Me vs NYT at OPA re WWGD
Rafat Ali just put up this video of a discussion from the Online Publishers Association in London last week: me v. Martin Nisenholtz of the New York Times Company. Unfortunately, it starts a little late (missing my start to the discussion). and ends a little early (just as Larry Kramer, ex of CBS, is talking about Dan Rather).
At the start, I reacted to a presentation by Jeffrey Rayport, high-IQ industry consultant, who tried to present a new architecture of media that on the one hand I endorse but on the other hand wanted to turn inside-out. Rayport talked about owning audiences still and I gave the predictable if obnoxious blogger argument (joking that I was daring to speak for all mankind) that we’re not an audience and we don’t want to be owned.
Rayport set up boundaries and talked about going over those boundaries — inside out, from media to us; outside in, from us to the media — and I argued against that architecture, saying that he was making the mistake of still putting media at the center when, in fact, the public is at the center and media should see itself at the edge, serving us.
I talked about Yahoo as the last old media company to look at the world this way (along with all the older media companies): ‘We control content. We market to get you to come to us. Then we feed you as much advertising as we can, until you leave.’ That’s the centralized model of media. I contrasted this with the decentralized, distributed model embodied by nobody better than Google: ‘We go to where you are and put service and advertising there. Your pageview is then our pageview. And we have enabled you to do what you want to do. And we can all do more of it.’ I argued that media companies should ask WWGD — ‘what would Google do?’ (and, yes, Google is the new God).
That’s when Martin objected; the videotape picks up there. Raftat says:
This was at the OPA Global Forum last week in London…I was sitting behind Martin Nisenholtz, the CEO of New York Times Digital, and recorded this with my Nokia N80. It is a nuanced argument, something which doesn’t really come out in this video, or Martin’s argument there. Here is my read on it: Martin thinks Jeff Jarvis is the extreme in this journalism vs bloggers debate–especially when it comes to mainstream news sites working with bloggers and aggregating and pointing to them, working with them, and bringing them onboard–and was trying to point to a middle ground, something which he thinks NYT is doing, when in fact Jarvis is that middle ground, if you peel the layers behind some of his hyperbole. Either way, it is an important argument, though some of it is pure theater, done for the sake of it.
Yes, it was theater. But Martin and I agreed (via Treo-to-Blackberry exchange right afterward) that we were also disagreeing about something more fundamental or at least refreshingly different from the old blogger-v-msm debate. We were arguing about the centralized-v-distributed architecture of media. Martin is arguing that some media brands — yes, the Times — are worth coming to. He supports the outside-in model and sees The Times as ‘in’. I say that they all — yes, even the Times — must look at new ways in which we can do more. Yes, I do think mine is the middleground for it’s about working together in new ways that were never possible before to do more than we ever could before. (And, yes, I just ignored the blogger slaps. I say on the tape that I dream of the day when I can go to a conference and not have that old spat; it’s so tired.)
: Howard Owens responds.
In it, you get to hear Martin Neisenholtz reveal just how little he understands blogs, and how trapped he remains in Big-J thinking about what blogging is and its role in the mediascape. It’s a little surprising that a major media leader would still hold those views. Martin seems fully invested in the false dichotomy that there is a bloggers vs. journalist competition, rather than seeing the ecosystem as it exists. The telling point is his comment to Jeff Jarvis that “there is absolutely no check on you.†At least Carolyn Little gets it. “Bloggers help keep us honest,†she says. And the message Neisenholtz needs to hear from that is that bloggers keep each other honest, too. In distributed media, there is no us and them; it’s all we.
: Oh, and I will respond to Martin’s stock insult in the video that I’m a blogger not a journalist and so I don’t do journalism here, only opinion. Well, while I was in London for that conference, I went out and reported this piece about the Conservative leader’s web strategy and this one about a new online talk channel and this one about big changes at the Guardian (exclusive, as we used to say, meaninglessly) and this one about innovation at the Economist and this one about the new Telegraph newsroom and structure (for the first time on video, we used to brag, in big old media).
It’s conferences that are about only opinions, often wrong.
Tags: Media, mediaarchitecture, newsinnovation, newspapers, nytimes, opa
March 18th, 2007 at 9:19 am
The NYT has raise cluelessness to dizzying heights.
March 18th, 2007 at 9:50 am
[...] Jeff Jarvis: Yahoo [is] the last old media company to look at the world this way (along with all the older media companies): ‘We control content. We market to get you to come to us. Then we feed you as much advertising as we can, until you leave.’ That’s the centralized model of media. I contrasted this with the decentralized, distributed model embodied by nobody better than Google: ‘We go to where you are and put service and advertising there. Your pageview is then our pageview. And we have enabled you to do what you want to do. And we can all do more of it.’…[M]edia companies should ask WWGD — ‘what would Google do?’ (and, yes, Google is the new God). Posted by Jackie Danicki | [...]
March 18th, 2007 at 7:42 pm
What check is there on media?
Suppose that Pinch decided to print that the earth was flat. What would stop him? (His cite-checkers could find support for that proposition.)
