. In other words, publishers will need to think entirely differently about the very nature of the book and, in parallel, about how to market and sell those ‘books’ in the context of a wired world. Crucially, we will need to work out how we can add value as publishers within a circular, networked environment.
From a business perspective, I don’t disagree with Lloyd. But from a book lover’s perspective, I still want a physical book to read, one with lots of ideas expressed in words.
Yellow journalism is a pejorative reference to journalism that features scandal-mongering, sensationalism, or other unethical or unprofessional practices by news media organizations or journalists.
The term originated during the Gilded Age with the circulation battles between Joseph Pulitzer’s New York World and William Randolph Hearst’s New York Journal. Both papers were accused by critics of sensationalizing the news in order to drive up circulation, although the newspapers did serious reporting as well.
Personally, I don’t identify with the term in today’s media environment. Of course, we’re going to be sensational today. Anything less runs the risk of being utterly ignored. Instead of calling Lindsay’s arrest “yellow journalism,” we might call it participatory journalism.
Matthew Creamer of Ad Age is contemplating the future of news and wondering if it’s an aggregated cluster fuck.
With the expensive pursuit of professional content failing to jibe with profitability, media entrepreneurship looks to be reduced to a meta role of repackaging what’s already out there.
Welcome to the era of the aggregator.
For reporters, editors and publishers this is an unwelcome welcoming, at best.
Creamer shares some of the collective doubt hanging on his peers like stale smoke.
If aggregating is becoming the best way to make money from content, who’s going to undertake the costly business of creating that content?
Great question. And without original reporting, there won’t be much for the aggregators to aggregate.
Newseum, “the interactive museum of news,” which opens today in Washington, DC, kindly displays front pages from hundreds of newspapers around the country, at the museum and online (only about 80 front pages are displayed at the museum).
In person, the gallery — featuring a spectacular view of the U.S. Capitol — provides the perfect setting for visitors contemplating the relationship between press and democracy. Online, the overview of front pages is accompanied each weekday by an analysis, comparing and contrasting coverage of national, international and local news by examining headlines, design, photographs and the placement of stories.
The Newseum is located at Pennsylvania Avenue and Sixth Street, N.W., Washington, DC. Admission is $20 for adults, $18 for seniors, $13 for kids aged seven to 12 and free for kids under six.
Let’s talk some more about newspapers and their primary challenger, the internet.
Stowe Boyd, a social web application designer and developer, has some provocative things to say about the situation.
I still read the thinner and thinner New York Times regularly, but less of us do that everyday. And online, there is a brave new world, where I am learning more about what’s going on through Twitter, blogs, and an increasingly social web than could ever be confined in a few dozen pages of newsprint.
I left a comment on his site that says I’m shocked. For sure, I “learn” what some pretty smart people are thinking and doing via Twitter and blogs, but the mainstream media, particularly our nation’s best newspapers, helps me learn what’s going on in my community, country and world. Two different types of learning.
Boyd’s comments were made in response to David Carr’s New York Times opinion piece about newspaper owners struggling to cope.
Newspapers continue to gain on the Web in part because they have the best talent, the biggest news hole and the most comprehensive coverage. But that value, which gave many papers their near-monopoly, could be wiped out by a sustained downturn.
Boyd does’t care for Carr’s comments about talent. He says, “it is ridiculous to assert that the folks scribbling madly for the companies that are falling into the abyss right before our eyes are somehow to be judged as ‘the best talent’.” But it’s an interesting question. Take the 1000 best bloggers, whatever best means to you, and compare them to the 1000 best mainstream journalists working today. Which side has more firepower? For me, that’s easy. MSM has the edge. “Real journalists” have the background, the sources, the discipline to fact check and copy edit and the benefit of face-to-face support from their peers in the profession.
If the guy down the proverbial blog street has some news to offer, I’m going to listen. But I’m not going to count on him for that news. Not like I count on a community newspaper. Newspapers need to survive. Maybe they don’t make the margins they came to expect in the past, but they need to be profitable so they can invest in their people and their product. Why do I care? Because a high quality news product, like clean energy or health care for all, is something our nation desperately needs.
None of this is meant to say I don’t prefer reading some blogs over MSM. I do. And I’d like to see these bloggers make a living at what they do best. Hell, I’d like to make a living at what I do best. Who wouldn’t? My point is this: disruption creates opportunity. Where there is destruction, there is rebirth. The media business is struggling to find its way. To me, this means anyone with the necessary skills, the right outlook and some pertinent answers has a chance at a rewarding career in media today. Whether that media is produced in a Manhattan skyscraper or in someone’s spare bedroom doesn’t matter. Quality matters. Transparency matters. Collaboration with the community matters.
