We the journalists
Dave Winer points to Ian Betteridge, who says of journalists:
They have to understand the beat that they’re covering, preferably better than anyone in the industry under the level of vice president.
Well, I don’t agree with the premise that Vice Presidents are automatically more knowledgable than other workers.
But even in this case, wouldn’t you rather read the VP’s blog than the journalist’s story?
Mar 26 2007 09:34 am |
newspapers and davewiner |
You’re missing the point: the job of a journalist isn’t to have access to the vice president’s point of view, it’s to have the depth of knowledge of the industry that he’s covering that a vice president (should) have.
The job of a journalist is should be to find out the things that the vice president wouldn’t put in his blog, not what the VP believes should be publicised.
That argument assumes that a VP’s blog would be PR, not an authentic voice.
That wouldn’t be a blog I, or most people would read, and that type of VP is not a candidate for journalist disintermediation.
Other authoritative voices are.
That’s assuming the writer of the blog would be honest.
People lie, rather a lot.
People also catch other people lying alot, especially on the web.
And once caught lying, again, they cease to be a candidate for journalist disintermediation.
The problem is, you guys don’t trust the network of thousands, but you do trust one journalist.
If you’ve ever read an article about something you know a lot about, then you know how poorly a lot of journalism does as gathering the facts.
And yet we seem to be giving all the poor journalism a free pass, because it is done by pros.
It’s not about catching someone lying: company executives very rarely outright lie in what they say. In fact, for an exec of a public company to lie on a blog could lead them into legal trouble, especially if it’s something that could affect the company’s share price.
What it’s about is putting what someone says into context, and about digging out the details that are hidden. That’s the job of a journalist, professional or amateur.
No one’s giving bad stories (or bad journalists) a free ride - there’s no guarentee that because a story is written by a professional it has everything right. But it’s worth remembering that stories written by journalists don’t exist in isolation: that network of thousands you refer to reads, and comments on, pieces written by journalists too. And arguably, the journalist has more to lose by writing a bad story: after all, this is his *professional* reputation on the line.
Your line of reasoning seems to be that for blogging to “win” journalism has to “lose”. That’s not true, of course - blogging can only improve the overal quality of journalism, as it gives immediate and in-depth feedback on a story.
And where I agree with Dave is that giving students a two-semester journalism course would benefit anyone. But to imply that this would make them as good as a professional journalist is silly - a year of two hours a week of carpentry wouldn’t make me as good a carpenter as someone who does it every day. Why assume that the craft of journlism is any different?
Fair enough, Ian.
I agree it’s not a win/lose zero sum game.
Unfortuanately, I work closely with many journalists who aren’t that open-minded, and don’t think they have anything to gain from comments, and certainly would never reply to one.
It’s interesting that mention legal trouble for a blogging exec, since I have first hand experience with journalists who won’t comment on related forums for fear of lawsuit as well.
In fact, they fear that comments left by others on our newpaper forums puts us in some legal danger, despite our corporate lawyers telling us we don’t need to moderate at all.
I suspect that the journalists who are afraid of comments are the ones that have most to fear from new media in general, and the shift towards conversational media in particular - that is, the ones prefer to pontificate than explain and defend their work.
I think that journalists have little fear from commenting on forums if they’re sensible. They are, after all, trained in libel law
I think there will always be print media but it will need to become specialized for Local news only.