They may think that they have layers, but they’re a parfait.
March 18th, 2007 at 10:05 pm
pwned: Jeff, it seems to come down to who “owns” what. My sense is the dead tree guys feel that we, as readers, belong to them; they own our attention and intend to find every way possible to resell it. Not that ad supported media shouldn’t be doing that but they also need to find creative ways to add value and create wealth in game-changing creative collaboration and innovation. Low marks for them on plays well with others. More and more this sounds like legacy media playing Pope Leo X to your Martin Luther. In this case 95+ bloggers have already spread the word, the message is way, way out there. Whereas the NYT folks might want it to be day one in Wittenberg, we are far beyond that moment. I applaud your efforts to move the conversation forward to some productive and far more interesting ends. FYI - hope - reading in Dave Winer this AM a Timesman has set up a NYT Twitter account.
March 19th, 2007 at 11:07 am
Journalist - Blogger - Metajournalist - Metablogger…whatever. I started reading you because you were firmly on-target with what what evolving out here.
Sticks and stones. The media evolves regardless of what anyone wants to believe. It’s all about OPTIONS. I may still read a newspaper, but it’s because one is delivered to my DESK every day…more often than not I’ll finish my online newsreading first, since that’s where I get the bulk of my world news. Then I’ll check the paper for the local stuff, drive home, check out the News Hour on PBS, and later for entertainment, I might even put on a vinyl album of old time radio programs…or I might just read the latest SF novel I’ve purchased…unless I’m writing…
The concept of being able to RESPOND to journalists is, to me, like being handed the key to the city. Not only is it almost impossible for anyone to do anything that affects others anymore without it being reported somewhere…it’s now almost impossible to do so and not get feedback on it…and THAT is the natural evolution of democracy, in my opinion.
March 19th, 2007 at 11:08 am
Correx: …with what WAS evolving out here…
March 19th, 2007 at 2:04 pm
[...] don’t usually do quotes of the day, but this bit from Jeff Jarvis deserves to stand on its own with no commentary from me: I talked about Yahoo as the last old media [...]
March 25th, 2007 at 11:37 pm
[...] BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Me vs NYT at OPA re WWGD (tags: jeffjarvis nytimes yahoo google) [...]
May 7th, 2007 at 5:04 pm
[...] Well said. The problem for the controllers of media is that they still want to be and think they can be in control. But the obvious rule of nature is that we will be in control whenever we can be and we will cede it only unwillingly, only by necessity. So the key is to find out how to succeed by enabling us to do what we want to do. That is what the technology companies — Google, Facebook, et al — do. How can media companies do likewise? WWGD? [...]
May 14th, 2007 at 8:39 am
[...] their mental map of the world and realize that they are not at center, we are. What they defined as inside is outside. This requires them to turn their world inside out. CBS is doing [...]
May 17th, 2007 at 5:10 pm
[...] So once again, even as we make our own articles, we should be following Google’s example and asking WWGD. [...]
May 22nd, 2007 at 5:37 pm
[...] Is "Google the new God," as Jeff Jarvis not so modestly proclaims? [...]
August 14th, 2007 at 8:46 am
[...] WWGD. What would Google do? Google would network. [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 8:33 am
[...] Kara Swisher is pleased to be a part of an Amanda Congdon report and so am I. Amanda’s smitted with the catch-question WWGD. [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 9:54 am
[...] Jarvis points us to video from a panel he was on at the Online Publishers Association conference in London last week that presents yet another case [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 10:58 am
[...] Jarvis points us to video from a panel he was on at the Online Publishers Association conference in London last week that presents yet another case [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 11:49 am
[...] Jarvis points us to video from a panel he was on at the Online Publishers Association conference in London last week that presents yet another case [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 2:19 pm
[...] BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » Me vs NYT at OPA re WWGD “We were also disagreeing about something more fundamental or at least refreshingly different from the old blogger-v-msm debate. We were arguing about the centralized-v-distributed architecture of media.” (tags: adversarial events controversy blogging journalism mindset media+evolution tidbits+fodder) [...]
August 28th, 2007 at 8:28 pm
[...] Me vs NYT at OPA re WWGD - BuzzMachine “We were arguing about the centralized-v-distributed architecture of media. Martin is arguing that some media brands — yes, the Times — are worth coming to,,, I say that they all — yes, even the Times — must look at new ways in which we can do mor (tags: internet newspapers newspapersites journalism distribution unbundling aggregators blogging nyt) [...]
August 29th, 2007 at 9:04 pm
[...] WWGD. What would Google do? Google would network. [...]
September 2nd, 2007 at 9:15 am
[...] Maybe. Google news offers two sorts (relevance and date), and it’s never a bad idea to ask yourself “what would Google do.” [...]
September 24th, 2007 at 6:44 am
[...] and I got into a theatrical tiff over my contention that we in media should all be asking WWGD (What would Google do) and getting ourselves distributed widely. Martin held that some brands are [...]
April 2nd, 2008 at 2:32 pm
Google the new God? It becomes a more viable solution everyday. No doubt people will talk about the Prophet G in 2000 years time.