AR&D Reinventing Local Media

Here’s the link to this week’s AR&D Media 2.0 Newsletter. Enjoy.

Here’s another case of oxygen deprivation atop the pedestal of self-importance upon which professional journalism resides. We should all be used to this by now, but these things continue to amaze me.

According to the Columbia Journalism Review, Linda Greenhouse, Supreme Court reporter of The New York Times and described as the “queen bee” of Supreme Court reporters, refused to participate in a panel discussion this week, because C-SPAN cameras were there. Organizers scrambled quickly and forced C-SPAN to leave rather than leave a gaping hole in the panel (but creating a gaping hole in C-SPAN’s programming line-up).

To add to the strangeness of her reaction, Greenhouse did not then demand that the discussion be off the record, only that C-SPAN not film it. Sitting in the front row of the conference room was even an audience member with a press badge. He was not asked to leave.

Ms. Greenhouse explained that she wasn’t aware that TV would be there and added the remarkable statement, “I didn’t want to have to modulate my comments for a national audience.”

Folks, you really have to stop and think about that one. “Modulate my comments?” She didn’t ask reporters to leave, so “modulating comments” wasn’t the issue. What was it then?

“There is a difference,” she went on, “between appearing before a room of 50 or so professors and speaking on national television, as I’m sure you recognize.”

I don’t recognize it. And since when is taking part in a panel discussion “speaking on television?”

I think Ms. Greenhouse was simply afraid of the cameras and made a bad decision. All this crap about national audiences and such just proves that she feels television requires a performance, and she didn’t want to perform. By pitching a fit to hide her fear, she separated herself from the other, equally important panelists and gave her profession another black eye.

It’s no secret that print people don’t understand or like television (think of the poor Orange County Register editor caught picking his nose behind a reporter who was live on KOCE-TV from the newsroom), but this goes beyond that. One of the commenters to the CJR story wrote, “Just another nail in the coffin of the mainstream media,” and I have to agree with that.

While Ms. Greenhouse likely feels justified in her response, the truth is that when journalists separate themselves from others, they do so at the risk of alienation, which is what has happened here. C-SPAN had a right to be there; they were invited. Ms. Greenhouse had a right to refuse to participate, too, but I think she made a terrible mistake and owes the organizers — and C-SPAN — an apology.

I’ve been in and around the news business for 37 years, and I’ve witnessed a lot of changes. None is more fascinating to me than the evolution of sports news, from pure boosterism to the asking of hard questions. It’s like somebody threw a switch somewhere, and all of the sudden “if it bleeds, it leads” applies to sports.

Sports is a visible news niche with considerable public interest, but the relentless pounding of aggregated controversy is casting a pall on the whole thing. What do we expect?

The tainted home run record. Dog fighting and other criminal activity. Referees on the take. This prompted a major overview on ESPN.com today that looked ever so much like the “Big Story” treatment news departments give the latest, huff-puff, breaking news event.

Back in “the day,” the symbiotic relationship between the various professional leagues and the media companies that covered them was evident in the access afforded the press and the positive coverage the teams got in return. The sports segment of the local news was generally (exceptions noted) a non-stop, rah-rah, series of highlights and fun. Sports was supposed to be fun. I mean, they’re “games,” right?

Today, however, it’s a whole different ball game (sorry). Everything is dissected a hundred ways. Gobs of money are involved. In attempts to establish themselves as “the” sports/news authority, companies that used to be content with all that athleticism are now exposing the rancid underbelly of sports-for-money and the bad behavior that’s always been a part of sports. Now, the sports world is fighting back. The NFL has its own channel and doesn’t “need” local media anymore, so they’re limiting access to “their” world by local media photographers and requiring pool photographers to wear vests with ads. This galls the old school, but it’s certainly not surprising, and I think it’s going to get worse.

The professional sports world — which was built on all that nice coverage — now treats the press as a parasite, living off the value that comes with fan interest, the same interest the media companies need for readers and ratings. Teams, players and managers have all learned how to manipulate the sports press, just as politicos do the regular press, and now we have sports reporters doing the Watergate dance, in search of that big story that will launch their careers.

