The journalism 'priesthood' destroyed?

November 11, 2008 by

It was Nieman reunion time last weekend, and the honored veterans of journalism were gathered in the very shadow of Harvard. Our panel was called: “Voices from the New World of Journalism.”

“I think we’re fooling ourselves a little bit in how much change is needed,” Michael Skoler of American Public Media said. The needed transformation lies well beyond the use of new tools. “People expect to share information.” But that goes against our ethos – getting the scoop, keeping it exclusive. Nor does allowing people to participate in – not just respond to — our work come naturally. “Deep in our souls we feel like that’s dumbing down our journalism. I would argue that it’s smartening it up.”

Mara Schiavocampo, NBC’s digital correspondent, agreed. When the crowd’s complaints about the low quality of public contributions confirmed Skoler’s dumbing-down assumption, Schiavocampo stressed, “More voices is a good thing for all of us. We just need to make sure we all operate by the same rules. It’s a journalism of partnership.”

What drove Schiavocampo to her current ultra-multi-media whirlwind professional life was a desire to “produce media the way I consumed media.” For others attempting this, she warns, authenticity is extremely important. Too often, “Big media are the parents pulling on ripped jeans and going to rock concerts in order to be cool.”

Joshua Benton, director of the new Nieman Journalism Lab, urged the crowd toward an awareness of just how many folks are putting useful information out there. Of the 600 RSS feeds a day that he reads, fewer than 10 percent are by journalists.

We need to be asking, “What can we do to connect with those people?” True, he noted, “It’s a difficult thing to create a healthy online community.” We need to set guidelines, make them clear, and follow them. And the journalists have to be involved in the comments. “It’s easy to lash out at someone who isn’t human to you.” Given the relationship we’ve trained people to expect of us, “we have to rehumanize ourselves.”

And then this last comment, which must have gripped me so much amid this crowd of worthies that I somehow failed to note its author: “The future just happened. It destroyed the priesthoods.”

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Did journalism's business model distort journalism's social mission?

October 21, 2008 by

I realized today to my amazement that I may long have been a secret disciple of Milton Friedman.

The famed laissez-faire economist held that business and mission don’t go together, according to Adlai Wertman, of USC’s Marshall School of Business. “And I’m not sure I disagree with him,” Wertman told students and faculty at this week’s USC Annenberg Director’s Forum. “I’m not sure I trust business with anything else.”

This throws a complex light on the collapse of the conventional economic model for journalism – which has consisted of trusting business with this mission so dear to our (and, we hope, the nation’s) hearts. That collapse feels no less catastrophic to those who are losing their jobs, nor to faithful news consumers who see shrinking newspapers and dumbed-down newscasts. And it’s still deeply worrisome when you think about who will have the power, guts and access to go up against big government and big business, so as to keep us informed about the nation and the world.

Still, it is fitting to be reminded of the ways in which the economic model has distorted the mission.

Consider the view of Wertman, who spent 18 years as an investment banker and another seven devoted to helping the homeless (“The first two or three ‘From Wall Street to Skid Row’ headlines were clever, but the 18th or 19th??!!”) before coming to the academy. Confronted with the nation’s inability to resolve the many ills confronting it, Wertman told the Journalism School: “I think it’s all your fault. In my view, the political world follows journalism.” And journalism has led down the wrong paths in our failure to give attention to poverty, homelessness and other weighty and complex issues.

The profit model may be responsible for much of the problem: “There is a major difference between a mission-driven business and a business,” he said. Profit-seeking companies “quickly go from no social mission to no social responsibility.” The result has been, in Wertman’s opinion, a distorted notion of “what the public wants” when it comes to journalism, and a terribly inadequate news diet for a self-governing people.

So what’s to be done?

“If you are asking, ‘Can I create new models that are mission-driven in journalism, and make a living?’ Absolutely!” said Wertman. Start with the focus, he advised. The new models that seem to do well are very targeted.

“Donors want to know, ‘What are you going to effect?’ That’s the hardest part. Once you figure out your mission, you can do anything. And I teach, the narrower the mission, the better.”

For some of us, then, the problem may actually be that what we are worried about is saving journalism. Wrong focus.

“Take the mission away from journalism and think more about journalism as a tool: We care about poverty, and how could we use journalism as a tool to make a difference,” he said.

If that sounds like advocacy said Wertman, it needn’t be. You persuade your donors (and consumers) that a full, fair, balanced and proportional picture of the issue is the best way to get people interested and informed, and thus to bring about action.

Mission accomplished: A new model for effective journalism – albeit not one of interest to Wall Street. But maybe enough to keep you off Skid Row.

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Las Vegas Sun tries innovative path toward online success

October 14, 2008 by

“A newspaper success story.” That was the topic for Drex Heikes when he spoke to us here at Annenberg about his work at the Las Vegas Sun. But, really, he said, “What we have is a newspaper that’s trying.”

It’s an interesting effort, for sure. Since 2005 the Sun has been a small daily inserted into the rival newspaper (operating under a JOA), plus a vibrantly innovative website. The print paper is innovative, too: Typically eight attractive, ad-free pages, it focuses on the interpretative, the entrepreneurial, the investigative. “We get to think the bigger thoughts,” said Heikes, who at one point entertained the notion of coming to Los Angeles to do an all-Web paper to compete with the embattled Times.

Given the uniqueness of Vegas and the rarity of the JOA model, it’s unclear how much of the Sun’s experience is exportable. And, oh yes, it’s all rather richly subsidized by a buoyantly happy billionaire publisher, Brian Greenspun, who exults, in a video: “My God, this is the future of journalism. It’s here right now, and we did it!” He’s hoping the lines will cross in favor of profitability by 2012, but in the meantime, says Heikes, Greenspun “is having fun. He’s 62 years old, and he looks like he’s 14.”

Well, surely that part is exportable: Any other billionaires out there who’d like to try this?

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