Fish or Fish-Wrapping?

Universal Broadband,

R.I.P. Journalism?

Universal internet access to enhance journalism is being touted like universal love and has the same problems – sounds good until you try it.

A report surfaced in news outlets over the weekend from The Knight Commission on the Information Needs of Communities in a Democracy, which says we need to push broadband internet access for all Americans just as the Eisenhower administration pushed the interstate highway system.

Both may be examples of cheerleading for Going without a lot of thought about Getting There.

Eisenhower’s interstate highway system moves cars full of people and trucks full of goods all over the country. It also stymies passenger railroads, enables unpleasant relatives to visit and kills small town economies to feed regional ones.

Broadband internet services reach about two thirds of Americans, allowing them to pick and choose the information they want, when they want it – and also to turn the copyright and intellectual property laws into a chattering monkeyhouse. Artists and journalists who once said they did it only for love now get plenty of chances to prove it.

Most publishers do it just for money and would agree with the commission’s phrase that “we must find sustainable models that will support the kind of journalism that has informed Americans.” That was the kind of journalism that told Americans just enough to be sold in herds to advertisers who paid publishers by the head and handsomely.

It’s not the kind of journalism that dominates the internet in general and the broadband segment in particular, where the boast isn’t the bucks you make, but the audience you have. So bringing more and better broadband internet connections to all of America might not be a boost for either traditional journalists who worship at the dingy Altar of Truth or the lavish Altar of Profit.

In fact, it might be the last little nudge that pushes traditional journalism over the cliff.

See, all of journalism is based on the notion that you need a middleman between you and the events of the world. The middleman notices the events, interprets them and presents them to you – for a fee, please – and then presents you to advertisers, again for a fee.

Broadband internet access means you and advertisers both don’t necessarily need that middleman or his fee. Events that were once hard for individuals to observe, document, report and share widely aren’t any more. Just look at the number of “official” media articles referencing YouTube or Facebook. And if you doubt that advertisers no longer need the middleman, count the ads the next time you surf the net or read e-mail.

Universal broadband access might be a good thing, but it’s not necessarily one that will save the economic model of traditional journalism. It’s like the old saw that giving a man a fish will feed him for a day, but teaching him how to fish will feed him for a lifetime. Noble sentiments, unless you happen to make your living selling fish – or fish-wrapping.

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Journalism Doing It For Money

Getting the Milk Free No More

(Editor’s Note: Larry Blasko said has this exclusive report of a conversation between Internet and a bartender moments after the split with Journalism. It was provided by a blogger on condition of anonymity.)

“Set ‘em up Joe,” Internet said gloomily, and Joe the Bartender knew better than to do anything but pour.

“Like that!” Internet said with a snap of fingers. “Fifteen years like that!” He took most of the first drink in a gulp, eyed the sorry remainder and then tossed it down, shoving the glass towards Joe.

“Again, Pal, and don’t let it get empty for a while.”

“Troubles with Journalism?” Joe asked, finishing another pour and pushing the run-a-tab key on the register.

“Big troubles,” Internet nodded as more booze joined the first. “End of the road kind of troubles, Joe, end of the road.”

“But I thought you two were so solid!” Joe said with more than professional amazement. “You guys were together so long, I mean everybody knows you and Journalism are a couple. . .”

“Were a couple,” Internet corrected. “I got my butt kicked out, Joe, and the last words I heard were ‘My way or the highway!’ so I don’t think this one’s gonna get fixed. And it was so close to our anniversary, too,” he added, pointing again to the glass.

“That’s tough,” Joe said. “I knew you guys had been together a long time, but I never knew the date you made it official.” He punched another one into the register.

“Well,” Internet mumbled staring into his glass “we never really did make it official official you know, but still. . .”

“Oh,” Joe said “but still, I can remember the two of you being together through all sorts of things, and I just thought that you’d always. . . well, anyway, maybe it was just a fight and it’ll heal over.”

“No,” Internet said. “I don’t think this one is going to heal, Joe. I just don’t think..” Internet stopped to look at the mostly empty tables behind the bar. No one seemed to be listening, but Internet’s voice was low anyway.

“It’s like this, Joe, but you gotta promise not to tell a word to anyone else, okay? I wouldn’t want this getting around. Promise?”

