Here is the latest essay for your consideration, The Public Journal.

As traditional media companies struggle to hang onto models that have served us well for a very long time, the forces of change are leading us down a path that’s not quite as foggy as it once was. I wrote about it a few months ago in “News is a Process, Not a Finished Product,” and I continue that theme in this essay with a look at how the “journal” in journalism is shifting from the private to the public. This new journal is the product of many voices, all coming together to serve the information moment. It is sometimes raw and sometimes unedited, but mostly it’s the collaborative work of amateurs and professionals alike.

This concept will challenge your assumptions about media in a way, I hope, that will produce a genuine willingness to explore what I view as a pretty clear path to tomorrow. It’s scary, but in an exciting sort of way. The only question is this: will we wait until somebody else figures it all out, or will we pave the way in our own communities and beat everybody else to the punch?

Romenesko offers up the discussion in several places about cursing in newsrooms, and I thought I’d drop in my two cents. It began with a Slate TV Club entry about the latest episode of Wired, HBO’s series about police in Baltimore. This year, the show features the newsroom of the city’s paper, which has gotten a lot of coverage by journalists over whether it fairly depicts actual newsrooms. In this episode, a reporter was taken to task for language in the newsroom, so Slate wondered if anybody had any actual experience with that.

Free speech and all, remember?

When I ran the newsroom for WDEF-TV in Chattanooga in 1988, the cursing was so bad that I put a jar (later dubbed “The Fuck Jar”) on the assignment desk and required staffers to put a quarter in it every time they dropped the F-bomb. We used the funds collected for parties, and it was a source of great fun for all.

Somebody decorated the jar, and I still have it on my desk. It’s a wonderful reminder of the time and the people.

One day, my assignment editor arrived in an especially foul mood and announced she was putting $5 in the jar, so that we all should be prepared. I’ll never forget that. I just spoke with her recently (she’s now a news director), and she said she had calmed down considerably.

So, yes, cursing in the newsroom does sometimes get out of hand, but at least for us in Chattanooga, we got the point while having a little fun, too.

…you require a cellphone hotlink to the Urban Dictionary in order to survive social settings.

Jeff Jarvis has been doing a marvelous job of blogging the World Economic Forum in Davos for everybody, and I encourage you to head over to the Buzzmachine to get caught up. One entry in particular bears embedding here, because it’s a brief interview with Robert Scoble about his live “broadcasts” from the event via cellphone.

Scoble is at the cutting edge of the cutting edge, and those in the professional media world need to pay attention to him and especially the ease with which he makes things like this happen.

Imagine how the ability of “the audience” to interact with the interviewer could impact everything we do. Fascinating.

Here’s a great illustration of different thoughts at the executive level from a Techcrunch post by Michael Arrington of a panel at Davos. The references are NBCU CEO Jeff Zucker and Sony CEO Howard Stringer, and the subject is mobile. It’s priceless:

Zucker lamented the currently fragmented U.S. market, but seems optimistic that they’ll be able to move their merchandise effectively in the future (particularly short form video). He also said revenue splits need to change dramatically - today content creators are offered only 10% of revenue from sales, with the vast majority going to the carrier. Competition and openness will change this, he said.

Stringer was less optimistic, noting, for example, that Chinese customers don’t buy content, just blank CDs. “It won’t be easy to hang onto the price of content” he said, adding a quip: “When you defend the status quo when the quo has lost its status, you’re in trouble.”

Like intransigent mainstream media moguls who are trying desperately to make a Media 1.0 model exist in a Media 2.0 world, Zucker continues to harp about the value of his precious “content.” Stringer seems unnecessarily cynical, but at least he’s got a realistic view of things.

It reminds me of some great wisdom I recently read from the genius that is Ian C. Rogers of Yahoo:

Losers wish for scarcity
Winners leverage scale

The status quo wants to continue playing the scarcity game, and the strategy will lead to its ruin.

Long ago, a mentor of mine taught me about “the currency of ego,” and I want to share some of that with you to make a point about a Nieman Reports essay by Will Bunch — Forgetting Why Reporters Choose the Work They Do. The subtitle summarizes the article: “Will journalists ‘cover local news for life, with no chance of parole?’”

