I’ll be in Chicago (actually, Naperville) next week for a “news leadership summit” produced by the Radio and Television News Directors Foundation and sponsored by the McCormick Foundation. The title of the event is: “Wires and Lights in a Box: Murrow’s Legacy and the Future of Electronic News.” This year is the 50th anniversary of Murrow’s famous “wires and lights in a box” speech, which explains the title of the summit.

Participants are a Who’s Who of broadcast news managers and leaders at both the network and local level. Edward R. Murrow is the patron saint of broadcast news and a powerful figure in broadcasting history, so you can usually expect good attendance when asked to meet in his name.

There’s a session on Murrow’s legacy, one on entertainment versus news, another on ideology/partisanship in the press versus an impartial press, and my panel, “What is the business model of the future?”

Here are the questions we’ll be exploring with my panel:

• What will financial success look like in the future? What is the business model of the future?
• How does the industry address the ethical and credibility concerns raised by the intersection of news content and advertising? Even Murrow had sponsors.
• Will news operations continue to put news and public service over profit? How do news operations serve the public’s right to know and still say in business? Can public service journalism survive?

We’re also going to break into small groups (what would a conference be without small groups?) with the goal, it appears, of coming up with journalistic principles and standards to preserve for the future.

In all, it’s a pretty heady event, and I’m honored to be a participant. This has been my life’s work, and I appreciate the chance to share my thoughts. Besides, I really like to hear myself talk.

I’m always a little nervous, though, when an institution that’s being disrupted gets together to talk about the future. Broadcasting isn’t casting broadly anymore (to borrow a cool phrase from Scott Collins of the LA Times), so there’s a niggling sense that we’re heading for mediasaurus land. It’s natural that we’d turn to each other to try and figure things out, but it might be better to talk with those who are actually doing the disrupting.

I like to use a whale oil industry metaphor. Let’s go back in history to the annual whale oil industry conference, with the industry in the midst of disruption from electricity. Rather than seeing that they’re in the home lighting business, the whale oilers can only see electrical power in ways that will help them either extend the whale oil business or do it more cost-effectively — for example, by creating an electrically-powered harpoon (it cuts the manpower costs significantly, you see). So rather than invest in electricity for home lighting, they press forward to protect the bottom line. Nice, huh?

I’ll blog as much as I can from Naperville, and if you’re going to be there, I look forward to saying hello.

I’m coming up for air from a few days of writer’s block, and I think it’s because there’s just so much to write about these days. The moment I start concentrating in one area, something even more compelling pops up. The bane of bloggers isn’t a lack of things to say; it’s having too much to say.

So I’m just going to go through some things quickly, beginning with the networks getting together to offer a video-on-demand service that encourages people to not use TiVo. The point? They want those same people to watch the ads! Call me a nut, but this is too little, too late.

The business of The New York Times offering an API for its content is intriguing and smart. I hope it sends a message to other companies, and while I fully endorse the concept, it’s still about keeping users inside the walls of The Times. We’ll see.

One of the brightest minds in media, Jack Myers, took a shot at media company ownership this week in his Media Business Report. I’ve been saying this kind of thing for a long time, but Myers is above my pay grade, so his commentary carries significant weight.

…most executives remain committed to outdated and dangerous mass-media-dependent economic models. Media companies today - even the largest digital media companies - are in danger of following the railroad industry model and becoming Industrial Age mass distribution vehicles rather than Relationship Age™ interactive brand and human connectors.

Nice, and absolutely spot-on.

The L.A. Times painted a chilling picture of the future of television in an article called Broadcast Networks Under Siege that examines the shocking ratings’ declines in May.

Broadcasting, simply put, isn’t casting broadly anymore. As the sweep suggests, the TV networks are losing not just their viewers but also their sense of specialness. They’re becoming just the lowest numbers on the multichannel dial, rather than the last outposts of mass culture. It’s true that this evolution has been happening for years, but this year a tipping point was reached, a Rubicon crossed. Broadcast exceptionalism — its supposed immunity from the market forces afflicting all other media — is finally dead.

