Gag me with a Constitution

This post originally appeared on my Newspaper Death Watch blog, but I wanted to share:

I got a call today from a journalist who’s doing a story on the future of newspapers and he shared an interesting tidbit. He said he had contacted a prominent thought leader in the journalism field, whom I won’t name. This thought leader had said that the impending collapse of the newspaper industry was “a threat to democracy.”

Excuse me, but what? A threat to democracy? Newspapers are dying, in large part, because of democracy. The rise of citizen publishing has made it possible, for the first time, for large numbers of ordinary citizens to publish to a global audience without the intercession of media institutions. What could be more democratic than that? If Thomas Jefferson was alive today, he’d be an active blogger. Social media is the most democratic process to hit the publishing industry in 500 years.

I’m going to give the thought leader the benefit of the doubt and assume that he was referring to the decline of investigative journalism as practiced by newspapers. On that point, I’ll defer to journalism professor Steve Boriss, who argues that a lot of what passes for investigative journalism today is simply reporters acting as conduits for whistle-blowers. Those malcontents will find other outlets for their gripes, whether it be Consumerist.com or something else. I’m quite confident that the market will take care of filling the need for advocacy reporting.

I think the threat-to-democracy statement is more a function of the arrogance of traditional news journalists, who believe that a system in which a few thousand editors decide what people should know is superior to one in which many millions of citizens make those same judgments. If citizen media is a threat to democracy, I shudder to think of the alternative.

Google News comments presage a new approach to journalism

In a move that could serve as a model for the next generation of journalism, Google has announced that it will allow people to comment on stories indexed in the Google News search engine.

A lively debate sprung up on the Internet earlier this year when Jason Calacanis refused to conduct a telephone interview with a Wired editor out of concerns over being misquoted. The on-the-record interview is a staple of journalism, of course, and the idea that a source would want to publish a paper trail of his or her comments goes against the grain of most journalists’ thinking.

However, I think Calacanis had a point. The existing model of journalism, in which a reporter interviews a source and then decides what is relevant about what that source said is based upon outdated assumptions. Until a few years ago, individuals had limited ability to publish. That left the job of deciding what to publish up to the people with access to printing presses. This model is error-prone and shot through with subjective value judgments. If someone was misquoted, which happens more often than a lot of journalists would like to admit, their only recourse was to ask for a correction, which might run days after the original article appeared.

Today, we have a new model. If someone interviews me for a story, I can post my version of the interview on my blog or publish an audio recording. I also think it’s reasonable to ask the publication to link back to my comments or recording. After all, neither of us has anything to hide, right? This new approach to reporting would reduce the chance of error and provide readers with the option of reading a more detailed version of the information presented in the story.

I can’t see anything wrong with this. A reporter’s job is to get the facts, and if an error is made, the original source should have the option to present his or her version of what was said. I believe that over time this is the model of new journalism that will take hold. It will force reporters to pay more attention to accuracy and it will force publications to be more accountable. It also provides a service to readers by adding depth and perspective, if they choose to read it.

I’m sure this idea won’t sit well with a lot of journalists, though. What do you think? Is this the start of the new approach to journalism, and are there downsides I’m not seeing?

CMP layoffs dramatize bigger industry changes

The news came down today that technology publisher CMP is laying off 20% of its workforce and merging several publications out of existence, including Network Computing and Optimize. I don’t suppose this is a surprise, for the print business in the enterprise technology market has been on the decline for a long time, but the scope of the cutbacks and the extent of the changes to CMP’s portfolio were breathtaking. Most publishers have been bleeding away properties as print business has turned down. CMP’s action was like an execution.

It’s hard not to feel like an old codger at times like these, for I remember the days when Computerworld’s print business was so healthy that the company had to start ancillary publications just to handle the overflow of ads because the printer couldn’t produce issues that were large enough to hold them all. I don’t pine for those days, though. There were times when the editorial staff was slapping almost anything it could find onto a page in order to fill space around the ads. No one was well-served by that. What’s different about online publishing is that the space expands and contracts to fill available content. There is much less of a need to provide some content — any content — to run around advertising. It’s perhaps one of the great under-appreciated benefits of new media.

