The interview is outmoded and needs to be rethought.
There’s no better demonstration of this than the recriprocal snipes we’ve been seeing from and around Wired magazine from its attempt to interview people about Michael Arrington. (If you know the tale, skip to the next paragraph.) See Jason Calacanis’ quite reasonable effort to respond to Wired writer Fred Vogelstein’s questions via email and Dave Winer’s equally reasonable offer to respond in public on his blog. Now see the blunderbuss response from Wired in a blog post by Vogelstein recounting the email exchange and his dogmatic rules — “I never do email questions right out of the gate…” — and also in a blog post from his colleague Dylan Tweney, calling Calacanis “cowardly” (it appears to be an awkward attempt to be cute) and in an even clumsier attack from Ryan Singel: “What happens when a top tech figure has an online soap box, a Silicon Valley-size ego, millions in the bank and a grudge against the mainstream media?” Arrington piped in, fearing the fuss would cost him his publicity. And unable to resist any post about Arrington, Valleywag joined the journalism seminar. Vogelstein — who came to Kofi Annan agreement to record an interview with Calacanis — emailed me, too, but I told him I was about to blog about this snit and he probably wouldn’t want me. Finally, Wired Editor Chris Anderson joined in, saying in a comment on Calacanis’ blog, “I don’t impose any one policy.”
But maybe, given your vow of radical transparency at the magazine, Chris, you might want to at least impose openness to new ways, or at least an open discussion about the state of the art of the interview in the time of the empowered interviewee. A few discussion points:
Who says that reporters are in charge of interviews anymore? Why should they set terms? They are the ones who are seeking information. As Calacanis pointed out in their email exchange, Vogelstein was willing to give up two interviews because the subjects would not follow his rules. So the story suffers — it’s less complete, less informative, or less accurate — because of the reporter’s controlling rules? That wouldn’t make me happy as an editor, subject, or reader. If you need the information, shouldn’t you be willing to get it however you can? Isn’t that what reporting is all about?
Are interviews about information or gotcha moments? Vogelstein said in his email that he wants phone interviews to get the tone of the subject. Why? If this is about information, what does that really add? Or is it about the reporter’s effort to characterize the players in a narrative? Is this about information or drama? As a subject, wouldn’t you be wary of that? Or does the reporter want to catch the subject in a slip of the tongue? But what does that really accomplish? Isn’t it better to get considered, complete answers? What’s so wrong with enabling a subject to think about an answer, to review it and get it right before sending it? Isn’t accuracy and completeness the goal? When I came up in the business, I was taught not to review quotes with subjects before publication but now I see magazines doing just that; as Valleywag points out, reporters even negotiate quote approval. The only reason not to do that is that you don’t want to ruin the gotcha moment: ‘You said that.’ ‘Well, I didn’t mean it.’ ‘But you said it. Gotcha.’ ‘But it’s wrong, so can’t we correct that?’ ‘Gotcha.’ We’ve all misspoken. Should we be able to take back our own words? The only reason not to is if the reporter believes he has indeed caught us. And there is a place for catching people (George Allen couldn’t take back “macaca”). But in most stories, that’s simply not the case, unless your agenda is to get someone.
Too many reporters get too much wrong. Listen to what both Calacanis and Winer — not to mention veteran journalist Dan Gillmor — are saying: They’ve been burned when their words in stories end up incomplete or wrong. Gillmor’s right that reporters should be the subjects of stories to learn what it’s like to be on the other end of that pen. I’ve certainly learned that lesson myself.And by making complete interviews public, as Calacanis insisted, even on audio, we get to check the reporter. If, again, the goal is accuracy, there’s nothing wrong with that.
