BuzzMachine

John Carroll — former editor of the LA Times and now a Knight visiting lecturer at Harvard — climbs up to the pulpit to preach to the choir at the American Society of Newspaper Editors. He chants the rant you hear from too many editors today — that greedy shareholders (that is, the public in an open market) don’t appreciate journalism as much as they should. “The conflict between those who serve the reader and those who serve the shareholder might seem a bit abstract, but it’s important,” Carroll says. “It affects the way we see ourselves as editors, and the way we behave. It inhibits us when we ought to be bold.”

Come down from the pulpit, Mr. Carroll — and watch that first step, it’s a doozie. Let’s look at how most journalism in most papers on most days is executed: What boldness is needed in sports? In movie reviews? In TV listings? In cutting-and-pasting wire-service stories? In retyping press releases in the business section? In attending and regurgitating press conferences? In writing fluffy lifestyle stories? In gardening columns? In comics? Carroll chants the oft-cited notion that journalism comes only from newspapers: “This is our role: Newspapers dig up the news. Others repackage it.” Well, that is often true and I do not want to lose that digging. But let’s be clear that newspapers aren’t the only ones who can dig; in fact, I argue that they should be enabling more in the community to dig with them — and then they’d have more journalism to repackage. And again, let’s make clear that most days on most pages most newspapers do themselves repackage — from wire services and press releases and now even from the internet. Now I don’t have anything against most of that; in fact, the more useful the type on a page is to a reader’s life, the better, and the more efficient papers can be with what doesn’t matter so they can concentrate on what does matter — local reporting — the better. But let’s not pretend that editors’ every working hour is consumed with high acts of journalism: investigating wrongdoing in government and standing up for Everyman. I just returned from Florida and the local papers I read there were as thin in size as they were in substance. Weak and shallow broth. That makes up far more of the work of journalism in America than we want to admit or than Carroll and his convening brethren want to hear. But they know it. It’s their job. So I’m tired of hearing this economically naive and essentially snobbish complaint: that journalism deserves some special pass as a public-interest charity.

Or perhaps that’s a fine idea. Perhaps the high-minded investigation should be produced by a separate, nonprofit foundation that seeks donations from the public — uh-oh, them again — to maintain its work, its independence, its credibility, its dignity. Then the papers could be the conduits of everyday stuff and the marketing and distribution vehicles that they are — and, indeed, should be. But they get gifts of investigative journalism from local versions of the Center for Public Integrity, a national not-for-profit investigative journalism organization.

Ah, but the only problem with that is that then editors of newspapers can no longer act as if they are God’s gifts to their communities, the knights protecting the town from evil sheriffs. And that, unfortunately, is what much of this is about: editorial ego and a desire to be separated from economic reality.

Carroll continues:

With the shrinking of the newspaper’s purpose, we have seen a shrinking of the newspaper journalist. Even outside the corporation we have lost stature. We might see ourselves as public servants, but does the public see us that way?

When you stick your head in the sand, it must hurt your eyes. Yes, journalists have lost stature “even outside the corporation,” among the public (yes, them again). But that has nothing to do with stock prices. It has to do with the quality of journalism and service papers provide. You can call yourself a public servant only if the public thinks you’re serving them.

More:

Like many of you, I’ve been worrying lately. What will become of us? More important, what will become of our newspapers? More important still, what will become of the kind of public-service journalism that newspapers produce?And, vastly more important than all that: What will the public know – and what will the public not know – if our poorly understood, and often unappreciated, craft perishes in the Darwinian jungle?

If it’s “poorly understood and often unappreciated,” wouldn’t that be your fault? And I’d say a “Darwinian jungle” is a good place where higher lifeforms emerge.

More:

We have a mission ahead of us, and we need to be rigorously clear-headed…It is not merely to produce good stories. It is not merely to save our newspapers. It is – and this may sound grandiose – to save journalism itself.

Not from the public and not from the marketplace but in some cases from the journalists themselves.

Mind you, Carroll was the editor who cut the LA Times’ Orange County bureau from 200 to 20 so he could expand Washington and Iraq coverage: editorial ego over local service.

