Otherwise, OK.

Bloggers - hi speed, hi access, low accuracy
Citizen Journalists - hi speed, low access, low accuracy
Old Media Journalists - low speed, high access, high accuracy

Where ’speed’ is defined by miliseconds, not a 24-hr news cycle.

The only place OMJs can differentiate and dominate is the accuracy bucket. But when 12 editors must touch a story that’s unfolding every minute, OMJs should step back, avoid publishing any numbers at all.

The Times failure wasn’t inaccuracy, it was trying to put a stake in the ground by reporting ONE death in the middle of a developing story. Better to sit that fact on the side and hold it for the print edition. Let the ‘hi-speed’ channels fight those facts out for the digital editions instead.

["... ask why something should be edited, what’s the goal and what’s the cost (to the product and its urgency and to the budget)."]

…yes, it’s an obvious issue of efficiency — how many cooks does it take to make a satisfactory pot of stew (??)

If cook #1 cannot make the stew on his own…. he needs more training or replacement — not 5 more supervisory cooks to sample & repair his stew.

Likewise, the skill-set of competent journalists and “journalist-editors” are the same — only one competent person is needed to write/produce a satisfactory piece of journalism.

It is a management problem. Layers of ‘editors’ demonstrate mismanagement of resources and poor leadership.

Of course, the other factor in play is the well established tendency for large hierarchical organizations (..like newspapers, news magazines & networks) to bureaucratically expand personnel and office functions far beyond actual mission needs.

Self-serving creation of more supervisory ‘editor’ jobs means more pay, perks, prestige — and less work than being a common journalist. The scam works in good economic times when there’s little business competition — but big news organizations can no longer afford such featherbedding.

i think the problem on the times’s site is that they’re having trouble distinguishing what appear in print from what is an “online only” feature (yeesh, hate that designation — so glad they don’t use it). it’s definitely not an easy one. i’m not surprised they haven’t figured it out.

As people in TV well know, “ground facts” change quickly during live coverage. This is something the newspapers are now understanding. I wouldn’t consider this a slam against newspapers at all. In fact, I think the NYT is among the most progressive at its online efforts. They’ll make mistakes. We encourage that.

and the public correction? i never heard one.

But good “brands” - either those of individuals like you, Jeff, or of institutions like the NYT, are built on being right most of the time, and when they are wrong, they correct themselves publicly.

Cred is a currency, as people and co’s that tend to be right more often than not, will attract more users….and will generate loyalty within its community.

BUT

when a breaking story is happening before our eyes, in the Internet age, every half-truth and rumor makes it to the surface. This has happened in print, on TV, on web sites, you name it. When 9/11 happened, the amount of pure crap that found its way into print was appalling. (E.g. a story, from AP, that the flight cabin from one of the planes was found, with a flight attendant’s body bound and gagged.) Or how Fox News once reported that a team of terrorists were heading to the southern American border with a nuclear device.

It’s not enough for there to be “social editing”. This is BS. The need for editorial standards is all the more necessary today than before.

That said, journalists need to stop being afraid of tech and start using the tools available to do a better job of reporting. And yes, fewer layers and fewer hidebound editorial procedures would be good too.

In fact, less FEAR in the newsroom should be a goal too.

“Carbon paper” is why your e-mail has a line that says cc:

what’s “carbon paper”???

In traditional news organizations, the editor is an imposed authority who has a number of roles including: Assignment, gatekeeping (deciding what prints), and co-writer (i.e. mucking with the text.) Many advocates of the “new journalism” see efforts to eliminate the editor as a good thing. Frankly, I think we in the process of “throwing the baby out with the bath water…” In the future, I think we’ll see a growing demand for editors less as authorities and more as “coaches” and “teachers” whose skills are distinct from those of journalists. Today, you get assigned to an editor when you join a particular news organization. In the future, I suspect that writers will actively seek out good editors and compete for their assistance.

But, before editing becomes a competitive business, rather than the appointment business it is today, we’ll have to develop a stronger sense of what it means for an editor to be a partner to the writer rather than a boss, gatekeeper or censor. Should be fun…!

bob wyman

I agree with your basic thesis about too many layers of editing, but that doesn’t appear to have been the problem in this case–just shoot-from-the-hip reporting on a fast-developing story.