Right, and the problem is that tipping point is, while acknowledged, problematic in terms of reacting, because we’re deep into a cycle of expense reduction. Broadcasting still makes a lot of money ($70 billion last year?), and more eyes are focused on salvaging that than actually responding to technology and changing consumer behavior. It’s a tough place to be.

Finally, there’s this gem from Robert Lichter in the American Journalism Review:

“I think there’s a feeling that journalists have overstepped their boundaries,” he says. “People don’t look on [journalists] the way journalists like to view themselves – as the public’s tribune, speaking truth to power, standing up for the little guy. They don’t look like the little guy anymore. They’re part of the celebrity culture.” Increasingly, he says, “people like the news but hate the news media.”

Go read the whole article by Paul Fahri. It’s filled with lots of good stuff that I’d love to comment about. However, I’ve got this writer’s block, see?

So YouTube has announced the hiring of a news manager and the launch of a citizen journalism channel. Don’t be fooled by the raw nature of this, folks, because you may be looking at not only future hires in your community but also future styles in presenting video news. This is an unorganized group with YouTube (Google) playing its typical support and distribution role in sidestepping traditional media companies to present a form of journalism that most professionals deem far beneath them.

The news manager is no novice when it comes to citizen journalism. Olivia Ma recently graduated from Harvard and was a regular contributor to Dan Gillmor’s Center for Citizen Media blog.

Gillmor, author of what is widely considered the original manifesto of the citizen journalism movement, We, the Media, told me via email this morning that the YouTube project is another worthwhile experiment, and “I’m looking forward to seeing how it works.”

“But as they monetize this,” he added, “I hope they’re going to find a way to reward the people who are doing the work. I’m not a fan of business models that say ‘You do all the work and we’ll take all the money, thank you very much.’ I also hope they’ll give people a way to post using Creative Commons licenses, which are all about sharing information, as opposed to the currently restrictive terms of service.”

I agree with Dan on the above, and his message is relevant for all media companies trying to “monetize” user-generated content.

But beyond that, this move by YouTube demands our attention for its assumption that anybody can “do news” and distribute their work for free. The pamphleteers of journalism’s past would’ve loved it.

(Originally posted in AR&D’s Media 2.0 Intel newsletter)

One of the great things about the Web is the immediate access to knowledge and information, something about which I’ve written here often. All of the institutions of colonial modernism are under attack, in part, because their place in the culture — their authority, if you will — is granted by access to protected knowledge. This culture clash is uncomfortable for those whose position is being picked apart, and so they’re fighting back with arguments that are often specious, at best.

One such argument has been thoroughly dissected here, that of terrified elitist Andrew Keen and his assertion that amateurs will surely destroy the world. This meme — this attack on everyday people with access to knowledge — has been picked up by others with something to lose in the culture clash and is now rather widespread among all elites.

And it’s absolutely wonderful to find the occasional person who kicks back against this crap, and I was introduced to a spectacular example today in the form of Mike Caulfield, his blog and an entry titled If a Columnist Calls a Tail a Leg…

In this outstanding piece of work, Caulfield elegantly deconstructs a Keenish form of argument by Monica Hesse in, of all places, The Washington Post. Her column is provocatively called “Truth: Can You Handle It?” She attacks what she pejoratively calls the “wiki-world” and uses what she feels is a false quote attributed to Abraham Lincoln to make her point.

Unfortunately for Ms. Hesse, HER Lincoln reference is the one that’s wrong (Oops!), and Caulfield’s legwork on the matter is worthy of any journalism award.

Go read the whole thing. You’ll thank me later on.

In a Vanity Fair article, Buzz Bissinger explains his tirade (tirade here) last week on HBO’s Costas Now against Deadspin blogger Will Leitch. Bissinger later apologized, not for his feelings but for the manner in which he expressed them. It was a classy move.

But the Costas segment was a stunning illustration of the real angst between mainstream sports writers and the sports blogosphere, which is increasingly setting the agenda for all sports reporting these days. As a guy who’s been following this for a long time, I found it painful to watch Bissinger make a fool of himself, and I felt equally uncomfortable watching Costas try and defend the status quo. Both are incredibly smart guys, but they’re blinded by their own perspective.