“Sure, I promise” Joe said getting ready to add one more to his store of boozy confidences.

“Yeah…” Joe sighed, then continued. “You know how it is when you’ve been together a long time, don’t you Joe? I mean you get into a routine, and maybe it’s a little dull, but it’s comfortable, too, you know? And that’s the way it was with Journalism and me.” He pointed to his glass again.

“And I gotta admit, Joe, I really didn’t see it coming.” He added as the glass was refilled. “I mean tonight was a night like any other, and I was there and Journalism was beside me like we had been for so many nights, and I reached over and. . .”

Joe knew better than to say anything, but his look was prompting and Internet continued in a rush:

“And then Journalism said ‘Okay but you gotta pay for it!’”

“No!” Joe snapped in disbelief. “Journalism? Selling it?”

“’Fraid so,” Internet said. “I thought Journalism was kidding at first, and said I wasn’t the kind that paid for it. “ Internet shook his head and finished another drink.

“She wasn’t kidding. She said if I wasn’t the kind that paid for it, I wouldn’t be the kind getting it and things got worse after that. . .” Internet looked for sympathy from Joe, who still looked thunderstruck. “Now what, Joe? Now what?”

This time Joe reached for two glasses and poured them both a strong one.

“I don’t know, Pal,” Joe said raising his glass in salute. “I don’t know, but I don’t think it’s gonna be good for either of you.”

“Amen,” Internet agreed and downed his drink. “Amen.”

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Another SC Sex Scandal

Horsing Around,

Modern Media Style

A South Carolina man was arrested for being in a stable sexual relationship Monday.

Very stable.

In Sugar’s stable, which is where police say Rodell Vereen, 50, of Longs, SC made hay with the 21-year-old mare. Sugar’s owner, Barbara Kenley, confronted Vereen outside and held him at gunpoint for police.

Vereen, who was on probation for an earlier tryst at the same Lazy B Stables, was charged with buggery.

Sugar is being treated for an incident- related infection, her owner says. Vereen awaits a hearing next week.

All of this from the Myrtle Beach Sun News, a 50,000-plus circulation South Carolina daily newspaper. You can read all the details of the story on their website, here.

You can also read comments from readers wondering whether we really needed to know this stuff. As a recovering journalist, I pretty much see the Sun News doing its job, covering its community. It’s a local story.

Or it was a local story until it was covered by The Associated Press, which reminds us it is “The Essential Global News Network.” The AP had some 570-odd words and a photo on one of its websites for hours.

Which, of course, made the story as un-local as it could possibly be. As the AP explains on another web site, more than half of the world’s people might see an AP story on a given day. A quick look on Google found the story picked up by major web sites all across the U.S., and showing up in Europe and India. A video version was on YouTube. Since web stories can live a very long time, this is probably not the limit, and realistic counts beyond “many, many” are unlikely.

So Sugar has become the most famous South Carolina love object since the last time Governor Mark Sanford visited Argentina.

If the Sun News was just doing its job, what about AP?

Not as easy an answer, and full disclosure, a look at my profile will show I worked there a long time. Still, while the Sun News and the AP both have megaphones, the AP’s is very much bigger.

That used to mean a different frame of judgment on what was worth national exposure and what was worth a chuckle in the bar after work. But if the frame for national editorial judgment has changed, then it has changed. Such things aren’t put to a vote.

But if they were, mine would be Neigh!

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Giving In To Temptation

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford’s disclosure that his disappearance over the last few days had more to do with an Argentinean lover than a love of hiking on the Appalachian Trail puts him squarely in a current bipartisan gallery of American politicians with a deer-in-the-headlights moment.

Sanford is a Republican. So is Louisiana Sen. David Vitter, found on the client list of the so-called “DC Madam.” So is Nevada Sen. John Ensign who just said he had an affair with a campaign staffer.

Democrats have New York Gov. Eliot Spitzer patronizing prostitutes and former presidential candidate John Edwards with a campaign videographer.

But what we all have is an ever-growing addiction to Voyeur Journalism. The Sanford story was the hot item on the web and everywhere else Wednesday night, including his teary press conference video.

That Sanford was incommunicado for days after having left his staff with misleading information is a legitimate public question and subject of reporting. That he now says he was in Argentina with a mistress during that time is relevant, but only to the extent that it proves he misled his staff and the people of South Carolina and wasn’t available to perform the duties of his office.