This is an outstanding essay and one that really strikes at the key local media matter of our time — coverage of “local” is really all that local media companies have left. Bunch writes that this is problematic with journalists who see local as a means to an end. He speaks of print journalists, but this also speaks dramatically to local television.

On an emotional level, I’m going on 49 years old, and I have a lot of friends around my age who have survived the surge in newsroom layoffs and are still working in an ink-stained newsroom somewhere. Not one of us wanted to be covering local news at our age (or, for that matter, at any age.) But we’ve been there, done that. To be brutally honest: For an ambitious journalist, the only way to get through a four-hour suburban school board meeting—even at age 22—is to keep repeating the mantra “this, too, shall pass.” In other words, treat this day’s assignment as just a boring but necessary pit stop on the road to Moscow or Beirut…

…I’d say that for the local journalism movement to succeed within the existing newsroom, there’s going to need to be a very different system of rewards to replace the dreams of Beltway punditry or a glamorous foreign beat. In fact, the rewards of the more pointed kind of journalism that blogging allows—the ability to develop a voice and a personality and to connect daily with readers—are considerable.

I tried to address this very thing in 2004 in a post that examined the assertion (by traditional media) that bloggers are in it for the money. I encourage you to read that post, because it speaks directly to what Bunch envisions. His vision has pretty profound ramifications for journalism altogether, all of which I view as good. I’m personally sickened by the farm system we’ve created, one in which budding reporters enter small market shops with one foot out the door. I’m heartened by the rise of personal media that is turning LOCAL citizens into reporters every day.

One of the ways bloggers get paid is through the currency of ego. It’s a form of status that’s recognized within, a feeling of being needed, of having a recognized place in the things of life — a voice, as Bunch calls it. Ego is an interesting part of the human condition, and it drives certain people forward more than even a paycheck.

I was taught about this from a very successful guy who was gifted at getting people to talk with him — to trust him and reveal things that they perhaps ought not to be revealing. He did this by always making the people he was interviewing feel like the most important people around. People left feeling great, although they never really learned much about my friend. He would turn every question about him around, so that the interviewee was talking about themselves. He taught me that there are many different currencies in life, and that ego was even stronger than money.

I had an employee once who was big on pay raises, because his father had taught him that this is how a company shows its appreciation for work done. That may indeed be true, but it limits life’s currencies to only one, but as my friend taught me, there are many more. At some point, they may cross, but the original currencies of journalism, I believe, have more to do with the chase for the story, recognition among peers and the public, the curiosity of how things work, the ability to influence others and make a difference, creative expression and a sense of worth that’s tied to one’s occupation. In a sense, the blogosphere is all this and more, and that’s why I agree so strongly with Bunch that the model for tomorrow is likely within that which is being evolved by bloggers.

As I’ve written many times, media is my life and has always been so. When I first got into the business in 1969, the newsroom was a place for people who found the trade one where a single person could make a different. My first news director was an old newspaper guy named Don Loose at WTMJ-TV in Milwaukee. When I became assignment editor and a member of his management team, he called me into his office and taught me the following:

“Terry, people are motivated in this business by three things: ego, working conditions and money. If somebody asks you for a raise, first ask yourself these questions: Does this person know their value in the newsroom? Am I making him feel valuable and appreciated? If the answers to those is true, then ask yourself this: Does this person’s equipment all work — his recorder, his typewriter? How does he get along with the photographers? Is there enough light at his work station? If the answers to these questions are all positive, then think about giving him the raise.”

When I retired from news management in 1998, 95% percent of the newbies I interviewed had gone to “communications” school, because they “wanted to be on TV.” These are the people who write on the discussion boards, “I just got my first job and want to know what I need to do to get my second?”

I have no problem if that kind of crap goes away permanently, because that’s the kind of ego that’s destroying the industry and something we can all do without.

I’ve said before that tomorrow’s reporters are being trained today in the school of personal media, including the guy or gal who sees drama of the school board personalities, issues and, yes, even the meetings. Life is like that. It sees a void and fills it.