Costas referred to sports writers with “real credentials and real access.” The comment was obviously meant to separate “real” sports writers from (unreal) bloggers, and this doesn’t get anybody anywhere.

He also referred to the “legitimate complaint” about the sports blogosphere, namely the tone of gratuitous potshots and criticisms. Both Bissinger and Costas used quotes from commenters to make their case, which caused Leitch to note that, “surely we can differentiate between the blogger and the commenters.”

As I’ve written in the past, sports journalism has changed dramatically since Watergate brought to the surface the form of journalism known as “gotcha.” It has gone from entirely cheerleading to some excellent and insightful work by serious writers, be they mainstream or other. There’s still the sense, though, that access to athletes is a gift granted by their owners (yes, they are “owned”), and that this can be a significant conflict of interest, especially when such access crosses from professional to personal. Professional sports leagues are going out of their way to restrict access, because they want to control their message, and the extent to which the mainstream press is forced to go along with this is sad.

One of the very definitions of “news” goes like this: dog bites man, not news; man bites dog, news. So the norm is not news, and therefore when athletes perform according to their gifts and expectations, it doesn’t fit the definition of news. The exceptional athlete — Tiger Woods, for example — is certainly newsworthy, but the PGA’s slogan is “These Guys Are Good.” In that light, a “good” performance isn’t news, but a bad performance is. Yet we rarely see stories when “these guys are bad.”

Hell, show me, shot-by-shot, the 15 that John Daly scored on number 9, because that’s news.

So there is a symbiotic relationship between sports and sports writers, and that’s okay. But that isn’t the only form of sports journalism, for the output of this symbiotic relationship is fair game for observers (and fans), because both (the sport and the pro writer) are on the same pedestal. News about the news is one of the hallmarks of the blogosphere, and it may make the mainstream press uncomfortable, but it is every bit as much “journalism” as that which is published by the pros.

Moreover, I most disagree with the assertion by blogosphere critics (such as Bissinger and Costas) that bloggers are a part of any real or perceived “dumbing down” of the information stream. Any time I hear that, I’m immediately drawn to the Lippmannesque reasonings of colonial thinking, that culture must have an elite class to lead the ignorant and emotionally-driven masses. That is insulting and just plain wrong. The voices from the mass may seem crude to the pedestal dwellers of the culture, but those voices count as much as anyone’s.

The Senate, with the full blessing of our two Democratic candidates, is about to put the skids on the FCC’s decision to loosen cross-ownership rules, whereby media companies can own both a television station and a newspaper in the same market. Damn those big media people, huh? They want to control the voices in our communities, so we can’t let them narrow choices “for the American people.” Word.

Given the realities of the current media conundrum, however, this strikes me as a bit like waving off the RMS Carpathia on its journey to rescue the survivors of the Titanic. I mean, really, folks; who cares if big media is owned by one person? It’s all drifting slowly into the sands of yesterday anyway.

The issue is over independent and varied voices, which is a BIG part of the disruption in the first place.

Odd that I find myself actually siding with Kevin Martin.

Here is the next in the ongoing series of essays “Local Media in a Postmodern World,” A Reasonable View of Tomorrow.

Media companies continue to reduce expenses in the wake of falling revenues, forcing newsroom restructuring on a fairly regular basis. Where this will end is anybody’s guess, and while some of it must be blamed on the economy, we all know that disruptive technologies and changing consumer behaviors are the biggest factors. I’ve felt for years that a likely future scenario is the rise of independent journalists who sell their output to local and other media outlets, and this essay expands that thinking. It features an interview with Gabe Rivera, creator of Techmeme, a remarkable aggregator of the tech media space. Techmeme is a perfect example of how the niche content of independent journalists could be brought together in one place to form an immediate understanding of what’s important, although the scale isn’t there yet to accomplish it at the local level.

There also doesn’t exist a definitive revenue model for such a scenario. Money. however, doesn’t always flow where we want it to flow, and its flow isn’t very predictable in a time of change. Of more importance, to me, is where is journalism headed, because money has a way of following eyeballs. The tools exist for anybody to be a publisher today, and this is the underlying reality that we cannot escape.

