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Prudence would dictate staying out of this but it’s kind of like when the big kid is beating up the little kid. Even though you know you’ll probably get thrashed too, something compels you to open your mouth or intervene. Okay, so this is really blogger v. blogger but one is your typical personal blog and the other is run and paid for by (and supposedly speaks for) the Argus Leader and, hence, Gannett, the media conglomerate.
Seems Corey Vilhauer from Black Marks on Wood Pulp posted a few things about the Argus the other day. Seems it irritated the paper’s Voices blog, or at least Pat Lalley from that blog. Vilhauer’s first post on the subject dealt with what he considers a loss of style in the Argus. He said in part:
But the Argus is losing readership. The solution, apparently, is to dumb down the content. Make the words bigger. Have more opinion, both from unqualified readers and random bloggers and message board trolls. Show more candid photographs from Grandma’s collection.
Them thar (and others) are apparently fightin’ words for the Argus. Lalley’s response was Vilhauer is “just plain wrong.”
Did we change the newspaper? Yes we did, to respond to the times, to make it more relevant to people’s lives. We’re not perfect and we’ve got a long way to go but we’re trying to stay relevent [sic] in today’s world. The reason major metropolitan daily newspapers are suffering is because they’ve grown out of touch with the daily ebb and flow of the lives of their readers, not because they weren’t printing enough wire stories about discontent in the European Union.
Here’s where I’ll make that intervention mistake and and throw in my two cents worth.
First, I’ll admit Lalley has a point when he says later in his post that there is more local news content in the Argus. That is undoubtedly a good thing. But the items Vilhauer mentioned are equally valid. I don’t see how the following are “more relevant to people’s lives” or “in today’s world” than, say, national or international news.
- Printing comments from the message board denizens. From the few times I’ve looked at what shows up in the Voices section of the paper, most, if not all, of the Argus online forum participants don’t use their real names. How is some exchange between two anonymous individuals (and based on what appears in the paper, usually about the same dozen or so people) relevant or important to subscribers? Since they hide behind assumed names, there is no basis to evaluate their credibility or the knowledge base they rely upon. At least Vilhauer (and Epp and CCK and me and numerous South Dakota bloggers) put our names on our blogs. If letters to the editor must be signed why are anonymous online comments so relevant they retain their anonymity in print?
- An endless stream of pictures from strangers of their kids, pets and vacations. Seems to me the people who might find these pictures relevant probably already got them in an e-mail, on Flickr, or in a Christmas letter or the like. Frankly, if I wanted to see those pictures, I’d go knocking on neighbors’ doors and ask to look at their photo albums. Even then they wouldn’t be relevant to today’s world.
- As for more opinion from various sources, op-ed pieces are fine and dandy but they are also an easy and relatively painless way to fill space. I believe that what happens in Europe or the Middle East or Canada is more relevant in today’s world and likely has a greater impact on peoples’ lives than what some out-of-state columnist or newspaper thinks about various issues. And, at least for me, reading a Sunday collection of foreign and national news that generally is not time sensitive is not a substitute for daily news from around the nation and world.
I know that in the scheme of things these are probably minor changes. Yet how much of the change comes from the readers? Does anyone really think readers told the Argus they want excerpts from the paper’s efforts to create an online presence? How many readers called or wrote in saying they really, really, really want to see pictures of other people’s pets? The fact of the matter is this decision originated at Gannett headquarters in McLean, Va., not the corner of 10th and Minnesota. Here’s what the WaPo reported last month:
The chain’s papers are redirecting their newsrooms to focus on the Web first, paper second. Papers are slashing national and foreign coverage and beefing up “hyper-local,” street-by-street news. They are creating reader-searchable databases on traffic flows and school class sizes. Web sites are fed with reader-generated content, such as pictures of their kids with Santa. In short, Gannett — at its 90 papers, including USA Today — is trying everything it can think of to create Web sites that will attract more readers.
Sounds a lot like the changes we’ve seen at the Argus. I know change is inevitable. Hell, I come from the day when an IBM Selectric was cutting edge newsroom technology. Still, the problem from my perspective — and Vilhauer’s, I think — is that I get the Argus to read a newspaper, not because the paper wants me to look at its web site. The “Web first, paper second” seems antithetical to the reason most people get newspapers. If I wanted to use my laptop to read the news while I’m drinking coffee (and doing “other things”) in the morning, I wouldn’t subscribe to begin with. Maybe I am too old, but to me the purpose of a newspaper is to put “news” in the reader’s hands, not send them elsewhere to get it. And why go online for more photos of strangers’ dogs and anonymous comments on message boards?
Still, kudos to Lalley and Villhauer for feudin’ respectfully about something I know has been a topic of a lot of discussion in this area. And there is one unquestionable benefit of the change in format. I have more free time in the morning as it now takes me about five minutes to read the paper once I get past Section A.
Editors may think of themselves as dignified headwaiters in a well-run restaurant but more often [they] operate a snack bar … and expect you to be grateful that at least they got the food to the table warm.
Thomas Griffith, How True: A Skeptic’s Guide to Believing the News
Just when you wonder whether anybody really gives a rip about any of the stuff you blog about, you get at least some reinforcement.
First, although it seemed to gather no notice in the South Dakota blogosphere, my post on credentialing bloggers did attract the attention of CBS News. As you’ll see in a comment to that post, it ended up being mentioned in that organization’s Blogophile column by Melissa McNamara.
Shortly before seeing that comment, I learned of a nice e-mail Marty Callaghan sent the publisher of Blogcritics about my review on that site of his documentary, Blood and Oil – The Middle East in World War I. Callaghan wrote:
I want to thank you and Tim Gebhart for his excellent review of “Blood and Oil.” As the program’s writer and producer, I felt it was important to provide the public with a “primer” on Middle Eastern military and political history, to offer a context for events occurring today. I appreciated Mr. Gebhart’s insightful comments, and your decision to publish them.