We have to honestly ask ourselves if we don’t really deserve this kind of biteback. You want to see all sports entities become like today’s White House? Just continue treating them like a hostile witness. Maybe that’s what they are. Maybe they “deserve” the magnifying glass. Maybe their houses aren’t in order. Maybe an athlete with self-destructive behavior is more newsworthy than Paris Hilton or Lindsay Lohan. But are they not two sides of the same coin?

Sports is big business, but so is sports media. But one of the problems is the inherent conflict of interest between the sports reporters and big money deals that their companies do to make money off the sports they end up covering. ESPN, for example, has boosted its coverage (and hype) of NASCAR now that they are carrying races. How is it not a conflict of interest when Sportscenter spends a week all smiley talking up the sport? And what happens when those same reporters need to swap the smile for a frown when somebody gets caught with their hand in the cookie jar?

“Sports” has always been a conflict of interest. If the PGA can boast that “these guys are good,” then why isn’t it news when they’re not? As much as I want to see Tiger’s eagle on 17, I also want to see the guy make a 12 on number 8. The PGA wouldn’t like that, though, and there’s that lucrative contract and access to the clubhouse to consider.

I have no grand solution, nor do I necessarily think there needs to be one. It’s just a fascinating thing to watch. I guess if TMZ.com can cover the world of entertainment as serious news, ESPN or HBO or somebody else can do the same with sports. Everybody wins in this game, except the public, who now believes that every politician is corrupt, every man talking to a child is a pedophile, every bush hides a bad guy, every gun is loaded and cocked, every Muslim is a terrorist, every business cares only about profit, every storm is severe, every event has a preventable cause, every tragedy is just waiting for them, and now every athlete — except Peyton Manning, of course — is in it only for the money.

Welcome to the human race (but is that really news?).

Jay Rosen offers an interesting piece over at Press Think called “Why Do We Suck? and Other Questions Political Journalists Asked Themselves at YearlyKos.” With a title like that, it’s gotta be good, right?

It doesn’t disappoint, and it reinforces what I’ve been picking up all over the place — that the awakening of journalists to what’s taking place around them is accelerating. Even two years ago, we would never have heard Big J journalists speaking the way many are today. Jay’s essay is an analysis of YearlyKos, a conference of liberal political bloggers held last week in Chicago.

Michael Scherer of Salon was in Chicago. He wrote about an expected “confrontation between the crusty old mainstream media and the tough and truth-telling blogosphere” that didn’t really happen. (It was a panel with Glenn Greenwald of Salon, Mike Allen of The Politico, Jay Carney of Time and Jill Filipovic of Feministe, overseen by Ari Berman of The Nation.) “At a few points, the crowd tried to get a fight started, by [asking] questions that amounted to “Why do you reporters suck so bad?”

A few years ago he and his peers would have made fun of this. Now? “I can say with authority that a lot of political reporters these days are thinking about it pretty closely.” Imagine that: introspection among journalists along the lines of…Why do we suck so badly?

Like other reporters, I don’t always agree with the criticisms, but I take them seriously. I try to avoid repeating my mistakes and I try to get better with each story. But the attacks on me and other writers signal something much bigger than just my work… Simply put, news is no longer a one-way process. It is now much more of a conversation between journalist and reader. Reporters at major news organizations no longer have the omnipotent authority they once had. The news process, in a word, has been democratized.

Wow. That’s quite an admission from the expensive seats.

It reminded me of an essay I wrote in January of 2004 called “News is a Conversation” that didn’t make me the most popular kid on the block, but its themes and conclusions are reflected above.

The editorial process certainly has its place in world of journalism, and as a recent commenter on my own blog pointed out, bloggers feed off the work of mainstream journalists. There is a symbiotic relationship between the two, and I’m certainly not suggesting one will replace the other. There is, however, a reformation underway, and while nobody knows exactly how it’s going to play out, I think it’ll be good for everybody in the end. Bloggers, who don’t necessarily care, will find validation in the journalism world, and mainstream news people will be forced to stop giving only lip service to interacting with their audiences.

And instead of turning to elite experts to guide us and solve all our problems, we might actually find that the answers we seek are with the people out here pounding the pavement and living the life that those experts only touch from a distance.