The rest?

The State, the largest newspaper in South Carolina, was on line Wednesday with quotes from e-mails between Sanford and his lover, with promises of the full exchange in Thursday’s edition. If there is a public purpose in publishing the governor’s comment on his lover’s tan lines and other attributes, I’m too stupid to see it.

That’s clearly not a problem for the New York Times, which has the tan lines quote in detail on “The Caucus, The Politics and Government Blog of The Times.”

It isn’t a problem at the Washington Post either – the story on their web site carries the same quote.

So does the online reporting of The Associated Press. So does CNN. USA Today’s web site linked to the e-mails on The State’s web site.

There are probably many, many more stories and links using the quotes. If they have a general theme, it is that Sanford, a conservative who spoke often of family values, gave in to sexual temptation.

Kind of like media outfits that once spoke often of journalism standards giving in to tabloid temptation. But don’t expect them to report that – certain things are beyond the public’s need to know.

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More Talk, Less To Say

 

 

Communications technology has proven beyond doubt that having the ability to say more does not mean that you have more to say.

 

The old ways of communication were slow and limited, forcing judgments on what was worth a slice of a limited delivery pie. Newspapers had the daily “news hole,” the space left over after the ads. Broadcast journalists had a time slot governed by both the clock and the sales staff ‘s success in finding sponsors. Even those of us who did our print journalism for wire services were constrained by 66-words-per-minute printers.

 

The result was that a lot of stories died when someone said there wasn’t enough space in the paper, or on the newscast, or on the wire for something that trivial.

 

That sometimes excluded the Obscure But Important. For the most part, it defended us all against the Obscure And Deservedly So.

 

No more. The steady clack of an old wire service machine that managed to work a full 24 hours without a break or breakdown could deliver just a tad more than 95,000 English words in a 24-hour day.  That’s about 4.5 million bits in a digital world – or slightly less than a broadband home internet connection can transmit in a second.

 

And that’s nothing like higher speeds now in professional use. So what does this communication bounty bring us?

 

n  From Granite City, IL, comes the news that a man and his daughter were arrested after a fight involving some folks she brought home from a bar. This is clearly worthy of attention because no other fights after bar visits have ever been recorded in Granite City or elsewhere.

 

n  A Massachusetts medical device maker has gone bankrupt, so arrangements are being made to dispose of the nine cadavers it used for training. The knee-slapper is that they were listed among the company’s assets in bankruptcy proceedings, clearly making it worth worldwide dissemination.

 

n  A rural Taiwanese man got bitten by a snake when he tried to use his toilet. And yes, it bit him there, which news helped mankind’s advance in ways not immediately apparent.

 

n  A lawsuit involving a man who may or may not have been deliberately kicked by a stripper after he may or may not have slapped her bottom too hard is clearly an important part of covering the nation’s judicial system, not to mention the behinds of all parties involved.

 

There are so many more examples available every day that it’s difficult to resist the impulse to scream – until you realize that doing so would cause someone to file 250 words on it for breathless (and brainless) relay around the world.

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New Rules, Same Virus, Same Media

 

The World Health Organization has answered an ancient riddle:

 

Q: When is a pandemic not a pandemic.

 

A: When you call it something else.

 

The World Health Organization said Friday it would revise its rules for declaring a spreading disease a pandemic. The disease-du-jour, of course is H1N1, Swine Flu to its friends, and its rapid geographic spread a few weeks back was the cause of even more rapidly spreading silliness among governments, health organizations and the media.

 

Schools were closed, government offices darkened, dust masks were donned and handshaking, hugging and kissing became antisocial acts as the media went into Energizer Bunny journalism mode. When the W.H.O. raised its threat level to five on a six-point scale, so much dark suit/deep tone manure was spread that the few apparent facts had trouble fighting their way to the surface. Those that made it included:

 

·        The new flu spread rapidly, but no more rapidly than the usual annual flu.

·        The new flu could kill, but far fewer deaths have been connected to it than the routine thousands of deaths from even mild regular flu seasons.

·        Far from being new, the flu strain could have been circulating among pigs for years.

