Howard Kurtz respectfully disagrees with my argument about scoops and exclus.
Easy for Jeff to say. In today’s wired world, letting slip that you’re working on a competitive story would lead to an immediate rip-off: by other publications, by bloggers, by talk radio hosts, you name it. Worse, they would steal your story–or just talk it to death–without benefit of the careful research you did or the nuances you’ve mastered. More often than not, it would be a cartoon version. Then critics and bloggers would start ripping your work before it’s even been published , and the partisans denouncing you for even attempting to investigate such-and-such if it’s perceived as negative to their side.No thanks.
While I enjoy Mr. Kurtz’s column and tv show, I feel unsympathetic about his feelings about the secrecy around scoops. it seems to be the whimper and cry of the last dodo before extinction. Don’t get me wrong I don’t think mass media goes away - that’s the problem with this discussion. Its either the blogger saying that he/she/it is the future or its doddering old uncle walter talking about the “good old days”. The choice is not binary - if anything its converged, evolved etc. Jeff had a great piece on the “audience becoming the network”. Look at Kurtz’s reference to a story becoming a “cartoon” just because “others” (i am assuming he means the great unwashed and un-annointed) get their hands on it. Well too bad. There has been way too much slopiness coming from “professional” journalists for my taste lately. maybe the “network” seeks and finds the truth by going through a cartoon phase of sorts. as a girl once said to me, “get over yourself.” words of advice to the world of traditional media.
Hi Jeff –
I think you are on the right track when considering the value of group input/comment in developing or framing “news”. But I think that some of the less-than-positive feedback you receive may be coming from a business mindset rather than a reportorial one.
So, a question: We know that you are currently working on a start-up. And we know that a recent start-up could have greatly benefited from public comment prior to launch. How do you distinguish between the business norm of pre-launch secrecy to preserve value, and the differences suggested here when the product of business is information?
Mark,
The perfect question.
I am quite frustrated that I can’t get advice from the smart folks here now. Not revealing more about a startup is defensible for all the obvious reasons.
But I also think this is why beta-think has taken over the startup world… to a fault. In what I hope we stop calling Web 2.0, companies can start fast and light and get out there with a beginning and then finish the product once the public tells them what the product should be. I think that works and I hope that’s what we will do. But one also needs to be mindful of the abuse of betas, as Michael Arrington wrote recently on Tech Crunch: It can also be an excuse for a half-done job.
So I guess that goes to motive: If you’re dying for the input, ideas, and needs of the public you hope to serve and you find the way to get that as soon as possible via betas and discussion, good. If you get out quickly to get bought, bad.
But you’re absolutely right to point to this tension.
I have a headache.
not sure i understand the concern about beta(s) but re: startups - having done startups failed & successful in the US and now working on one in the UK - i always go back to one of my favorite quotes from General Patton: “A good plan, violently executed now, is better than a perfect plan next week.”