In this case, we created the void ourselves, and I’m excited to be alive as the correction is underway.

(Hat tip Romenesko)

I promised I wouldn’t do this again, but I can’t get this guy out of my head. It’s difficult for me to understand why HBO — or anyone, for that matter — gives the guy a stage. There’s nothing funny about him. He’s not clever. He’s not informed. He’s rude, obnoxious and boorish to the max.

But most of all, he’s ignorant. And this is the irony that is Bill Maher, for throughout his shtick — if that’s what you call it — ignorance is his enemy. As a Liberal (I know he often calls himself a Libertarian, not), Maher represents the worst. If the Democratic Party wants to know why it has difficulty getting conservatives to cross over, it needs to look no further than Maher.

I’ve written previously about his disdain for the South and the way he broad brushes the entire region by ridiculing certain groups of people who live here. He says we’re “a region still dominated by prejudice,” as if his form of prejudice is more righteous. He’s ignorant about this, because he chooses not to examine the truth. He doesn’t live here. He’s unlikely to have spent much time with people here. He doesn’t have a clue about southerners. His “problem” with us is that we don’t all think the way he does, so ridicule is actually a form of self-validation. How convenient.

Last month, Maher staged an Islamic women’s fashion show, wherein he ridiculed the hijab that many Muslim women wear. The audience laughed as the same outfit was paraded across the stage to the self-righteous mockery of Maher in the form of grandiose fashion show prose. Again, this proves his ignorance, because he knows nothing about the customs of the culture and he proved it by using his podium to spread stereotype and prejudice.

Regular readers here know of my daughter and son-in-law. They live and raise their family in Amman, Jordan, and theirs is an amazing love story. I visited them a year ago and used the opportunity to immerse myself in the Arab culture and learn, something Maher — and those of his ilk — would be well-advised to do. I blogged the entire experience, and here’s a part of what I wrote about Muslim women.

She (Jenan) wears the hijab (covering) not only because belief in Islam requires it (although there are many women here who do not), but she also wears it because she wants to wear it, for it honors her husband. The concept of honor is significant here, and it runs both ways.

When I visited my grandson Osama’s school, I asked to take a picture of the woman principal. She asked that I not take her picture, because it might somehow dishonor her husband. This was not a demand or law or requirement. It was her wish, and this is the nature of most of the culture.

Call it tribal, if you wish, but the family unit is everything here. If the families are strong, the culture is strong, and this Islam teaches.

As such, women are supposed to be revered in Islamic culture, and I have seen this with my own eyes. The idea that they are chattel is ancient Arabic and predates Islam. There are bad relationships and spousal abuse here, but this is also true in the West. Waseem and Jenan are very much husband and wife.

Like I said, Maher is an ignorant man.

Last week, he did a bit on the Bible and the Ten Commandments, wherein he essentially stated that we don’t need them anymore. Again, how convenient. In his usual smugness, he made statements that are simply untrue. The book of Exodus doesn’t say, for example, “thou shalt not tell a lie,” but that’s the interpretation Maher required to validate his ridicule, so that’s what he used. And in that sense, he is an ignorant man.

His bio on the HBO website calls him “one of the most politically astute humorists in America today.” The odd thing for me is that I don’t regularly watch his show; I just happen to “pass by” while surfing the channels before bedtime, but every time I do, he’s demonstrated that one man’s astute humorist is another’s fool.

I’m all for humor, but not when it’s based in the ignorant ridicule of those who can’t answer back.

There. I feel better.

I watched with sadness yesterday the developing story of the death of movie star Heath Ledger. I’m a TMZ.com fan, so their RSS feed was extremely useful. At one point, however, they reported that Ledger had died in the apartment of Mary Kate Olsen, which was incorrect. The New York Times’ “City Room” blog also got it wrong, and I’m not sure who got it wrong first (sigh).

Both corrected the mistake and moved on, and I thought to myself, “Boy, we’re going to hear the critics come out of the woodwork on this one.” TMZ took some criticism in its comments, but a piece in the Los Angeles Times poses a fascinating concept about what really happened from a journalistic perspective.