Wouldn’t that be something?

The truth that’s being revealed to professional journos is but a small glimpse of what I think is coming, for we are on a road of adventure and creative explosion that will rewrite the rules of contemporary journalism. A good story in the hands of a good storyteller will always draw a crowd, but the notion that all the good storytellers work in professional journalism is clearly coming apart.

And more importantly, the great awakening — as Dan Gillmor so brilliantly stated years ago — that “the readers know more than I do” is reaching places I could only imagine a few years ago.

That means good things for our trade and a bright future indeed.

Cory Bergman at Lost Remote offers an interesting post that he calls “Seattle Web Wars,” something he sees in the wake of the blogger meet-up held last Thursday night at KOMO-TV. In addition to being editor of Lost Remote and a friend, Cory is the head of all things interactive at KING-TV, a competitor of KOMO’s and the 800-pound gorilla in the market.

And so he’s issued a sort of personal challenge and suggests “let the war begin.”

Last night, Terry threw one of his hallmark blogger meetups, and he writes, “We’ve a bunch of other cool things planned with bloggers in the Seattle community, and I’m looking forward to becoming a regular fixture there.” Hmmm, Heaton moving into my backyard? I invite the challenge, and as many of you know, I launched the Seattle blog aggregator Citizen Rain several months ago. I also have a bunch more cool stuff in the pipeline.

In the comments of the post, others take up the meme.

Michael Gay, the head of interactive for Hearst-Argyle and himself a Lost Remote contributor, writes:

“I wonder how long the ad market can support that many local news websites. The good news is, that market is probably so crowded now that the cost of entry to that market is too high for a new news website to get any traction.”

“Rob” adds:

“Sounds like things are popping on the other side of the Cascade Curtain. With all the moves FishComm has been making lately (Adding Terry Heaton to the mix sounds interesting), things should definitely be interesting for KING and KIRO in the near future.”

Steve Boriss of TheFutureOfNews.com takes it a step further:

“What you are witnessing is the beginning of the convergence of all news media onto the Internet. Ultimately, these web sites/blogs will remain, and newspapers, radio broadcasts, and TV transmissions will go away. Which means that today’s newspapers and local TV affiliates will be direct competitors providing completely substitutable products, just one mouseclick away. Welcome to the future of news.”

Steve is right when he says that news is being commoditized, but let’s step back even further.

Online “web wars” between incumbent media players in various markets couldn’t make the internet pureplay companies happier, because we’ll be so preoccupied that we won’t notice their hands in our pockets. The drain of money from our markets to the coffers of outside pureplays IS the greatest challenge to local media companies today.

Television — both from a content and even a sales perspective — at one time was a zero sum game. The market consisted of people with television sets. Ratings determined who “won” and who “lost,” and this is the kind of competition those of us in the news business speak of when we talk about “beating the guy across town.” If we “win” on big stories, the thinking goes, we’ll “win” in other categories as well. Winning helps define brand and makes advertisers happy, too, because the prize for winning is ratings.

Cory uses such an illustration in his piece. His station’s website “beat” the nearest competitor by two minutes on a breaking news story. Is THAT the criteria for a successful web strategy?

Cable came, and the number of competitors increased. We rightly viewed this as market fragmentation, so our strategy never changed. Be first. Be best. Win. Beat the competition.

Throughout all of this, we operated in a world of scarcity, because there were only so many stations doing news and the medium itself was only for the incumbents. It was a closed, one-to-many network in which we operated.

But, as Cory himself says at conferences we’ve attended, “The web isn’t TV.” The web isn’t TV, and our real online competition isn’t the other traditional media companies in town. It isn’t a zero sum game here; it’s a world of abundance where you don’t need an FCC license, cable infrastructure or a printing press to “compete,” and if we think that this is just a game of carving up the market for news and advertising through the ebb and flow of some pecking order, we’re simply deluded.

It isn’t necessarily who has the loudest voice, the greatest reach, or the biggest dick chest here; it’s who has eyes to see the real competition and takes the necessary steps to position his/her company for the future.