But what we hear from Carroll is ultimately a disrespect for the public he so wants to serve. Answering his own rhetorical question, are editors necessary?, he says:

I am happy to respond to this critique, and positively overjoyed to be doing so here in the city of Seattle. For it was here in Seattle that the readers spoke loud and clear last year about the kind of news they wanted. In case you missed it, the most-visited story on the Seattle Times Web site in the year 2005 concerned a man – and I’ll try to put this delicately – a man who paid the ultimate price…for having an illicit relationship…with a horse.
There you have it. You don’t need to look any further to see where editing by referendum takes you. It takes you to tabloid-land, to Angelina Jolie, to Brad Pitt, to the lurid murder of the week, to campaigns to save Christmas from imaginary enemies, to mass-produced political vituperation, to a whole cornucopia of sexual indiscretions, and – in Seattle, at least – to bestiality. The question here is whether a newspaper ought to lead or to follow. Should a newspaper actually stand for anything? Or should it be a transparent vessel for the truisms and vulgarities of the age?

So that is what listening to the public means to Carroll: corruption.

Tom Loosemore, a BBC strategist, gets excited about the latest from Auntie: a searchable data base of information about almost a million BBC programs over 75 years. He writes about it here.

VH1’s Best Week Every has a new blog: very punchy; each post should be accompanied by the snare drum, e.g., “Angelina and Brad will name their baby “Africa” because Angelina loves Africa. Thankfully, the child wasn’t born seven years ago when Angelina would have probably named it ‘Lesbians.’ “

Dave Winer interviews Dan Rather and reports that he may blog. He says CBS discourages that now.

This is a case for Public Eye: What’s the policy for journalists blogging at CBS? If Rather wants to blog, will you set one up for him?

I was told sometime ago that Rather was considering blogging in the midst of Rathergate. If he had — if he had faced the people who added information to his story — he might still be employed today. No, blogging is not a cure-all. But dealing directly with people who know more than you is.

: Dave also reports that Rather choked up when talking about Edward R. Murrow. Perhaps he just regrets that George Clooney won’t make a movie about him.

The BBC just announced big, strategic initiatives to change its very essence as a broadcaster. Rafat Ali has a characteristically brief and informative summary and there’s Media Guardian coverage here, here, with kvetching by rivals here, a story on the new BBC website here, another summary here, and BBC boss Mark Thompson’s speech here.

But Guardian Unlimited Editor Emily Bell writing at Comment is Free puts this in perspective and says the BBC is doing what many of us have been insisting that media companies must do: break free of their media.

Thompson no longer wants to be a broadcaster, he almost certainly doesn’t want to just be British, and he would clearly rather be a dot com than a corporation. As of today that old linear BBC is dead - long live the BBC.

Thompson’s sweeping vision laid out in the Creative Futures presentation takes the Beeb into a web 2.0 world of “user generated content” and “findability”, of community and metadata. This is undoubtedly the right thing to do to keep a large global audience - a commercial organisation in the position of the BBC would do the same thing (if it had, by chance, £2.8 billion of guaranteed income). He wants more big programmes - Planet Earth is apparently the new Blue Planet - and to take on the competition in a global and aggressive fashion. MySpace, Flickr, last.fm, watch out.

This is the vision of some kind of future, but it is not the future of a broadcaster; it is not even the future vision of a content creator. It is the future of an entity which just wants to continue to occupy the same percentage of the media horizon - a horizon which has expanded by a zillion per cent…..

Thompson’s speech is filled with gems about respecting the contributions of the public (formery known as the audience), about killing boundaries between media, about the new ubiquity of media. Just a few:

When I look at Creative Future, I see five big themes. We decided to call the first Martini Media, meaning media that’s available when and where you want it with content moving freely between different devices and platforms…. It means we have to adopt a completely new approach to development, commissioning and production by the BBC:
· from now on wherever possible we need to think cross-platform, across TV, radio and web for audiences at home and on the move;
· we need to shift investment and creative focus towards on-all-the-time, 24/7 services;
· on demand is key - and it’s not just a new way of delivering content, it means a rethink of what we commission, make and how we package and distribute it;
· we have one of the best websites in the world but it’s rooted in the first digital wave - we need to re-invent it, fill it with dynamic audio-visual content, personalise it, open it up to user-generated material - work on this is already underway in a project called BBC Web 2.0;
· and we need a new relationship with our audiences - they won’t simply be audiences anymore, but also participants and partners - we need to know them as individuals and communities, let them configure our services in ways that work for them. An early example is a competition launching tomorrow inviting our audience to reinvent our home page….