But here’s the problem: Stories have never arrived to the world fully formed or vetted. Journalists have generally had hours — not minutes or seconds — to craft a story from the blast wave of facts and factoids that comes in the wake of a bombshell.

What people are seeing now is an old-fashioned process — reporting — as it unfolds in real time. If the public wants its information as raw and immediate as possible, it’ll have to get used to a few missteps along the way, and maybe even approach breaking stories with a bit of skepticism, like a good reporter would.

So a part of the “process” of news is mistakes, and the ethical question is does it matter in a world of news-as-a-process? I’m not so sure it does, as long as mistakes are corrected — just as, I might add, they are corrected in the newsgathering process in professional newsrooms.

Hmm.

…is when it’s out of context.

Witness the Google Ad row on the header for Pajiba’s review of Doctor Zhivago. Yes, that says “Foot Slave.”

In case you’re wondering, clicking through (I couldn’t help it) leads to a list of ads for thing like “Latina Foot Fetish,” “Free Slave Personals,” and, my favorite, “Kiss My Feet Shoes.” Who knew?

Anybody want to argue about the profit value of gossip and why dignified media companies have joined the other frogs in the pot?

Lookie here at this Broadcasting & Cable header:

“Syndication Ratings: Britney’s Travails Are Mags’ Triumphs — Syndicated Entertainment Magazines Up by Double-Digits. Here’s the meat of the article:

In the week ending Jan. 6, CBS’ Entertainment Tonight had the largest increase of any strip in first run, gaining 26% from the prior week to a 4.4 live-plus-same-day national household average, according to Nielsen Media Research. That includes a 34% ratings jump Friday, Jan. 4, the day news broke that Spears had been hospitalized after a frightening custody stand-off.

…The constant chronicling of Spears’ problems also drove the other magazines up. CBS’ Inside Edition jumped 15% to a 3.1 four-day average. NBC Universal’s Access Hollywood, dropping both New Year’s Eve and New Year’s Day, gained 14% to a 2.5. CBS’ The Insider and Warner Bros.’ Extra both counted all five days, with Insider increasing 11% to a 2.1 and Extra leaping 20% to a 1.8.

So now we know why the AP declared last week that Britney was a big deal.

Veteran journalist Glen Mabie resigned from his position of news director at WEAU-TV in Eau Claire, Wisconsin last week over a disagreement about how his news department would cover medical news and features in the wake of a sponsorship deal with one area hospital. According to the Leader-Telegram, the deal meant that face time for medical expertise would have gone to those affiliated with the sponsoring hospital and nobody else. Mabie quit, saying he couldn’t “with a clear conscience go into that newsroom and tell the staff that this was a good thing.”

I don’t know Glen, but I dealt with this very issue several times as a news director, although the financial problems of the stations weren’t nearly as acute back then as they are today. It was usually a sales account exec “asking” that if we were going to do stories that required medical expertise, could we please use expertise associated with sponsors? I had no problem with that (should we deliberately avoid interviewing sponsors?), but this situation is a little different. It’s being positioned as a done deal, whereas I always had the choice.

News directors are under tremendous pressure these days to help the sales department. Gone are the days when the answer would automatically be “no,” and the reasons for that are complex and many. Refusing to cooperate just because it conflicts with traditional views of “objectivity” is like refusing to bail water when the boat on which you’re riding is sinking. I’m not suggesting that the sales department run the news department, but there are ways to help without actually violating ethical standards.

There will be more stories like this in the months ahead and, sadly, more careers ending with a thud. Perhaps what we ought to do instead is take a real hard look at this wall between news and sales and explore the assumptions that built it in the first place. We’re trying awfully hard, it seems to me, to protect “objectivity,” when the people formerly known as the audience either don’t think we have any or already recognize it for the illusion that it really is. Take a look, for example, at this study from Sacred Heart University and ask yourself (honestly) how far our “objectivity” has gotten us with the people we’re supposed to serve?