There’s a better way. Try combining the Calacanis and Winer methods: Perform the interview in writing, in public. As Winer says: “So if you want to work together, let’s find a new way to do it. I’m fed up with the old system. The way we start the reboot is to do all our work out in the open, real-time. Not via email, but in full view of everyone.” Examine the possible benefits of this: The reporter asks a question and I answer it. But I get it wrong and a reader pipes in to give a correction. Isn’t that a better way? I read my answers as I write them and improve them myself. What’s wrong with that? Why should the reporter get the opportunity to rewrite and edit and I don’t? Why should the reporter get to look smarter than the subjects? The best reporters, after all, go to find people who are smarter and know more than they do to get the best story. Ah, but I can hear some of you saying, wouldn’t this blow an exclusive? Well the exclusive has a fleeting value of about 30 seconds anymore anyway. And what’s exclusive about what Dave Winer has to say about Mike Arrington? If anyone owns that exclusive, it’s Dave, no? And Dave’s stance is that if he has anything to say on a subject, he’ll say it on his blog. Welcome to the transparent era, my fellow journalists. You want transparency? This is transparency.
My words are mine. Enough said.
Quotes need no longer be taken out of context. Isn’t that the greatest problem subjects have with how their words are treated? But that need no longer be a complaint. Why shouldn’t every quote, every snippet and soundbite, link to its context in the fuller interview? If the reporter has done a great job on the story, no one need click on those links. But if you want more or if you want to investigate the context in which this person said this thing, why not make that readily available, now that we have the ability, thanks to hyperlinks and permalinks? In fact, doesn’t this change the very structure of the story? Why shouldn’t that change, too? I’ve been arguing for sometime that online, there’s no reason to insert the standard background paragraph when you can link to full background. Ditto for interviews. Think of the finished story as a summary, a guide to more information. It may give you everything you want. Or it may link you to background if you’re new to the tale. Or it may link you to more depth if you want to dig deeper. Every story becomes a table of contents to knowledge. Let’s not just reexamine the interview. Let’s reexamine the architecture of the article.
Interviews and articles need never end. And never start. A story can begin with a reader’s blog post: ‘I wish I knew…’ Or it can begin with a reporter’s blog post: ‘I’m looking at doing a story about ____. What do you know? What do you want to know? What should I ask? Whom should I ask?’ Who says the reporters should ask all the questions? Shouldn’t the readers? Shouldn’t even the subjects (good interviewers usually ask whether there’s anything they didn’t ask)? Then the interviews can appear online to be challenged, amended, and corrected by writers, readers, and subjects alike. Why shouldn’t it be a collaborative effort when it can be? Won’t that only yield better information? Then the reporter writes a story. Make no mistake: There is still and always will be great value in that. For the vast majority of subjects and stories, I don’t want to go digging through original material and reporting-in-progress. I want the reporter to do the work of packaging it for me. Absolutely. So the article remains a keystone. But who says the story should be over then — done, fishwrap — just because the reporter’s finished writing it? The story is online and as we see every day, it continues to live and grow as people add their knowledge and perspectives and corrections via links and comments and remixes of the information. So the article isn’t a product. It is a process. It is collaborative. It is three-dimensional, linking to background and depth. It’s alive.
Yes, it is a favor. Vogelstein said in his email to Jason that “no one talks to me to do me any favors.” Oh, they most certainly do. In our gift economy, every act of sharing is an act of generosity, a favor. No reporter or reader should ever forget that. This is the essential human trait that makes the internet — let alone libraries, newspapers, and magazines — valuable. Reporters think that they are the ones doing the subjects the favor and, indeed, that used to be the case and to a lesser and lesser extent, for some, it still is: The reporter holds the key to the presses and with the reporter’s choices — ‘I’ll quote you but not you’ — the reporter grants attention, publicity, legitimacy. Or that’s the way they thought it worked. But this is the essential lesson of the democratization of media: We don’t need you and your presses to be heard. Calacanis in his email to Vogelstein: “Besides I have 10,000 people come to my blog every day–i don’t need wired to talk to the tech industry.” Winer: “Like Jason, I don’t have any trouble getting my ideas out on my own.” Or hear the students at Virginia Tech who got sick of reporters bugging them about the stories they’d already told on their own .