Wow, “insightful comments.” Maybe that history minor didn’t go to waste. If not, credit goes to now retired Jerry Sweeney, one of the best college professors I ever had.
We are prepared for insults, but compliments leave us baffled.
Mason Cooley, City Aphorisms, Second Selection
Politics, like theology, consists of much noise and no information.
Robert Anton Wilson, Previous Thoughts
PP recently mentioned the idea of bloggers being “credentialed” as part of the press corps for the South Dakota Legislature. Having covered a couple sessions in Pierre as a reporter, I guarantee you I won’t be getting in line for any press passes for bloggers if it ever occurs. But he isn’t the only one suggesting such acknowledgement of bloggers.
I saw today via BoingBoing that an outfit known as the Media Bloggers Association (MBA) obtained two seats for bloggers out of the 100 set aside for the media in what will certainly be an overflowing courtroom for the the trial of Scooter Libby, Vice President Cheney’s former chief of staff. Here’s what the WaPo reported, including its traditional press shot at bloggers:
The common journalistic practices of verifying facts, seeking both sides of a story and subjecting an article to editing are honored mostly in the breach. Innuendo and rumor ricochet around the Internet as blogs link from one to another, at times making defamatory voices indistinguishable from the many others involved in this experiment of free expression.
Yet, after detailed talks with [MBA’s president], officials at the U.S. District Court decided that public awareness of court proceedings could be enhanced by his group’s members, among them documentary filmmaker and journalist Rory O’Connor ( https://www.roryoconnor.org/blog) and freelance writer James Joyner ( https://www.outsidethebeltway.com).
“Bloggers can bring a depth of reporting that some traditional media organizations aren’t able to achieve because of space and time limitations,” said Sheldon Snook, administrative assistant to Chief Judge Thomas F. Hogan. Snook added that some bloggers also bring expertise that is welcome in court.
I think Snook’s assessment is very accurate. For example, when I covered the South Dakota Supreme Court while working for UPI and the state and federal trial courts in Rapid City, most of my knowledge came from The Reporter and the Law by Lyle Denniston, the Baltimore Sun reporter who has covered the U.S. Supreme Court for decades. While Denniston’s book is a superb resource for anyone wanting to understand the workings of the justice system, blawgers (law bloggers) undoubtedly can provide insight and expertise that non-lawyer reporters can not.
At the same time, in 99.9 percent of all trials in state or federal court in South Dakota, attendance would pose no problem for bloggers. They would simply go and sit down like any other member of the public (although “live blogging” or using a laptop in the courtroom might face some restrictions depending on noise levels or concern that material not presented at trial might get displayed on the laptop). After all, press rights of access to court proceedings are no greater or less than the public’s.
While MBA should probably be commended for its efforts, part of the WaPo story, if accurate, disturbs me. It says MBA’s president wants to help create “an elite tier of bloggers.” Admittance to this group would result from being credentialed by the MBA after agreeing to adhere to its ethical standards and, thereby, “win them access to news and sporting events, advance copies of new books for review and entrance to advance screening of moves.” There are two problems with this concept.
First much of this happens already without the MBA or any other organization being a credentialing entity. Bloggers attended and covered the national political conventions two years ago. I guarantee bloggers get plenty of press releases and invitations to events from various campaigns and organizations, just like the traditional media. I know of at least one podcaster unaffiliated with any traditional media outlet who is considered part of the authorized media for a minor league hockey team in a large metropolitan area. Blogcritics, to which I contribute, is one of several sites through which bloggers receive advance copies of books, CDs and DVDs and are invited to advance screenings. In fact, there’s dozens of “litblogs” out there the publishing industry recognizes as providing coverage of books and publishing matters. It is not uncommon for me to receive ARCs (advance reading copies) from a variety of national publishing houses.
Second and perhaps more important, I look askance at any effort to proclaim one segment of a group of similarly situated individuals as the “elite,” who are thereby entitled to advantages over the others. Designating an “elite tier” of bloggers strikes me as particularly contrary to one of the best things about blogs — they allow almost anyone a low-cost means of distributing ideas, analysis and criticism worldwide. As such, blogs can help undercut the sad but all too true observation of journalist A.J. Liebling: “Freedom of the press is guaranteed only to those who own one.”
Undoubtedly, adhering to certain ethical standards behooves bloggers and their readers. But it isn’t just “this experiment of free expression” that is guilty of ethical lapses. Likewise, just how good a job did the WaPo and the rest of the traditional press do “verifying facts [and] seeking both sides of a story” in the run up to the Iraq War? That’s part of the reason why an “elite” stamp from any particular organization should never become the determinant of the legitimacy of any individual or collective blog.
Blogs are democratizing the media [because] the blogosphere is actively watching the mainstream media[.]
Robert Scoble & Shel Israel, Naked Conversations
Many (my wife included) might say I am oblivious to much that goes on around me. Today could serve as a case in point.
I forgot (or hadn’t realized) that Monday is MLK Day until somebody mentioned over lunch that our office is closed Monday. It was like being handed a three-day weekend out of the blue. And because it is a federal holiday, it also means I don’t have to mail my quarterly estimated tax payment to the IRS until Tuesday. That’s like icing on the cake.
I’m sure it won’t take much effort to put this surprise to “productive” use. Still, if you ask me, my oversight is not an example of a tendency to ignore much of the outside world. Rather, it simply serves as proof that occasionally ignorance can, in fact, produce bliss.
Without a little negligence, life would be intolerable.
Mason Cooley, City Aphorisms, Eighth Selection
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