The internet does not just present a few glittery toys. It presents the circumstances to change our relationship with the public, to work collaboratively in networks, to find new efficiencies thanks to the link, to rethink how we cover and present news. No, the essence of the problem is that we thought the internet represented just a new gadget and not a fundamental change in society, the economy, and thus journalism.
If you want to see the mindset that works on the assumption that newspapers "are what they are because they always have been and so that’s what they need to be" visit The Inquirer.
Hrm . . . I didn't catch a buzz, not even a contact high; plus, with all due respect, I brag to differ.
ReplyDeleteJeff Jarvis says he teaches bizthness in journo skewl, right? Okay. Hold that shot.
If that's the case (casing?), then why is he blaming journalists, the low peeps on the power-gaming totem pole? Journalists don't make bizthness decisions, not by a country snarl; we're the hacks; we just write; and, editors, especially section editors, don't have any power, either. He's just plain wrong.
If he wants to refute (or rebut) the journalist-ain't-at-fault argument, he has to go to the Managing Editor, The Editor-in-Chief, The Production Managers, Human Resources, each of the BigPigs who holds the balance of power and fills in the blanks (or disconnects the journo-dots) on the bottom line.
"My purpose in rebutting Farhi and Greenslade is not to beat up journalists but instead to empower them. The reason to take responsibility for the fall of journalism is to take responsibility for the fate of journalism. Who’s going to try to save it if not for journalists? We are indeed responsible for the future of journalism and we have about one minute to grab that bull by its horns."
Yeah; but, we're just hacks. That's how we're treated; and, that hasn't changed, not at all. The guy's out to munchie-lunch or something. We just write here; we don't make any business decisions; and, the PTB didn't listen to us (at least, not to me) when, a decade ago, I went to my then-boss and said, I wanna move the poetry column to the 'net and talk about newsgroups and interactivity and McLuhan and . . .
I was let go two months later; budget necessity, not the quality of my (award-winning) work; nope; and, yep, I could still write for the rag; but, on a freelance basis only; fuck the contract.
So, I went home to The Globe and Mail and have stayed put (this time) ever since. In fact, it was August 1998; and, I remember it vividly because my best BF online committed suicide the weekend before I was axed. My current editors (who were my editors before the T. O. Star editors, if you get my Shift-Drift), love me; and, they're good and fair and listen to me. Not so when I took the better offer and lost it all inside two years.
So, don't blame writers, journalists, or section editors, blame the flow-charting bizth peeps, Mr. Jarvis. You'te logical fallacy's showing; and, it ain't purty at all.
Egawds, get a gripe (or gimme a brick)!
I think one can blame the editors and writers. They're responsible for the product, and the product has become increasingly poor - predictable, badly reported, and indifferently written.
ReplyDeletePlease forgive my mistake with "your" and "you're" since I don't have a spell-checker and don't know how to use one; but, Frank, yes, in a very real sense, you're correct.
ReplyDeleteWho hired these peeps, though? There's a chain of command in any newsroom; and, look around us: We've got you (who did a wonderful job at The Inky; and Roger K. Miller, and Bill Peschel, and Edward Champion, and Susan Balée, and a floatin' boatload of really gifted journalists / critics / writers' writers. (For glorious entertainly gorgeosity degrees of free, a fact for which I count the horseshoes on my arse).
Some papers are writers' papers; some are editors' papers, granted; but, if the product's gone downhell, it's not because journalists (and I use that term with respect) aren't doing their job; it's because they cost too much and are being replaced by rookies and cutey cookies who couldn't write their way out of a wet paper rag :). (Sorry.)
I'm a literary journalist; I left the Academy in 1982 to do the job fulltime and I never went back to professoring again and I never will; I was around when we still were using typewriters, sometimes; and, we had to learn computerese; WordStar . . . I've done this my entire adult life; and, there are great journalists (in Canada, they're mostly at The Globe and Mail [a writers' paper]. The National Post [not so much], and The Toronto Scar [an editors' paper if ever there was one].
Copy's disposable there; and, in that case, yes, you're right; I've seen three of its greatest national award-winning critical writers leave in the past year (and, I know why). They cost. Winning a National Newspaper Award's a liability; and, so, yes and no.
McLuhan said, With newspapers, the good news is the advertising, always and only; the rest is filler.
You're a fabulous writer and editor, Frank. You can't blame yourself for The Inky's decline, not seriously, can you? It was a ruthless bizth decision. You're too good. And, again, that's not our fault, we, the journalists, no!
It's the fault of the rubes and newbs who populate snooze rooms across the continent. It's the fault of focus groups; it's the fualt of stingy managers; and, it's the fault of a readership that puts up with such a downward spiral.