I think it’s clear that both sides are learning from one another. MSM does quality better, but social media practitioners are good at transparency and community building. This whole thing boils down to the fact that newspapers, like pro and semi-pro bloggers, need to find a way to make money on the web. Advertising, subscriptions, content licensing and whatever else anyone can think of is what’s needed. We need a professional class of writers, photographers and multimedia makers.
Moving forward, the media business will encompass all. Petty distinctions–like who is a real journalist?–will fade. It’s already happening. MSM is embracing social media and prominent bloggers are fast becoming media company owners. Today, you’re a real journalist if you cover a beat consistently, honestly and professionally.
Eric Alterman writing in The New Yorker looks at the tumult being felt in newsrooms around the nation. The historical context he provides is particularly illuminating.
The tensions between the leaders of the mainstream media and the challengers from the Web were presaged by one of the most instructive and heated intellectual debates of the American twentieth century.
Between 1920 and 1925, the young Walter Lippmann published three books investigating the theoretical relationship between democracy and the press, including “Public Opinion†(1922), which is credited with inspiring both the public-relations profession and the academic field of media studies. Lippmann identified a fundamental gap between what we naturally expect from democracy and what we know to be true about people. Democratic theory demands that citizens be knowledgeable about issues and familiar with the individuals put forward to lead them. And, while these assumptions may have been reasonable for the white, male, property-owning classes of James Franklin’s Colonial Boston, contemporary capitalist society had, in Lippmann’s view, grown too big and complex for crucial events to be mastered by the average citizen.
Journalism works well, Lippmann wrote, when “it can report the score of a game or a transatlantic flight, or the death of a monarch.†But where the situation is more complicated, “as for example, in the matter of the success of a policy, or the social conditions among a foreign people—that is to say, where the real answer is neither yes or no, but subtle, and a matter of balanced evidence,†journalism “causes no end of derangement, misunderstanding, and even misrepresentation.â€
John Dewey took the populist point-of-view, arguing that Lippmann’s critique had merit, but that the solution could be found in education. The central concept of John Dewey’s view of education was that greater emphasis should be placed on the broadening of intellect and development of problem solving and critical thinking skills, rather than simply on the memorization of lessons.
What does Dewey vs. Lippmann have to do with the rapidly shifting mediascape today? The old guard, of which mainstream media institutions are part, is working to uphold the standards that have guided the news business for more than a century, all while inviting the customer into the so-called “conversation.” It’s a delicate balance, but one newspapers need to get right.
There’s so much focus on the vehicles–print vs. digital. But that’s not what any of this is about. What this is about is freeing media from authoritarian top-down control by a few key corporate bodies–something needed just as badly as well-considered, fact-checked journalism. Ultimately, it’s about more voices and more voices requires more work. Our informed citizens have more data to process than ever before. Thus, the need for the critical skills Dewey called for.
I like to follow Romenesko’s blog, to see what’s shakin’ on Media Lane. What’s up is Nikki Finke of Deadline Hollywood Daily says Associated Press is hiring 21 new employees in 2008 spread across Los Angeles, New York and London to work the entertainment beat. It’s good to know some journalists are finding new jobs, but it’s disturbing to see where the market’s going.
Certainly, the AP is under intense financial pressure during these doomed economic times for newspapers: Dow Jones newswires just announced it’ll stop using AP stories after failing to agree on a price after more than a year of negotiations. Clearly, the AP now thinks that Hollywood coverage can become its new cash cow. It’s already led to AP signing a deal to provide celebrity video for People.com.
Lou Ferrara, the AP’s managing editor for sports, entertainment and multimedia, explained to The New York Times that the news service’s more than 1,500 daily papers and thousands of other media outlets were hungering for more photos and videos of celebrities.
I can’t blame AP for filling a business need. But the fact that there’s a growing interest in all things Britney isn’t just sad, it’s scary. It means our collective eyes aren’t on any big prizes–like better schools, a sustainable energy policy, healthcare for all. We’re at war in the Middle East, our economy’s falling apart and the icecaps are melting. But who cares? What’s important is Britney went to the c-store for ranch-flavored Doritos. And our nation’s best reporters were there!