“The fact that an astonishing percentage of Americans see biases and partisanship in their mainstream news sources suggests an active and critical consumer of information in the U.S.” stated James Castonguay, Ph.D., associate professor and chair of SHU’s Department of Media Studies & Digital Culture. “The availability of alternative viewpoints and news sources through the Internet no doubt contributes to the increased skepticism about the objectivity of profit-driven news outlets owned by large conglomerates,” he continued.

Along with many others, I’ve been writing for a long about the value of transparency versus the artificiality of the hegemony that currently governs professional journalism. In the Eau Claire case, there would be nothing wrong with the sponsorship arrangement that the station apparently sought, if proper attribution was given to such interviews.

Do we really think the audience cares that we’ve gone to the trouble to find a medical expert with nothing to gain from being on TV? Is there such a thing? And what about interviews arranged by PR people? Is there not a form of currency there?

I think the audience is a lot smarter than we think and that transparency makes amends for great offenses.

(Tip: Romenesko)

Daniel Schorr has a new book and the interviews are beginning. At age 91, Schorr is the oldest, full-time journalist in the business. He writes and broadcasts for NPR now, and his mind is still sharp as ever. If there ever was a “traditional journalist,” it is Daniel Schorr, and he told the Sacramento Bee that he’s glad he’s not any younger.

Q: In the book’s introduction, you talk about adapting from one medium to another, having worked in newspapers, radio and television. I wonder what you think about the changing media landscape today.

A: At my age, I look at it and say, “Boy, I’m glad that’s for other people.” I couldn’t stand what’s going on today (as a reporter). Of course, the changes are partly technological. You no longer have to rely on a great newspaper like the Sacramento Bee or on a television network to get news. You can go on the Web and get anything you need.

And I’ve found that people are now deluged with information. In my day, as a newspaper man, radio man and television man, I had the feeling I was telling people something they wouldn’t otherwise know. That’s no longer true. I’m glad I’m not 20 years younger, because I’d be very discouraged.

…Q: In some commentaries, you touch on the latest journalistic trends, sometimes in not so complimentary a way. Such as blogs and citizen journalism. Is this a form of news gathering that you embrace?

A: I can’t embrace it. Not after what I’ve been through at the hands of the copy editors’ desks. I have suffered many, many arguments about what I’ve wanted to say — whether it was grammatically correct, factually correct and all of that — and I want everybody to have to experience what I experienced. But today, your blogger is totally free. He is his own reporter, his own editor, his own publisher, and he can do whatever he wants.

A person like me who believes in the tradition of a discipline in journalism can only rue the day we’ve arrived at where we don’t need discipline or anything. All you need is a keyboard.

When I read stuff like this, my heart goes out to guys like Schorr, who worked in an era of centralized media power. I have too much respect for him to call him a dinosaur, but the reality is that his ideas are based in a cultural era that is no more. We can wax about how good it was and lament the losses that we feel, but the extent to which it is purely nostalgia does more harm than good.

If the “discipline” of journalism is what needs reviving, it simply won’t happen by driving with our eyes on the rear view mirror. Nostalgia is not revival. Never has been. Never will be.

(ASIDE: If you read the link, take note of the condescending tone of Schorr’s questioner as regards anything new.)

Net Neutrality advocates are cautiously hailing the FCC Commission Chairman’s sudden interest in the cause. Martin said Tuesday that the FCC would act aggressively to ensure that networks are not blocking access to the Internet. Comcast and AT&T have both had complaints about censoring or restricting access to some.

Both Free Press and Public Knowledge urged Martin to follow through on the investigation and enforcement. “Public Knowledge is pleased to see that the chairman and the commission are willing to stand by their principles to protect American consumers,” the group responded Tuesday. “We look forward to FCC proceedings that will determine what are legitimate uses of power by telecom companies and which are not.”

“We are encouraged by the chairman’s statements today about investigating Comcast’s blocking of peer-to-peer traffic,” Free Press said. “We hope the chairman’s statements, made two months after we filed our complaint, will lead to immediate and accelerated action at the FCC on the critical issue of whether Comcast, AT&T and other Internet-service providers can block the services people want to use. The FCC must stop these would-be gatekeepers and fine companies that censor the free flow of information.”