 

On the Monday after it announced it was rethinking things, W.H.O. figures showed almost13,000 confirmed H1N1 cases in 46 countries, with 92 deaths. The same day, a W.H.O. press release on yellow fever mentioned that disease’s estimated toll at 206,000 annual cases and 52,000 deaths.

 

Yellow fever, of course, suffers from bad press relations when compared to Swine Flu, and has been unable to grasp the same amount of worldwide public attention in spite of striking almost 16 times the victims of swine flu and taking 565 times the lives.

 

As far as what the new rules might be or whether Swine Flu might move from Stage 5 to Stage 6 in the Pandemic Pantheon, here’s what I was able to find on the W.H.O. website in the last paragraph of a May 18 report:

 

“Moving from Phase 5 to Phase 6

34. The current process is based purely on geographical spread and not on severity of disease. Several Member States spoke in favour of giving the Director-General greater flexibility in the progression between different phases.”

 

Although this quote is in International CratSpeak, and translation is a notoriously difficult art, it seems the gist is that Member States told the Director-General to lay off the alarm bell and stop scaring folks needlessly.

 

I could find no similar guidance on any of several media organization sites, but if the World Health Organization disease monitor process becomes rational, the media will respond as  they always have to news that contradicts news previously reported.

 

They’ll ignore it.

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Weekend Tids and Bits

 

 

NO SEX PLEASE, WE’RE CHINESE – Authorities in China demolished an under-construction sex-themed amusement park called Love Land near Chongqing, after widespread (ahem!)  coverage in the world media about giant genital sculptures. Seems the leaders of the world’s most populous nation would rather not focus on how, exactly, all those new little workers are gaining admission to the Workers Paradise. Sex in China is still mostly an unmentionable, a leftover from the Puritan Sayings of Chairman Mao-driven cultural revolution, when “I admire your devotion to the triumph of the proletariat” was a hot pickup line.

 

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FIRST ROUGH DRAFT OF HISTORY’S FATE – Journalists facing the axe from the soul-sucked ghouls who now run most of America’s newspapers have often comforted themselves that their noble, underpaid, overworked calling was revered as the “first rough draft of history.” Rough indeed, because William Rathje, a professor of archeology at the University of Arizona, studied the contents of landfills and found newspapers were the top ingredient by volume and weight. Newspaper management should consider reaching out to landfill operators, seeking common cause in the utility of daily print journalism.

 

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TOWARDS SOCIALISM,  NOT DEMOCRAT SOCIALIST PARTY – is the resolution on a resolution (got that?)  by the Republican National Committee that wanted to label the Dems “Democrat Socialist Party.”  They damped it down to “stop pushing our country toward socialism” when RNC Chairman Michael Steele, suggested that even if it feels good, the GOP should stop shooting itself in the foot. Nothing leaked to the press, but don’t be surprised if the Limbaugh/Cheney Faithfull’s response is that Steele’s request means he’s pro gun-control.

 

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THE BEST LITTLE WHOREHOUSES IN TEXAS – may be unfertile ground for Republican primary votes for Governor Rick Perry after a consultant told the Dallas Morning News that the party needs new voters but “that doesn't mean you take your principles and throw them out the door and become a whorehouse and let anybody in who wants to come in, regardless." No word yet on whether the consultant’s remark is sparking a Whorehouses For Hutchison movement to back Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison, Perry’s primary opponent.

 

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HEY DIDDLE-DIDDLE, STRAIGHT DOWN THE MIDDLE – is the “centrist” way voters are going, according to an AP report on a Pew Research Center Survey. Independents now make up the largest proportion of voters in 70 years, the report says. Independent voters may be defined as those who vote for the  candidate they deem less likely to screw up than others.  Pew, which researches more things than your nosy maiden aunt, is found at: http://www.pewtrusts.org/.

 

 

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BANG BANG BAMBI – The credit card legislation President Obama signed also allowed carrying concealed loaded weapons in national parks in states that permit concealed carry otherwise. Thirty-nine states allow concealed carry. Anti-gun folks are aghast. Pro-gun folks are delighted. Common-sense folks probably carried a weapon when that made sense in any event and are bemused.

