As we bear witness to the steady decline of print media — precipitated by the shift in advertising dollars to new media such as the web (and, defiantly, television), and the fact that print was declared dead by Egon the Ghostbuster back in 1984 — we also get to see the unusual though expected lashing out of the old guard against the new.
Old-hat journalists — their livelihoods threatened — take issue with this new media nonsense. That anyone can leverage the inexpensive tools of authorship into their own mini-media empires seems nonsensical. But it’s not. It’s been proven.
Here are
some examples. So rather than lash out at the up-and-comers, these salty bastards need to pull their heads out of their asses and pay attention.
Part of what I do out there in the world is run a sports website dedicated to the Edmonton Oilers. It was born of a discussion me and my partners had about the state of sports media in Edmonton — there was a lot of glad-handing and backslapping going on in print and on TV, in our estimation, that more or less completely detracted from the stories fans were thirsting for. So
we created a site that we’d hope would gather insightful commentary from the media and bloggers alike. It’s been an interesting and successful experiment thus far, and it brings to light a few different issues about the perception of bloggers, and the shifting role of the media (both mainstream and otherwise).
I blog, therefore I am
Let’s look at the perception of bloggers, then, starting with the mainstream media’s view of them. The MSM sees bloggers as a bunch of amateurs, sitting in their parents’ basements surrounded by pizza boxes, and occasionally conducting WoW raids.
Knee. Fuckin’. Jerk.
For a group of so-called professionals taught to cover all angles of a story, these boys and girls have it all backwards. However, the cognitive dissonance apparent in the MSM perception of bloggers is clear: these guys — wherever the shit they’re writing from, and whatever empty food containers they happen to be surrounded by — are as good or better at gathering and disseminating information to the masses. There is the question of accountability for some of the more outlandish blogs published or claims made by so-called amateur writers. But herein lies the beauty of the internet.
The web isn’t some passive conveyance of information, like a book or a newspaper. It’s inter-fuckin’-active. And I think this is one of the things that blows the minds of old-hat journos. Bloggers, web-based writers, whatever, are held to account in real time all the time by commenters and readers who have at their fingertips the means to fact-check information. Bloggers who make dubious claims are routinely taken to task if their assertions are proven to be unfounded. The interactivity of the web serves as the ultimate Letters to the Editor section of ye olde newspapiers. It’s wicked!
So accountability exists. Not always, but it’s easy to call a blogger on his or her bullshit, and then let the rest of the planet know how wrong they are.
The Jon Stewart Effect
Old-hat journos also like to trot out the notion of access as a key difference between bloggers and journalists. Access gets you interviews with politicians, movie stars, athletes… So that rather than simply speculate or interpret what someone says, a journalist can actually go and ask someone important the question that needs to be clarified or what have you. To me this is an argument between two extremes, let’s say: access and analysis.
What do you have with access? Sound bites. Legitimacy (?). More colour for a story, maybe? Sure. I’ll agree to all those. But does that represent a major difference between the legitimacy of a journalist versus a blogger? Hells no. This isn’t about the specific tools you have at your disposal when crafting a post or a story. This is about how you use those tools. You can have all the quotes in the world from Politician A, and realize when you’re transcribing a recording that the person didn’t actually answer your questions and tell you anything. So what? You had access and you squandered it. Here’s your Pulitzer, big shot.
But take someone like Jon Stewart — who I would argue (and do so without any evidence, like a TRUE BLOGGER) has had the most significant impact on news gathering and reporting in the last decade. Here’s a guy who rarely interviews the subjects of his fake news stories; he jokes, makes fun of people, offers up opinion, and yet is one of the few comedians from whom a siginificant sample size of Americans get their daily news. From a fuckin’ COMEDY SHOW. And his commentary is biting and incisive, and frankly much-needed.
The staid anchor-talking-to-field-reporter-who-talked-to-an-expert formula is done. It’s being lampooned on countless comedy shows. It’s literally a joke. And the comedians lampooning the staid formula have become reliable sources for news and honest commentary, something I think people are thirsting for.
Reshaping the space
This doesn’t mean all journos are out of jobs, or that bloggers are somehow going to render these people completely irrelevant. Journos still have an important place in this particular space, even as it moves online. The smart journos will use their knowledge and access to turn themselves into super-bloggers. At a minimum, they will provide front-line information that other bloggers will draw from to form commentary and opinion. That’s the internet. Record and disseminate. Record and disseminate.
But the means of production have shifted. Enough semi-intelligent people with access to the tools of authorship means that this petty bickering over citizen journos versus professional ones is a moot point. It’s all happening. Right now. So shape up or ship out.
I too think some old school MSM journos are scared of the internet, and here’s why.
1) Their bosses can track their worth to a publication through:
a) how many people are reading their stories
b) how many people are passing those stories along to their contacts through various social tools and bookmarking
c) exactly how much revenue each story is worth (published online).
consequently,
2) It’s possible to be paid based on performance either as a percentage of revenue, or using a “pay-per-pageview” formula instead of being paid by the word. Read – this means they might:
a) get paid less
b) realize they aren’t as good as they thought they were
c) have to start reporting on the stories with the passion and gusto of people who are actually interested in a topic.
and,
3)Access is shifting to and opening up to anyone and everyone who has built up an audience. Negating perhaps the only competitive advantage their perceive to have.
At the moment, MSM journos are in some cases entirely reliant on the publications they write for to disseminate their stories (and their brand) – you might be a little jealous and bitter too if some kid figured out a way to surpass your entire career using free interweb tools and his wit.
I completely get the defensiveness, and I fully agree with every single point you make here. We had an issue like this crop up with a writer who declared that he brought new traffic to the site. A cursory glance at our analytics put him squarely in his place.
The chips on these people’s shoulders are being worn down. I think it’s ultimately a good, if painful, process.
“The MSM sees bloggers as a bunch of amateurs, sitting in their parents’ basements surrounded by pizza boxes, and occasionally conducting WoW raids.”
Indeed. It’s telling to see MSM actors backbiting the blogosphere on one hand, but then scrambling to launch (generally inept) blogs of their own. To take the above metaphor to its inevitable and absurd conclusion, the bloggers = WoW raid planners, and MSM late entries = LEEEEEROYYYYYYY JENKINS!