That should force reporters to reexamine the human economics of the interview: because they have to and because they can, because the power dynamics of journalist-subject have changed and because they now have new tools to do interviews — and articles — in better ways. Why not at least try?
Vogelstein wanted to talk to me about Arrington. But I didn’t want to talk to him about that. I wanted to talk to him about this. And I just did it, in writing, in public. And I hope he talks back and that you will, too. Yes, news really is a conversation.
Meanwhile, elsewhere at Wired, they are trying radical new ways working with Jay Rosen and NewAssignment.net on their Assignment Zero. I was interviewed via email and posted the results immediately, as did the reporter; they also solicited questions and wrote about doing interviews this way. Not a lot of conversation around that because I was long-winded, pontifical, and boring. But hey, the internet and conversation are meritocracies. We talk about what’s worth talking about.
“The simple thing I can point to is that BBC news has changed somewhat over the years and the traditional role of a newsreader as opposed to a correspondent or news presenter has virtually died out across BBC services,” he said. “We tend to use journalists across all our programmes and on News 24 to read the news headlines.”
Now, of course, the British have always had a different attitude toward anchors. They’re merely newsreaders there, not the stars that they are here. But still, this is a major shift.
What would news organizations here do without the star power of the anchor? Perhaps they could make the quality of their reporting the star.
I was terribly impressed picking up the Forbes 90th anniversary issue. No stodgy, self-congratulatory looking back there. The entire issue is devoted to “the power of networks.”
And online, they prove they get it by putting up an org-chart wiki asking us all to tell all about the organization of companies we know. They say: “It’s a new way to tap the collective knowledge of our community…” That’s the sort of thing I would have — should have — expected from new-fangled Portfolio, not from old Forbes. Instead, Portfolion gave us a bunch of old-fangled magaziney features. Go figure.
In the network package, Rupert Murdoch (whom I happened to run into on the street in Manhattan today, moments after buying the magazine, and whose confab in Carmel I’m attending in a week . . . who needs a network when you have New York?) says:
Traditional companies are feeling threatened. I say, bring on the changes. . . .
Those of us in so-called old media have also learned the hard way what this new meaning of networking spells for our businesses. Media companies don’t control the conversation anymore, at least not to the extent that we once did. The big hits of the past were often, if not exactly flukes, then at least the beneficiaries of limited options. Of course a film is going to be a success if it’s the only movie available on a Saturday night. Similarly, when three networks divided up a nation of 200 million, life was a lot easier for television executives. And not so very long ago most of the daily newspapers that survived the age of consolidation could count themselves blessed with monopolies in their home cities.
All that has changed. . . .
Companies that take advantage of this new meaning of network and adapt to the expectations of the networked consumer can look forward to a new golden age of media. [T]he future of media is a future of relentless experimentation and innovation, accelerating change, and–for those who embrace the new ways in which consumers are connecting with each other–enormous potential.
We are at an unprecedented time in the history of entertainment media. Never before has the opportunity been so great for independent writers and actors, musicians and producers to create compelling content on par with the studios, networks and labels. With easy and affordable access to cameras, editing software and computing power, the playing field has been truly leveled. . . .
YouTube represents the first time media has become truly democratic for both the audience and the content creators.
Continuing this superlativefest, Howard Dean says:
The Internet is the most significant tool for building democracy since the invention of the printing press. People are now easily able to create, discover and connect with networks within hours, anywhere around the globe.
This connectedness is creating a huge shift in power as ordinary citizens decide what’s important and most relevant to them. They can network with like-minded individuals to create a technology-enabled global grassroots movement. . . .
Fundamental trust in your users is the only way to have a successful relationship with them.
That is a revolutionary idea, one that politicians are not particularly comfortable with. But it’s now the reality. The power in campaigns now belongs as much to these shifting networks of committed citizens as it does to the political establishment.
I’ll be on Howie Kurtz’ Reliable Sources this morning between 10:30 and 11 about, of course, Virginia Tech.