So what does all this mean for the different areas of output? First we have an incredible opportunity in news and current affairs. BBC News is an offer that transcends any one channel or medium or device. It already reaches more than 240 million people around the world every week and is the world’s most trusted source of news. If we get this right now, it can grow even stronger:
· we want to shift energy and resources to our continuous news services; …

The BBC’s always felt a bit less confident about its mission to educate than it has about the mission to inform. Even the words we use - learning, educative, specialist factual - can feel a little uninspiring. That’s got to change. This second digital revolution is going to enable the public to explore and investigate their world like never before. Programmes won’t be shown once and then forgotten. They’ll be there forever to be linked, clipped, rediscovered, built into bigger ideas; …

[I]f we don’t coordinate our content, make it easy to find and brand it clearly, it may just disappear. Let’s call the fourth theme findability. And here’s what we’re going to do about it.

· within a year we’ll launch a new, more powerful search tool - with both video and audio search - as part of the overhaul of our website; …
· next Ashley Highfield and his team will lead work to achieve one clear and comprehensive metadata solution for all BBC content. Good metadata gives content legitimacy. People know exactly who it’s coming from and the BBC will get the credit back to our brand and no one else’s….
· we’ll use contact with individual users, data bases and recommendation engines to build a far closer and more personal relationship with audiences. …

The final theme may turn out to be one of the most important. It’s the active audience, the audience who doesn’t want to just sit there but to take part, debate, create, communicate, share. This raises any number of editorial questions for us, but I believe - and I know lots of the other members of the Creative Future team believe - that this is going to be big and it’s going to touch pretty much every area of output:
· we want to build on our early experiments in user-generated content in News - we also want to be the best guide to the blogs on the big stories and debates; · it’ll be a key element in our local TV project and in the way we cover and debate sport, especially in the run-up to 2012;
· we’ll try to engage audiences in adding their content and their ideas across the whole range of knowledge-building from natural history to health;
· and we’ll make sure that our plans for search and metadata enable the public to add their comments and recommendations so that they can help each other find the content they want. Tomorrow we launch a prototype of our programme catalogue - some one million programmes from the last 80 years. It will be the first opportunity to see what our audience does with such a source.
· in journalism, we will develop the best interactive web forum in the world for audience engagement with our editors and correspondents, discussing our decisions, dilemmas and reporting with the aim of being the most open and transparent news organisation in the world.

In a word: Wow. If they can do half that — and convince the company’s culture of half that — the Beeb will lead again.

I’m going to be spending some time with BCC people in London over the next two weeks. I can’t wait to hear (and report) more.

One more thing: Note well that the media-boss speeches that have made waves lately all came from Britain: from Guardian Editor Alan Rusbridger, from Reuters head Tom Glocer, and now from the BBC.

Are the days of America’s leadership in media over? You tell me.

Thomas Knüwer says that newspaper blogs are all gray and dull.

In the journalism blog at the Handelsblatt (Germany’s Wall Strasse Journal), Knüwe continues the discussion about Michael Hiltzik’s nom de snarks, newspaper blogs, transparency, and the reason why journalists have such a problem having open discussions with their readers. I don’t have my German dictionary with me, so I’ll paraphrase rather than translate what he says:

Perhaps this is a reason why so many blogs by professional journalists are so gray and dull: They don’t want to take fire for their opinions. In a paper, this is easy. One writes an article and gets perhaps angry calls and two or three letters and that’s that. In TV, the hotline takes the criticism; ditto radio.

In the internet, its much easier for readers to respond. And they impudently wait for a discussion. That’s hard; that’s work; that’s not normal.

But I’ll earnestly say: It makes for (saumäßigen?) fun. And it helps test your own arguments.

Now that’s the attitude.

I’ve been in Florida with my family, visiting my folks and getting soaked at Busch Gardens. Thus, blogging is light and lite.

Dave Winer says Bittorrent is about to explode and he suggests what’s needed. I agree with him and have one more thing I think is needed (and I doubt whether Dave will agree):

If Bittorrent had the means to place and track the audience for ads on video and audio, then program creators and even studios and networks would rush to use it — especially now that they’ve broken the old distribution model with broadcast affiliates and cable systems by putting shows on iTunes and the internet. Of course, not everything on Bittorrent needs to have ads. But if it were possible to earn and measure using it, then we’d find a flood of “noninfringing” uses and this would, in turn, have great side benefits: First, P-to-P would lose its cooties and once Disney uses it, we won’t be hearing people trying to stop it. Second, ISPs won’t try to cripple it. Third, all kinds of new program producers — you and you and you — would be able to find support for their creativity.

