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July 19, 2004

The Daily Stern: Viacom fights back

: Well, at long last, media is fighting back against the rush to government censorship.

Today, Howard Stern went up in the markets where Clear Channel dropped him and in new markets.

And CBS boss Les Moonves said they'd fight any fine over Janet Jackson:

"We think the idea of a fine for that is patently ridiculous, and we're not going to stand for it," said Leslie Moonves, co-president and co-chief operating officer of CBS' Viacom Inc. parent. "We're going to take that to the courts if it happens. That's our attitude toward it." ...

"We hope this rush to judgment settles down," Moonves said. "A media free of government censorship is essential to our democracy and our business. Some of the developments coming out of Washington are coming dangerously close to infringing on First Amendment rights."

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Transparency and the news: Notes from Aspen

: I wear two Spandex suits these days: Media Man and Blog Boy. I went to an Aspen Institute forum on journalism and society with lots of media machers because I, too, work for major media. And yet I found myself, once again, wearing the suit with the big "B" on the front. The return of Blog Boy!

And I report from the front that I am no longer treated like Spiderman in the Bugle: as a menace. There is a recent and refreshing openness to weblogs and citizens' media among the media big boys.

Well, it's more than that. It's fear. I gave a spiel on technology and the newsroom -- about more than just weblogs, but it turned into a discussion of just weblogs -- and at our closing session, half the participants said they were awakened about blogs and even frightened of being left behind in this blog thing. In previous sessions like this, I've heard half the big media guys dis and dismiss blogs, but there was none of that here, none of it. The curiousity about blogs ranged from cautious to cordial to rabid. These big media guys (not unlike the mullahs of Iran) realize that blogs are here to stay; we are a force to be reckoned with; and now they're reckoning what to do about it. That is good news for us. It is also good news for the news business. If this leads to openness, transparency, and accountability, then credibility and trust will follow.

At the same time, the news business recognizes that -- in the argot of the age -- it has issues: Jason Blair lied. Circulation directors have been lying. Circulation is declining. Readers are complaining. The index of trust in the news business is doing about as well as Martha Stewart's stress level. Niche media is growing while mass media isn't. And the Internet is disrupting the essential roles of media players in the creation, aggregation, and distribution of information. So we were called together to investigate the need for, means of, and extent of transparency that should come to journalism.

: I decided not to blog the event; I soaked it up instead (and soaked up plenty of good red wine, too). We are allowed to write about it, but we are asked not to attribute quotes to individuals without their permission. I preferred to eat and drink rather than pestering my fellow Aspenites for their permission. So please forgive me for relying on anonymous sources as I give you a few notes on the forum. These are just my notes, blogcentric for you; it's by no means a fair or complete report.

: I'll start at the end. We were broken into groups -- aren't we always? -- to grapple with ways to increase the transparency, trust, and accountability of the news business. No one thought that these things were not necessary (file under: progress). But what was interesting was seeing where the limits were with these folks.

The transparency group came back saying we should do a much better job explaining our process to the public. But they said it would be going too far to make story meetings public ; they suggested, instead, revealing the stories that did not make it onto page one in an attempt to reveal more of the process. They also suggested that we'd be wise to explain the process of how news is created more fully; it's time to show the sausage extruders. But -- enter Blog Boy -- I said they didn't go far enough. I quoted many participants at the first Bloggercon as they beseeched NYTimes.com's Len Apcar for an open window on the paper's process (while he demurred). I said that we should be unafraid to reveal everything that did not compromise newsgathering. I also said it would be beneficial to show the thought process and hard deliberation and thorough research that, indeed, goes behind the creation of news. Teeth gnashed. Some venerable news souls said, to much nodding, that we should not make this process public; that we need to be able to be frank in those meetings; that danger lurks there. They said that as a matter of principle, news should be judged by the product, not the process. Most seemed to agree with that. But Rob Prichard, head of Canada's Torstar, did me the favor of rephrasing my hyperbole as a new "presumption of transparency": We should reveal everything we can. And there the debate begins.