People sometimes complain that one of the shortcomings of new media is that space is unlimited, meaning that writers can write as much as they want about whatever they want. I suppose that’s a problem in some respects, but isn’t the ultimate arbiter of value the reader? If writers don’t produce interesting copy, then no one will read them, and it won’t matter how many words they write. The Web is liberating in that way. In removing constraints of space and time, it frees the writer to focus on content and the reader to make choices based upon what they want to read rather than what the publisher chooses to give them. I think that, in the long run, we’ll realize that this was a great liberator and a step forward both for the craft of journalism and the service that publications deliver to their readers.

For now, though, I feel badly for the 200 people who lost their jobs today. They were victimized not by any failure on their part, but rather because of a structural shift in the market over which they had no control. I fear that they are simply the first casualties of a much bigger change in consumption habits that will sweep over much of the mainstream media in the coming years. In the end, it will lead to a richer, more vibrant media landscape, but there is bound to be a lot of suffering in the meantime

Tech PR War Stories Episode 11: our guest is Sam Whitmore

Sam Whitmore’s Media Survey is one of the most influential publications in the high-tech PR community, and David Strom and I were fortunate to have Sam himself as a guest on Tech PR War Stories this week.

We asked Sam to talk about the up-and-coming influencers in IT media and his response surprised me. He’s evidently looking at media that tap into the real issues that IT pros wrestle with week-to-week more than new publishers and editors. He also had a lot to say about the ethos of the blogosphere and how PR pros should work with this new class of journalist. Bottom line: deal with it. These are the new journalists and their ethics and practices aren’t all that different from the folks you’ve dealt with for years.

Good stuff from a thought leader who pulls no punches.

More evidence of a newspaper death spiral

Alan Mutter writes perceptively on the recent plunge in newspaper revenues on his outstanding Reflections of a Newsosaur blog.

“Print advertising sales for newspapers appear to be on track to plunge by $2 billion this year, which would make for the worst performance in a decade other than the disastrous period following 9/11,” he writes, noting that this will be the first time newspaper revenues have ever declined in a time of economic prosperity.

First quarter revenues for classified advertising – the most profitable part of the newspaper business – were off a staggering 13.2% in the first quarter, Mutter notes. Automotive advertising, which is newspapers’ Rock of Gibraltar, was off nearly 13% last year. Nearly all of this business is going online and it’s not coming back.

I’ve characterized the scenario facing major metro dailies as a “death spiral” in my own writing on this topic. Alan Mutter’s statistics and analysis bear this out. In a spiral, the speed of descent increases as the object hurtles toward the ground. The numbers indicate that a spiral could be developing. According to Mutter, print advertising revenues were off .5% in 2005, 4.6% in 2006 and are on track to decline 6.4% in 2007. It’s too early to call this a pattern, but in an industry that Mutter notes “has been masterful at increasing its revenues in good times and bad,” this twist of fortune is unprecedented and alarming.

Desperate acts like the San Francisco Chronicle’s recent decision to eviscerate its newroom staff indicate that the industry is in panic mode. The Chron is basically committing hara-kiri rather than continuing the fight. I suspect it’s only the first of many to do so.

Mutter, a newspaper-editor-turned-entrepreneur, offers some historical context:

“In retrospect, it is clear that newspaper publishers were lulled into complacence in the early years of the Internet by their prior skill in achieving consistent sales growth in even negative economic conditions. But the growth was not achieved as much by recruiting new customers – or even selling more advertising to existing ones – as by using their monopoly-like positions to force hefty annual rate increases on advertisers who essentially had nowhere else to go.”

Monopolies thrive in the absence of competition, but they tend to let atrophy the skills needed to compete. Newspapers have almost no weapons with which to fight the online hordes that are devastating their business.

