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Nov

18

Wide Open tidbits


Now that we’re entering the fourth Wide Open-less week since October 31, I realize that not everyone who browses past one of these posts will know the story, so I’m going to link to the WO category on this blog for folks who want to try and get a sense of what’s been going on.

There’s also no single, definitive absent from all bias synopsis out there, but Poynter and Editor & Publisher come close. Jay Rosen’s post is also worth reading.

The focus of these roundups will most likely be ethics, blogging and journalism.

Today’s roundup:

Lauren Rich Fine, a well-established newspaper industry analyst who lives in NEO, provides an interesting comment here. However, I want to repeat on her behalf that she says she wasn’t really familiar with Wide Open itself or me being one of the bloggers. That makes her comment all the more poignant and valuable.

This interview with Aaron Barnhart of the Kansas City Star and TV Barn includes passages that focus on his opinion as to why the MSM, or anyone, continues to push the blogger versus journalist paradigm. He nails it here:

It [print v. blogs issue] is tired. Why do you think blogs vs. print issue has such legs? Navel gazing on the part of reporters/bloggers?

That’s partly to blame, I’m sure—but I think there are deeper reasons. With bloggers, I think it’s simple. They like to see themselves as part of something big, grand and revolutionary. Many, I think, genuinely believe they are transforming the media by challenging the mainstream media (MSM), although I’m not sure there is much hard proof of that. Beyond that, that anti-MSM stance is the fire that keeps their blogs going. It informs a lot of what they write.

Many print journos, on the other hand, don’t understand blogging and see bloggers as irritants, people who criticize their work but also wouldn’t have material for their blogs if not for the MSM. Meanwhile, every newsroom in America now has top management beating the drum for their staff to “do blogs,” even though it’s clear that many journalists in print and TV haven’t the foggiest idea how or why they should “do” one. (Witness the trail of busted blogs across news organizations.)

I just spoke on blogs to a features editors’ convention so I know that interest remains high. Editors are not dumb, they know their staff should be doing them, but that many don’t want to and many staff blogs go untended.

But journalists are torn on this. They know money is flowing out the door. They know a lot of it is going to online (though not necessarily enriching the people who criticize their work so passionately). They know they need to get with the program. But many aren’t sure how to proceed, or if ultimately their expenditure of effort online will be worth the effort.

Amy Gahran on “Participatory Journalism in the USA.” The post offers up Amy’s outline of the talk she’s prepared for a conference in Spain this week. She will be presenting in conjunction with Jan Schaffer of J-Lab, whom I got to see at the Society for Professional Journalists’ conference in 2005. Schaffer was excellent – one of the originals who gets it. Amy’s sharing of her talk has inspired me to post mine from the AAPC conference and I’ll be doing that on a separate page of this blog, hopefully this evening I did it here.

The SPJ conference page includes a link to streaming video and audio of a session called, “Bloggers and Journalists: Friends or Foes” at its national conference in October. On my to-do list to watch/listen – it’s free to members, which I still am, for now.

Teaching Online Journalism appears to be a good blog to follow if you want to understand how people are being educated when it comes to online journalism, and how they distinguish, if at all, between “journalism” performed and provided online, versus whatever everything else is that they wouldn’t call journalism.

Finally, from Fame or Famine, traditional journalism is to traditional dance like the blogosphere is to improv.

Bonus: Adventures in Online-only News Sites: Introducing MinnPost a nonprofit journalism venture. It says that it’s news is reported by “professional journalists” and its goal is described this way:

Our goal is to create a sustainable business model for this kind of journalism, supported by corporate sponsors, advertisers, and members who make annual donations. High-quality journalism is a community asset that sustains democracy and quality of life, so we are asking people who believe in it to support our work.

Okay – so, high-quality journalism can only be produced by journalists? Who are defined as being…?

Yeah, I don’t know. Is the belief in what is high-quality as known a quantity as anyone thinks it is?

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By Jill Miller Zimon at 10:33 pm November 18th, 2007 in Media, Wide Open, Writing 

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