: I’m in the CNN New York newsroom now watching the earlier segments of the show. Hugh Hewitt, Bill Press, and Gail Schister are discussing ABC’s decision and Hewitt and Press are attacking NBC for releasing the killer’s material. I disagree strongly (see this post below). Hugh’s show called the other night to have me on to discuss this but I didn’t get the message until after they had aired. It’s an important and fundamental discussion: Is is the job of journalism to protect us or to tell us uncomfortable truth? Steve Capus of NBC News says via phone that he made the right decision. He says that some of the same news organizations that are criticizing NBC now for releasing anything had yelled at NBC when the package arrived demanding that they release it all. But then the PR tide turned. “It’s just shameful for someone like Hugh Hewitt to say that we are going to have blood on our hands,” Capus says. At the end, Capus raises the real issue: “Now there needs to be appropriate discussion about the months leading up to this. Where were the people who blew through the warning signs.”
: My earlier posts on Virginia Tech: On the tapes here and here; on ubiquitous live news here and here, and the initial coverage here.
In response to his YouTube spotlight video, I have an entirely frivolous yet still sincere suggestion for Sen. John Edwards that can change his image and the tone of the entire YouTube discussion.
It is not journalism’s job to be safe or to make the world safe for our consumption. It is journalism’s job to tell us uncomfortable truths.
So I’ve come to think that NBC made the wrong decision about the Virgina Tech shooter’s tapes: They should have released the worst of them. For that would force us as a society to grapple with the issues we’re still sidestepping: How can our laws and systems keep a clearly insane and dangerous man out of treatment and in the public? How can we justify laws that value his privacy — the most overexploited buzzword of the age, I say — over his safety and sanity and the safety of those around him? How can we have laws that prevent the school from telling his parents about his problems and telling the rest of us what happened in his case, even now? If NBC showed how utterly deranged this murderer was, then I hope we would have an outcry to change the One-Flew-Over-the-Cuckoo’s-Nest laws that purport to protect but only harm the insane and those around them. But NBC won’t do that because there reportedly is an outcry (though one should always be skeptical about what media labels an outcry) against their decision to release what they did.
Yet I’ll argue that by choosing to release only the safest elements of this sick collction, NBC made the killer look less dangerous, perhaps even sympathetic or cartoonish. Compare the image with the latest cover of Wired (and, no, of course, the parallel is not that they’re Asian; it’s the fictional nature of both I’m pointing to, each a character in a media narrative).
If, instead, NBC had shown the most vile of Cho’s rants, we would see just how dangerous he obviously was. We would ask the hard questions about why he was allowed to do what he did. And if you’re worried about copycats, I also think that the bilious Cho would be less likely to inspire aspiration than the cartoonish Cho we now see. To those who argue that NBC is only giving Cho his wish — fame — I say they are doing worse: They are cleaning up his image.
Now I’m not saying that NBC should show these images all the time, looping the horror, forcing it upon us. Thanks to the web, they don’t need to show them on the air at all: They could give us the option of seeing them online. Does that appeal to our worst nature? No, it shows our worst nature and the argument can be made that we must face that. By not facing that, we are raising, not lowering, the danger of copycats, of the next nut who’ll be allowed to slip through our laws and systems because we wouldn’t want to offend anyone.
It is not NBC’s job to be safe. But it is NBC’s job to be popular and in this case, that’s unfortunate. I normally reject the arguments of those who want news to be a not-for-profit enterprise. I say that the news must face its marketplace. But this is one instance in which the quest for ratings, popularity, and profit can affect journalistic judgment. Still, NBC did release some of the images and tapes. If they had wanted to be utterly safe, to offend absolutely no one, they might well not have put anything out, or they could have punted that decision to government. Some say they did this for ratings, but I have to believe they knew this would not be a popular decision in many quarters. So they did release some of the tapes. I say they released the wrong ones. If there were ever a story that required uncomfortable truths, this is one.
: See also Dave Winer on this in various posts. And see Michael Markman’s take (but also please see his apology for a tasteless allusion to my views in the comments on that post).