So I’m a conscientious objector to Cory’s war, because I think it distracts us from the mission at hand. We need always to practice the principles of good journalism and do the best we possibly can in extending our television brands to every platform available. But we must also realize that we don’t own the web in the same way we “own” the spectrum that provides our scarcity and allows us to scale business through mass marketing.

Sorry, folks, but in my haste to get ready to move (it’s today, ugh!), I forgot to post a link to last week’s newsletter. Here it is. It includes a great piece by Jarvis Coffin, so enjoy.

Bloggers from the Seattle area got together last night in the studios of my client, KOMO-TV. I’ve been involved in many of these, and this was by far the best organized and best attended one of the lot. Some of that’s attributable to the web hip community of Seattle (we invited 800 active bloggers), but I’ve got to tip my hat to Chris Pirillo, the gnome himself, who help coordinate the event.

Chris is a little vertically challenged (hence, the chair), but there’s not a smarter new media guy on the planet, and his reputation in the local web community is as pristine as it is globally. Chris was the consummate master of ceremony (Gnomedex is next week, folks), and Fisher Communications’ Rob Dunlop (the only guy in a suit — no tie, though) was a gracious host and photographer.

One of the things I really enjoy about initial blogger meet-ups at stations is how the station people react to the eclectic blend of personalities before them. Bloggers are, after all, just people, and these kinds of meetings help break down walls and put a face on what most media types view as wannabe journalists. KOMO-TV anchor team of Kathi Goertzen and Eric Chapman mingled, made new friends and promised that they would soon start their own blogs.

We’ve a bunch of other cool things planned with bloggers in the Seattle community, and I’m looking forward to becoming a regular fixture there. Seattle has a rich blend of all sorts of wonderful blogs and a local web that’s second-to-none. It’s an exciting time for new ideas and new thinking in this world we call “new media.”

Max Kalehoff writes in today’s Mediapost Online Spin that he’s overwhelmed by “friends” on various social networking sites.

We’re experiencing friends overload, and it’s a tragedy of the commons. The practice of friending has morphed way beyond the term’s original intention and utility. And that is why I declare friends — at least in the social-networking context — passé.

…Let me be clear: Social networks are very much alive and well, but our traditional, generalized notion of friend is dead. When online friendships begin to scale artificially — such as randomly or via the all-too-easy click of a button — they run the risk of overwhelming us, causing the aggregate value of deeper social-network friendships to erode.

I would add that in trivializing the meaning of the word “friend,” we’re also changing the word’s definition, and this has cultural ramifications beyond what we might think. My 22-year old daughter recently went through a personal trauma and learned that her online “friends” weren’t really friends at all. She won’t use that word lightly again.

When we examine culture, we must always look for unintended consequences and especially those that alter the definition of words that we use to communicate. A young person today reading the Robert Lewis Stevenson quote referenced by Kalehoff (”A friend is a present you give to yourself.”) would view it differently than, say, my mother, and this kind of re-writing of the source code of our culture is more serious than we realize.

Don Lundy, GM of WRTV-TV in Indianapolis wrote this morning to tell me about their slick new website, ToddandTrisha.com. It’s a masterful stroke and a creative use of the web to introduce the station’s new anchor team of Trisha Shepherd and Todd Wallace a month before they go on-the-air. Each anchor has a blog, and they’re responding to comments. There are introductory videos, run via YouTube. Outstanding. Readers are also encouraged to say where they’d like the team to visit as part of a market wide road tour later this month, all of which, one assumes, will be blogged.

Kudos to Don (a blogging GM, BTW) and his entire team.

Anybody with a strong back is welcome at my place this weekend, as I’m moving from my apartment with its trees and squirrels for neighbors to a house a few miles away with trees and squirrels for neighbors. I doubt that I will be blogging at all during the next few days, because before I move, I’m off to Seattle for a blogger meet-up sponsored by a client, KOMO-TV. 184 people have given us their RSVP as of this writing, so it should be a heck of a party. I’ll bring pictures back, and if you live in the Seattle area, please come by and say hello.

A corporate executive called me “cerebral” during a meeting yesterday, which is something you don’t hear every day. The subsequent swelling of my cerebrum made it difficult to get out the door.

And so it goes…