Martin’s position is curious. The FCC is feeling its way around the world of the Web, and would like nothing more than to insert itself in some form of permanent oversight capacity. The question is at what level and how much? Despite a degree of openness in the 700 MHz spectrum auction, many observers didn’t buy the subsequent complaints from the Telcos, because they view Martin as in their pockets. And Martin is a solid supporter and enforcer of the censorship wishes of such staunch conservative groups as the Parents Television Council and others.

So what gives? It’s all politics, folks, and the strange bedfellows it breeds.

Congress is investigating the FCC! Hell just froze over.

Britney Spears. She’s a big deal. Really!

Ratings up for debates! Nothing else to watch.

TV to make a comeback! Um, on what planet?

I’m known! Thanks, Steve.

Here’s the latest essay from my ongoing series of essays Local Media in a Postmodern World.

It’s Not the Same Game

This piece examines changing fundamentals of media in the new world, primarily how mass marketing is increasing problematic when access to the mass is what’s restricted. We’ve all grown up in an industry where value was created by restricting access to content, so what we’re dealing with today is, in many ways, the opposite of what we know.

One important factor to consider when reading my essays is that I don’t approach this stuff as a zero-sum game. New media won’t “replace” the old — at least not for a very long time. Mass marketing will continue, but it would be foolish to assume that it alone — or any variation thereof — can rescue the sagging revenues of local media companies. This is why we must follow a dual path approach, which is the foundational strategic principle of AR&D’s Media 2.0 unit.

Advertiser Perceptions latest survey of 2,047 ad executives (published twice yearly) — as published by Online Media Daily — reveals growing pessimism among ad buyers about traditional forms of advertising. I view this study as significant, because it speaks directly with people who are making decisions about spending money. Note the highlights in red.

Jason Schlosberg’s remarkable video (embedded below) of a herd of water buffalo rescuing a calf from a pride of hungry lions has been viewed on YouTube 23,498,437 times, as of this writing. The “Battle at Kruger” is more than just a wonderful example of the personal media revolution; it’s also a metaphor for the disruption itself.

The lions represent traditional media and marketing (or pick your favorite institution). They’re just doing their thing as kings of the media jungle — setting the information agenda, attacking the public (marketing IS war, right?), and living the life, regardless of the consequences to anybody else. They are, after all, lions!

The visual statement of being backed into a corner by the masses — themselves now equipped to fight back — is a stunning illustration of the uselessness of the mainstream continuing to operate as normal. Like the buffalo, people are now informed, empowered, enabled, connected and involved, and they’re fighting back against the institutions of modernism, which they view as self-serving.

Think again.

The U.K. next year will become the first major economy in which the Internet overtakes television as the No. 1 advertising medium, according to a new forecast from WPP’s GroupM unit. The new prediction follows a report released last month by GroupM, the world’s largest buyer of media, which estimated that the Internet would become the dominant ad medium in Sweden during 2008, and that the U.K and Denmark were “likely to be the next in line.” GroupM now forecasts that the U.K. will likely pass that mark by the end of 2008 when the Internet will account for 24.8% of British ad spending, just behind a projected 26.0% hare for television.

By now, we hope that every media company in the U.S. is paying attention.

Think again.

When I read these things, I always think of the great line from Bob Papper during a conference at Ball State:

“Television didn’t hurt magazines by taking away their readers; they hurt magazines by taking away their advertising.”

In the blue corner, we have Venture Capitalist — and former newspaper editor — Alan Mutter showing us that newspapers have lost 42% of their market value ($23 billion) since 2004, most of that coming last year.

In the red corner, we have reporters and photographers at the Seattle Times Company-owned Central Maine Morning Sentinel “not allowing the newspaper to print their names above articles or in photo captions, hoping to draw attention to the fact that they have not agreed on a contract since the expiration of the previous one in January 2006, and have not received raises since January 2005.”

With respect to the employees in Maine, I suggest they pick another opponent (or give me some of what they’re smoking).