The New Influencers in the Merc

The San Jose Mercury News’ Dean Takahashi devotes a column to The New Influencers today. Takahashi, who’s reported for The Wall Street Journal among other journals, touches on several key points from the book and notes that a former colleague of his, Peter Rojas, went on to become a millionaire and a poster child of blogging success. He asks playfully (and a bit ruefully) if there’s still time for him to become a new influencer with his popular gaming blog.

Dean took the time to speak to me at some length on Monday evening. He also read the entire book, a fact that is both flattering and impressive in this continuously distracted world. It’s a thrill to be cited in such an important newspaper and by a reporter whose work I respect so much.

Tech PR War Stories 8 is about "off the record"

What exactly does “off the record” mean? To trained journalists, the meaning of that phrase is simple: you can’t use this information in any way, shape or form. But to many marketers, business execs and even some reporters, the term is interpreted differently. This confusion can create misunderstanding and embarrassment.

In Tech PR War Stories episode 8, David Strom and I discuss the distinctions between “off the record,” “not for attribution,” “on background” and other types of digressions. We also give our quick takes on some recent breaking news in medialand.

We Regret the Error

This week in the Tech PR War Stories podcast, David Strom and I talk about corrections. You don’t really need corrections online because you can just fix the original story. But maybe corrections are still important as an admission of error. Do we still need them?

Our jumping-off point is last week’s dust-up between Steve Rubel and Jim Louderback. Services like Twitter have lowered the barrier to putting your foot in your mouth, and Steve found out the hard way what problems an offhand comment can cause.

The show notes and download page is here.

Tech PR War Stories # 3 is about loose lips, death threats and the future of print

This week in Tech PR War Stories, David Strom and I talk about the Fred Vogelstein briefing memo and his Wired article. David says Google has become the new reputation management tool. IDG is transforming itself into an online company with the announcement that Infoworld will become a Web-only property. Paul asks whether print even matters in this market any more. And finally, we discuss the lessons learned from threats on Kathy Sierra’s life and how Tim O’Reilly brokered a rapproachment with Chris Locke.

Download the podcast here.

Interview with Trib's new owner barely mentions digital media threat

Kevin Allen, a smart young writer who works for Ragan Communications, knows my rather strong opinions about the future of newspapers. He sent me a link to this story about Sam Zell’s acquisition of the Tribune Co. and asked for a comment. Here’s what I said:

“I would never want to be quoted questioning Mr. Zell’s wisdom or insight, since he is clearly a very successful investor. I was struck, however, by the fact that neither the Tribune article or the video interview went into any detail on the challenge that digital media presents to newspapers. In fact, I could find the Internet mentioned only once in the Tribune article, in the first paragraph.

“This seems curious to me, since online competition is clearly the biggest challenge facing newspapers these days, particularly in their classified advertising businesses. Longer term, the newspaper’s value proposition as a timely source of information is under siege. This article seems more interested in the Tribune’s ESOP plan and ownership stake in the Cubs than in the serious long-term problems facing its industry.

“It’s been my experience that people of Mr. Zell’s age are almost incapable of relating to the culture and lifestyles of today’s digital youth. This is not their fault, for it’s almost incomprehensible to someone who grew up in the 50s or 60s to relate to the always-connected, always-interacting lifestyle of today’s teens. It’s hard enough for me, at 49, to understand it. I would think that anyone buying a newspaper today would have to look at what they’re going to do to court this next generation of consumers, who have almost no affinity for newspapers. The fact that this critical issue was not addressed in the Tribune interview or video is a glaring omission, in my view. I can’t believe the editors didn’t bring it up.

“Apparently a lot of them aren’t even paying attention to it. As reported last week by MediaPost, “The first Newsroom Barometer survey–conducted by the World Editors Forum and Reuters–found that a staggering 85% of editors and news executives of 435 polled were optimistic about the fate of their publications.”

“As they say, denial is not just a river in Egypt :-)”