The trust group suggested, among other things, posting bios and backgrounds of reporters and editorial writers online. OK so far. But then they suggested signing individual editorials. Hubub ensued. The venerable news souls said that defeats the very purpose of editorials, which speak as statements of principle of the institution. I'd sign them. They wouldn't. The line was drawn. The debate begins.

My accountability group suggested a principle of revealing reporters' experience and bias. More tsuris. A venerable reporter said that when he is asked what party or candidate he supports, he finds a way to say, "none of your business." He called that "intrutrusive." This same reporter acknowledged that a colleague/competitor saw it another way; he announced that he was conservative but said that did not stop him from doing a good job. I would add that it probably improves his credibility. As one of the wise folks around the table said, the presumption of bias in the public is often a presumption of hidden agendas and the more we unhide those agendas, the better for our credibility and trust. I agree. Not everyone does... yet. So more debate.

The groups agreed that we need clear, open policies -- statements of ethics and procedures. They agreed that we need better corrections that, in the words of one group, mitigate the error. They agreed that we need to do a better job of training journalists and newsrooms in these policies. And, they said, we also need to do a better job of educating the public about how newsgathering works. They agreed that we need to work hard to rebuild trust.

: This is what I said about the culture of transparency in my presentation at the start of the session:

This is the gift economy, in which we share our experience and information and talents with others in the expectation that what goes around will come around.
This is a extremely social movement – not a movement of geeky loners.
This movement craves conversation – two-way conversation when for so long have worked only one-way. Are we listening and responding?
It craves community and we need to ask ourselves whether we see ourselves as members of the community or still above it.
It is a culture built around merit but it is also essentially egalitarian: Nobody knows whether you’re a dog on the Internet, but they do know whether you’re a genius. It is a movement of populism and democracy: See how weblogs are ready to revolutionize even Iran. Hell, see democracy in action in the influence of blog links in a Google search.
Liberté Egalité Fraternité: to the blogs, comrades.
This is also a movement of frankness. That is the root of flame wars: People say what they think. They confess their bias. They expect us to.
So this culture of transparency expects us to be transparent. And haven’t we always expected those we cover to be transparent? Haven’t we demanded openness, frankness, honesty, and hearing of the politicians and business people and civic leaders we cover?
It is our turn to open the shades, to reveal our process and prejudice, to engage in the conversation, to join in the community… to be transparent. Shouldn’t we, of all people and professions, be the most transparent?

A few folks called me utopian. Perhaps. I think I'm merely being democratic. But many others acknowledged that we at least need to hold ourselves to the same standard of transparency that we demand of our news subjects.

: There was the beginning of a debate on the meaning of quality journalism. Said one important person there as I nodded myself into a case of whiplash: "What we define as 'quality journalism' is what our peers define as quality journalism.... We keep trying to give our readers what we call quality journalism and our readers call it crap." Again, I didn't ask permission to attribute that quote, but this is from someone in a position to change what journalism is. So, bloggers, don't think you're the only ones who are questioning what journalism is and should be; journalists and their bosses are doing it, too. Now if we can start a conversation about it with both parties. I left this meeting encouraged by the openness of this group to hard self-examination and improvement. I wish you could hear that directly -- and you should, just as they should hear what you have to say. We need a conversation.

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The byline makes the man?

: The luddite idiocy of Alex Jones of the Shorenstein Center on the Press, Politics and Public Policy at Harvard has already been skewered and fisked elsewhere before I could get to it (damn, I wish jets had Internet access already). But I can't resist piling on, especially because of the contrast between his dismissiveness of weblogs and the openness to them that I saw the Aspen Institute, above.

Jones says:

But make no mistake, this moment of blogging legitimization — and temporary press credentials — doesn't turn bloggers into journalists.

Glenn Reynolds replies:

True enough. Of course, neither does a paycheck from the New York Times or NPR.

Jones says:

However, bloggers, with few exceptions, don't add reporting to the personal views they post online....

Matt Welch replies:

There are two types of reporting that even the most nakedly partisan political bloggers routinely engage in: eyewitness testimony, and press review-style research. Both of which, and particularly the former, will add value to the conventions, which are largely made-for-TV fabrications that can benefit from more you-are-there-behind-the-curtain reportage. Also, it can be very useful to read descriptions by people whose politics are on their sleeve & whose takes on things you trust from intimate personal experience.