 

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HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY TO ALL – and please remember the men and women who paid with their lives so we could listen to a few patriotic speeches and then go off to a start-of-the-summer barbecue. Never mind the flags on cemeteries, although that’s nice. A better way to celebrate is to buy the next on-liberty soldier, sailor, airman or Marine you meet a drink or a meal, whether in person or as a contribution to the USO and other armed services support efforts.

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Stock Market Reporting Explained

 

Stock market indicators go up and down, economies quiver and governments rise and fall, as journalists tell us what “the market” was feeling and why that made the numbers come out the way they did.

 

Since the New York Stock Exchange alone has 2,000-odd traders, not to mention those in other exchanges, many have been puzzled at how journalists take the emotional pulse of so many, or even a big sample. If an intrepid journalist talks to a different NYSE stock trader every two minutes for the entire trading day, that’s still a shade less than ten percent of those trading.

 

Which doesn’t even take into account all the other good folk who are busy buying and selling shares elsewhere.

 

Yet, one trusted source can report that there are “worries that the market may have moved too high, too quickly over the past two and a half months.” And another journalism leader can tell us that worries about the Brits and “…less positive economic signals from the United States dented investor hopes Thursday that the world’s largest economies will show much vigor in the near term.”

Still another maven says  “optimism about a global economic recovery was tempered,”  and warns that “The tone on Wall Street turned bleak…,”  plus “The gloom was exacerbated” at the news that Standard & Poor’s may cut the United Kingdom’s  rating because of debt levels.

A different oracle says that the Brit’s potentially downgraded “credit ratings stoked fears about the state of the global economy.”

These and other market journalists are clearly very closely in touch with the psyches of stock traders and other market players. They not only know what they’re feeling, but why.

And these traders feel a lot. Most of us over the age of 20 don’t lurch between optimism and gloom in the course of a week as we drive our dented hopes to get our fears stoked. Yet stock traders must be so in touch with their feelings that their feelings have filed class-action harassment suits.

 

But there’s an alternate explanation. Go watch a group of kindergarten kids at play. They talk constantly to each other, as they both direct and act out parts in their make-believe epics.

 

“I’m gonna be the sheriff, and Joey’s gonna be the bad guy,” Billy says, to which Susie adds “and I’m going to be sad that Joey’s bad, because he’s my boyfriend,” while Joey declaims “I’m not gonna be no girl’s boyfriend! Let’s play something else!”

 

Market journalists overhearing that exchange would write “Prospects were mixed today in spite of strong planning statements from two key players as a third of the action vowed to sit things out until the situation changed.”

 

And if the little kids continue their squabble until an adult intervenes and asks what this is all about, the little kids will all say “I dunno.”

 

Market journalists, alas, will not.

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Wanted: Editors

(Proofreaders Need Not Apply)

 

Once upon a time in a place called Journalism, there were editors.

 

Editors were powerful. It was they who decided what was important enough for print or broadcast, and how important it was in relation to everything else that competed for attention.

 

Editors were wise. They had lived long enough to spot most frauds, whether it was the kind that got elected or the kind that had a sure-fire investment scheme.

 

Editors could be blunt. Louis Clifford, city editor of The Cleveland Press, told a cemetery owner who complained about a story on vandalized graves, “We’ll run our newspaper and you run your God-damned cemetery.” The damp-behind-everything cub who had written the story won’t ever forget that.

 

Editors could also teach, threaten, cajole and demand until they got more excellence out of you than even your mother thought might be there.

 

But editors weren’t immortal, and they’ve joining the long, sad line of the Pre-Internet Old shuffling into darkness to make way for the Insistent Internet New.

 

The number of eyeballs that pass on a story before publication is often just the pair belonging to the writer. The sense of what ought to be published and what should be ignored has given way to the fickle guidance of focus groups and consultants whose only bedrock principle is that the check clears. They are offering guidance to editors so green they need a note from their parents to work the overnight shift.

 

You can see the evidence all around you. Here’s the mighty Associated Press on its internet front page proclaiming itself as “the essential global news network,” telling us that in Clarksburg, W. Va., mail delivery “to seven homes on Milford Street was halted because of the 20-pound  terrier.” That’s the news, except that the dog is named Cozmo, he hasn’t bitten anyone and his owners are looking to find him a new home.

 

Maybe he can become a web editor.