While many in this country are trying to reduce the length of copyright protection, in Britain, they’re talking about extending it, or so says the head of a British music trade group in the Guardian:

At the moment, copyright protection in the UK for recorded music lasts for 50 years. This means that all the artists who took part in the 60s music revolution will soon see their recordings fall out of copyright and their earnings dry up….

“Who made this stupid law in the first place?” Kenney Jones, drummer of the Small Faces and the Who, asked recently in a Sunday newspaper. …

It is not only the musicians who will lose out. So will British music. The BPI announced this month that 17% of revenue from the UK recording industry is invested in new recordings. This is proportionately more in R&D than the aerospace, computer and car industries.

This investment has contributed to a boom in new British music from artists such as Arctic Monkeys, Corinne Bailey Rae, James Blunt and Kaiser Chiefs. Seven of the Top 10 best-selling albums for the first quarter of 2006 were debut albums. Insufficient copyright protection, however, will reduce revenues and limit reinvestment in new talent. …

I wonder how similar fights are playing out in Germany, France, Asia, and the rest of the world.

Terry Heaton, one of the nicest and most caring men I have met in this world, told his friends online today about a tragedy in his life: the sudden loss of his beloved wife, Alicia. Only a few days ago, Terry wrote one of his wonderful essays, says Bittorrent is about to explode and he suggests what’s needed. I agree with him and have one more thing I think is needed (and I doubt whether Dave will agree):”>this one about days that changed his life. Go read No. 10. I know that the thoughts and prayers of Terry’s many friends online are with him today.

In London’s competitive market, newspapers are fighting over columnists with “editors buying up big-name columnists as if they were footballers: in an age when news no longer sells newspapers, columnists are the miracle ingredient that can win you readers.” Meanwhile, here, The Times hides its columnists behind a wall, which may milk their value today but won’t build their value or enable them to create new stars tomorrow.

About.com is seeking a guide to write a site about journalism. (Full disclosure: I consult for About.com.) We are looking for someone experienced in journalism, and perhaps journalism education, who is committed to citizens’ media.

The primary target for the site is citizen journalists who want answers to questions about doing journalism — everything from interview tips to libel cautions to gadget recommendations. But the site should also be useful for anyone interested in how journalism is practiced. I hope that this becomes a useful resource and guide for those who want it and a place where people can come to ask questions and share information. And, no, I’m not suggesting that bloggers need training in blogging, but I do hear people all the time wishing for helpful guidance on the law and Freedom of Information Act requests and gadgets for podcasting. So for those who want help, it will be at About.com. This should be a gift to the blogosphere and citizen journalists from About, which is building stronger relationships with bloggers.

The primary job of an About.com guide is to write articles that cover specific topics. Those can be high-altitude explanations or they can be practical, nitty-gritty guides (see, for example, this overview of business ownership structures in the entrepreneurs’ guide). Over time, an About guide will write hundreds of articles covering great swaths of information. Thanks to About’s experience at search-engine optimization, those articles will rise like yeasty dough in Google search results as people again and again look for and find help on specific topics in journalism.

You should know that this is not a blog about journalism and neither is it a chance to be a media critic, though there are some elements of both here. The home page of an About.com guide site uses WordPress to have the guides post links to their latest articles and outside bloggers and resources and to sometimes comment on current news in the area. Just to be very clear: About is not bringing on someone to blog about journalism; it will link to folks who do that. About is looking for someone to create this journalism resource.

This page explains the compensation for guides. And this explains the About guide training program. Though the hours are completely flexible, know that this is a commitment of time. The way to build an effective site — and with it traffic and money — is to constantly add more focused and helpful information in articles.

Please do not apply to me; I’m not the guy. Go here to apply.

: AND MORE…..

About.com is also seeking people to make short videos to extend the helpful content they now create into video where that would be useful. About’s video experts will create 2-4-minute how-to videos on health, cars, gadgets, parenting, and home. Like the articles I describe above, they should be informative and helpful and long-lasting in value. They will pay a flat fee per video. Interested? Email Jessica Luterman at About: jluterman@about.com.