I hope that clarifies why Jeff Jarvis's Post hoc, ergo propter hoc bullshit is exactly that (speaking of taking the bull by the horns).
Well, actually, Jeff's a pretty nice guy and his central point - that journalists, because their own obtuseness and sense of entitlement, failed to meet the challenge posed by the internet - I think is sound. The best businessman in the world can't sell a shoddy product.
ReplyDeleteI'm sure he is; and, I think you make a valid point; it's the terms and frames of reference upon which we disagree. A journalist, IMO, is someone who, by definition, creates a quality piece of work; as you yourself note, a hack's a hack, a nag's a nag, a horse's arse is a horse's arse, and a propaganda toe-the-bottom liner is no longer beneath my contempt (and, yes, you're right and so, for that matter is Mr. Jarvis, in that regard):
ReplyDeleteThe journalists left the building; the building left the planet; and, what we are now witnessing is a bunch of mind-rot newsbots. Just my opinion. (And, I'm sorry if I offended your friend; you know, I'm half French, I blame my bleu genes. Please don't be upset with passionate me me me.)
It's odd that Jarvis seems to blame journalists (whatever that word means) for refusing to take advantage of networks and the power of the link and the like. The management of my own newspapers
ReplyDeletehas steadfastly rebuffed and stonewalled my own efforts in that direction, so I must assume it has done the same toward others.
Of course, editing and writing have got worse, too. The way management has handled that issue is by ignoring it. Oh, management has never hesitated to suggest that we
-- add color.
-- tell us that readers already need to know the score; the need to know the game.
-- are not nearly as funny in print a we are in the newsroom,\.
But just one of the six at last count) editors in chief at the paper since I was cursed to have joined its staff has dared suggest that the writing should be better.
==============
Detectives Beyond Borders
"Because Murder Is More Fun Away From Home"
http://www.detectivesbeyondborders.blogspot.com/
One of the commentors on the extensive and argumentative comments thread that followed this post stated:
ReplyDeleteAs Farhi puts it, before he dimisses them: “We were too slow to adapt, too complacent, too yoked to our tried-and-true editorial traditions and formulas. We could have saved ourselves, goes the refrain, if only we had been more creative and aggressive and less risk averse.”
All true, but he may have missed the most important one of all: “We were so thoroughly in the tank for one side of the political spectrum or the other that we couldn’t even pretend to be objective anymore.”
The main reason for for traditional journalism’s downfall is that the public simply doesn’t trust journalists anymore. And with good reason — they’re no longer trustworthy.
I agree with this completely. For me, it's the 900 lb. gorilla nobody in journalism is talking about.
And if it's not the loss of objectivity that's the problem, it's the loss of guts. Guts to stand up and ask meaningful questions, that challenge our politicians to actually defend their positions rather than merely repeat them as soundbytes.
I think Jarvis' point (possibly a rhetorical overstatement in order to get the point across, of course) is that journalists are not innocent, but part of the problem. Not that it's a vast conspiracy, and not that management isn't equally or more guilty of the problems that are cropping up. But journalists ARE complicit. Cloaking themselves as victims doesn't really cut it, because of the other reason I mentioned above: the loss of trust in the readership, viewership, audience, etc.
The reason the writing itself has gotten bad is partly because the news cycle continues to speed up, so nobody has time for thoughtful writing. But I often wonder if anyone cares about it, either. It's pretty clear that many journalists know they're lost the public's trust and respect.
The wise ones are upset about that, and trying to do something about it.
SOS
ReplyDeleteTake a long time with your anger,
Sleepy Head.
Don't waste it in riots.
Don't tangle it with ideas.
The Devil won't let me speak,
will only let me hint
that you are a slave,
your misery a deliberate policy
of those in whose thrall you suffer,
and who are sustained
by your misfortune.
The atrocities over there,
the interior paralysis over here —
Pleased with the better deal?
You are clamped down.
You are being bred for pain.
The Devil ties my tongue.
I'm speaking to you,
"friend of my scribbled life."
You have been conquered by those
who know how to conquer invisibly.
The curtains move so beautifully,
lace curtains of some
sweet old intrigue:
the Devil tempting me
to turn away from alarming you.
So I must say it quickly.
Whoever is in your life,
those who harm you,
those who help you;
those whom you know
and those whom you do not know —
let them off the hook,
help them off the hook.
Recognize the hook.
You are listening to Radio Resistance.
— Leonard Cohen
© 1995-2008 Leonard Cohen. Reprinted with permission. All Rights Reserved.