Amen to both. Here's the fuller Jones quote:

However, bloggers, with few exceptions, don't add reporting to the personal views they post online, and they see journalism as bound by norms and standards that they reject. That encourages these common attributes of the blogosphere: vulgarity, scorching insults, bitter denunciations, one-sided arguments, erroneous assertions and the array of qualities that might be expected from a blustering know-it-all in a bar.

This sounds like the bitter grumblings of the former know-it-all who now has noplace to go in the middle of the day but to the bar.

The funny thing about this is that at Aspen this weekend, the assembled card-carrying journalists agreed that what the profession needs is for norms and standards to be written and made public. How can bloggers reject the norms and standards few have been willing to publish? And who says we reject them? I'd say, instead, that what we reject is those who do not follow their own norms and standards.

And, by the way, what Jones writes is an insult. Too bad it's not scorching.

The really odd thing about the Jones piece is his back-handed compliment to bloggers. He acknowledges that "political bloggers and their fans who insulted and harassed and eventually embarrassed the major media" into dealing with the Trent Lott story. He acknowledges, too, that blogs are becoming part of the news process in America:

Journalists increasingly read blogs to pick up tips. Blogs have become a network of capillaries that feed the nation's veins of information.

But then comes his attempted slap:

For that reason, blogging's freewheeling, unfettered style makes it a juicy target for manipulation.

What, as if major media aren't the No. 1 juicy target for manipulation? Jeesh. Wake up and smell the breath of the PR guy and the political spinmeister whispering in your ear, Alex. You can deal with manipulation and we can't? Ergo you're smart and we're stupid? That's what you're saying, my pal on the pedestal. He goes on (and on):

In these early days, blogging still has the charm of guileless transparency, which in the blogosphere means that everyone — no matter how cranky or hysterical — is presumed to be speaking his or her mind with sincerity. It is this air of conviction that makes bloggers such potent advocates.

Ain't it ironic, again, that just this weekend, I saw with journalists who are coming to believe, with potent conviction, that they must take on the transparency they now see in the society of bloggers? Jones continues:

However, if history is any indicator, such earnestness will attract those who would exploit it, and they include some canny, inventive people. There is already talk of bloggers who would consider publishing items for cash and commercial blogs that tout products.

And how is this the slightest bit different from a publication taking advertising or producing advertorial sections? If you can handle church v. state, so can we, the public. Emphasis on "if." Next from Jones:

Blogging's fact-checking apparatus is just the built-in truth squad of those who read the blog and howl loudly if they wish to dispute some assertion. It is, in a sense, a place where everyone has his own truth.

Well, yes. Everyone gets to judge on his or her own what is and isn't the truth. And I will argue that the fact-checking apparatus of the people is pretty damned effective and so is the corrections policy of most blogs. Ironic, once again, that this weekend, big media people recognized the need for better corrections policies and fact-checking apparatus in big media. And finally:

With the status conferred by convention credentials, blogging has arrived as an engaging, important new player in the information carnival. But should blogging displace traditional reporting and journalism, as some in the blogosphere predict it will, then the steak will have been swapped for the sizzle. It's better to have both.

Well, precisely. And the way to have both is not to dismiss and dis these newfangled weblog thingies, to act self-superior to them, to annoint yourself the priesthood and keep the rabble out of the catherdral. The way to have both is to listen. Join in the conversation, Alex. Read what bloggers are saying about what you said about them.

: UPDATE: Jay Rosen calls Jones' piece high-church condescension.

But that analysis Sunday is beneath his standards and the standards he saw himself as protecting in the Los Angeles Times. ...
Instead of looking at the actual performance of the actual weblogs actually credentialed to the Boston convention, (a partial list is here) he treated as factual and descriptive for all invited the general reputation blogs have among journalists for inaccuracy, rumor-trading, and "mere" opinion-- Matt Drudge-ness. In other words, he didn't bother doing his homework.

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Aspen

: Damned nice place.

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