 

Online readers of the Tucson (Ariz.) Citizen had their lives enriched May 11 with the news that police arrested a woman in Clearwater, Fla., for being naked while knocking on a stranger’s door to ask for cigarettes. That was another AP story, although it was first reported May 8 by the St. Petersburg Times.

 

Maybe the Tucson editors were just being prepared in case the woman, who was charged with disorderly conduct, decides to hitchhike naked to Tucson.

 

A Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette report on May 11 that an Otsego woman had died in a chain saw accident while cutting a tree with her husband was legitimate local coverage. The AP ran a much shorter version and it appeared the same day on wltx.com in Columbia, S.C.

 

Maybe the folks at WLTX were just interested in promoting chainsaw safety.

 

And maybe this is all just the grumbling of an old has-been who doesn’t understand that the Age of The Internet has made us all editors.

 

But if that’s the case, we’re sure doing a lousy job.

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SOME INTERESTING OBSERVATIONS on the Death Star looming over print journalism and how the survivng mammals might prosper scurrying among the dinosaur bones may be found at http://www.technologyreview.com/blog/pontin/

That's Technology Review published by MIT and the author is Jason Pontin, editor in chief and publisher.

Paul Gillin has a good powerpoint presentation from a talk he gave on what happened to the old media model and what might become the new at: http://www.slideshare.net/pgillin/world-without-media-what-will-fill-the-void-1337289?type=powerpoint

Suggestion For Closet Storytellers

 

Journalism should come out of the closet.

 

No, not that one.

 

The secret of most journalists is that they are closet writers and storytellers. Although hiding in the personas of just-the-facts reporters, they exert a very strong influence over public discourse, turning what should be a recital of facts into a compelling drama.

 

Take the current Swine Flu situation, or, if you prefer, the H1N1 virus situation. After almost a week of conflicting but widely and wildly trumpeted stories in all media, this paragraph in a GlobalPost report by Christine Gorman sums up what is known quite nicely:

 

“The WHO had received notice of 114 cases of human swine flu from seven countries. Officially, eight people have died — seven in Mexico and one in the U.S. The death in the U.S., reported Wednesday, was of a 23-month-old child in Texas.”

 

Other than adding that the toddler who died was visiting from Mexico, those few facts from the World Health Organization cover most of what’s known.

 

But while those are the confirmed facts, they don’t make much of a story. Stories have beginnings that introduce the characters, middle parts that show the characters in conflict, and endings that wrap up all loose threads.

 

Saying eight persons have died from an apparently new variety of a disease that kills 36,000 Americans annually doesn’t generate much drama, so the first question aimed at President Obama at his Wednesday new conference was, according to a Huffington Post transcript:

 

“With the flu outbreak spreading and worsening, can you talk about whether you think it's time to close the border with Mexico and whether -- under what conditions you might consider quarantining, when that might be appropriate?”

 

Ignore that our record on closing the border with Mexico for any reason isn’t stellar. The question isn’t asking for facts, it’s suggesting a plot development and asking for a episode synopsis.

 

That’s necessary for storytelling, and generally follows the plot outline of the 1918 flu epidemic, which is boy meets girl/boy infects girl/boy and girl die. Closing borders and establishing quarantines are dramatic events, and both stories and storytellers need drama.

 

Which is why the core of the common-sense answer from No Drama Obama probably frustrated the storytellers: “But the most important thing right now that public health officials have indicated is that we treat this the same way that we would treat other flu outbreaks, just understanding that, because this is a new strain, we don't yet know how it will respond.”

 

President Obama also noted that a border closing would be “akin to closing the barn door after the horses are out, because we already have cases here in the United States,” and reminded us all to wash our hands, cover our coughs stay home when we’re sick.

 

Good, solid advice, but certainly not as dramatic as repeated use of “pandemic.” Or photos of folks wearing masks, which may not provide much protection but make great visuals. Or governors declaring states of emergency, even if the emergency they have in mind is that their name has been missing for three news cycles.

 

It will be a while before this all shakes out, but until then, here’s a  suggestion that will allow news consumers to know when they’re about to read reporting or storytelling. It’s a simple style change, really. Here’s an example, for a reporting story from the nation’s capitol:

 

WASHINGTON – President Obama etc.

 

The other is for story-telling:

 

ONCE UPON A TIME IN WASHINGTON – President Obama etc.

 

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