Juan Antonio Giner says the New York Times has the best of everything, except business management. I could quibble with the argument that is has the best, but for the sake of this discussion, let’s accept that.
And then I’ll argue that being ‘best’ leads to many of their problems. First and most obvious, thinking you’re the best at everything is the definition of hubris: ‘Because we’re the best, everything we do must be the best.’ Why innovate and experiment if you’re already at the top, then? The second problem is tougher to tackle: Any institution that thinks it is the best thinks it has more to protect and so, I argue again, it is less likely to stretch and risk failure.
Mind you, I’m not arguing that the Times isn’t great or that it doesn’t innovate. I’m saying that others find it easier or less risky to innovate thanks to their less-lofty positions. The best illustration of this is Gannett, which does not run formidable cultural citadels, only lots of local papers, and so it is surprisingly unafraid to blow up its newsrooms and try 24-hour, omnimedia, community-collaborative news. The Washington Post, as our second-city paper (forget Chicago), has also been hungry to innovate and try new things online. I can’t get through a post like this without pointing to London, where there’s a constant war for the title of best and one way to win in that war is to innovate.
I remember years ago, at the dawn of online, the Times felt it had to start a separate product to handle such tackiness as local entertainment listings, so as not to sully the mother brand. Others are not so prissy. The Times is less likely to link out to the world because it takes the value of its links seriously. Others are more generous.
So all I’m suggesting, Juan, is that you may be doing the Times a disservice listing the ways that you say it is the best at everything. And, coming out the other end of this argument, I’ll say that there are ways in which it is not the best or certainly could be better. I think many — though, yes, not all — in the Times newsroom would agree with that.
And I don’t necessarily buy the logic that because the Times is the best at everything, it must be the business side’s fault that its business outlook is getting ever bleaker. I’m not defending their business leadership — which certainly can be criticized (start with the disaster in Boston) — but saying that responsibility for the business fate of the institution certainly also falls to editorial. The product could be better.
So the more interesting discussion to me is: What would you do with The New York Times Company? I’ll start that ball rolling:
I’d get out of Boston while the gettin’s good (or not as bad as it will inevitably be). I’d get out of the paper business. I’d get rid of the regional papers and TV stations while there are still buyers. I’d then use that equity to try to buy more About.com’s (too bad Primedia didn’t almost ruin more businesses like that) and other things that look very little like the Times: social businesses, commerce businesses, technology businesses. I’d look to create lots of new products unencumbered by the weight, hubris, expectations, and rules of the Times brand. I’d consider making the Times a purely national brand and do something radical locally, where it’s just not that big (for example, making metro a web product under a different brand, if need be, to make it more collaborative). I’d reconsider the Times’ role with the rest of news; it can and should be more of a guide to journalism closer to its source; someone will become a ringmaster of news and why shouldn’t that be the Times (that would require the greatest cultural shift but if any brand could have a headstart in that role, it should be the Times). I’d consider how the Herald-Tribune and Times can become a stronger international presence, but online only. Rather than establishing a lab of outsiders to try to influence the future of the institution, I’d mix in people from the inside and give them the mandate to blow up the place (see the Economist’s Project Red Stripe). I’d consider how The Times already serves a community — a wise crowd — and try to figure out how it could enable that crowd to do more, to share more information, to do more commerce. I’d stop thinking that the Times must always be the destination, the magnet, the be all and end all, and, yes, I would start asking: WWGD?
What would you do?
(Of course, I have myriad disclosures relating to this: I used to consult for the Times Company at About.com and the Times is an investor in Daylife, where I have a role. I have relationships of various sorts with most of the other media companies mentioned directly or indirectly above; it’s a small world, this.)
In the wake of the Virginia Tech murders, I’m going to repeat my suggestion — no, call — to put a webcam in every classroom for security. At elementary and high schools, at least, every class in my town’s schools has at least one PC. They could buy webcams for as little as $10.