The first volume of this essay series is now available in book form (Reinventing Local Media), and you can find it at Amazon.com.

Steve Boriss offers insight into the roots of “professional journalism” in a Pajamas Media piece called “News Should Be Neither Fair Nor Balanced.”

Thomas Jefferson sought to establish a nation that featured maximum free expression, with a public allowed to think for themselves and their collective wisdom valued as “the consent of the governed.” He wanted newspapers to support this system by dispersing information and engaging in a process of opinion-driven “attack and defense” — in his view, this was the best and only way to get to the truth, deal with unknowns and unknowables, and absorb the personal preferences of a free people. Jefferson put his money where his mouth was. When his rival, Alexander Hamilton, helped found a newspaper to promote federalist ideas, Jefferson co-founded with James Madison a tremendously unfair and imbalanced newspaper to attack it. In case you missed it, this means that Thomas Jefferson did not believe in fair and balanced news either.

Boriss also looks at one of my favorite topics, the Creel Committee and provides an outstanding comment about the fruit of committee member Walter Lippmann, the father of professional journalism.

His proposed remedy has become our journalism of today — a rough-and-tumble craft that now falsely presents itself as a scientific profession, claiming to deliver singular truths using objective methods backed by a process of verification. Fairness? Balance? What do they have to do with it? Why settle for that when journalism elites can deliver something even better — true, correct answers in all matters of public policy?

It’s great to see other observers writing about these things, because they’re important at a time when we’re all trying to figure out what to do and where to go next. Journalism is a trade best practiced by passionate writers who wish to use their gifts to make a difference and advance the culture on behalf of everybody. Facts need no protecting, so argument should be one of its roots, for what good is knowledge based on experience, education or, yes, opinion, if one is unable to express it? As Jeff Jarvis has been writing lately, the contemporary press functions largely as a single entity — what he’s calling the “press-sphere” — and I certainly don’t believe that was ever the intention or view of the people who wrote the First Amendment.

As I read Steve’s essay, I couldn’t help but think that we wouldn’t be having this conversation, if the financial stress on mainstream media wasn’t as acute as it is today. And since I honestly believe the discussion is overdue, I have to view what’s taking place as a “correction” of some sort. Life is like that. It has a way of bringing things back to the source, when excess moves them away.

Walter Lippmann genuinely felt that the “mass” of people in our culture was prone to myth and superstition, and he wanted to do something about it. An educated elite who would lead, he believed, was the way to go. Perhaps he was right, but his solution has proven to a disaster, because it turns out that even educated elites are in it for themselves.

The New York Times sued the government to get 8,000 pages of documents that prove those retired generals who function as expert analysts for network news programs and beyond are, in fact, pawns of the government! Oh no! The “hidden hand of the Pentagon,” they’re called. While most news organizations are falling all over themselves with this juicy piece of news manipulation, my initial reaction is, “Move along. There’s nothing to see here.”

Having just finished George Creel’s 1920 book, How We Advertised America: The First Telling Of The Amazing Story Of The Committee On Public Information That Carried The Gospel Of Americanism To Every Corner Of The Globe, the idea that the Pentagon would brief retired generals on what to say is hardly a bulletin. It’s been taking place for 100 years (and probably longer). And, of course, the press has no right to object, because it has been a willing participant for decades. As I have tried to communicate on many occasions, the father of professional journalism, Walter Lippmann, and the father of professional public relations, Edward Bernays, were both members of the Creel Committee.

Perhaps this “revelation” by The Times will be a good thing, but until the press accepts its duplicitous role beyond such currently unpopular themes as the Iraq war, it’s not going to mean much, for the “hidden hand” of the cultural elite includes the press.

Three years ago, I was a part of a research project in the Northwest that included discussions with young people who didn’t participate in the local news scene. Jay Rosen would call them “the people formerly known as the audience.” In one question, we asked people 18-49 to agree or disagree with this statement: “I don’t mind reporters with a bias, as long as they’re honest in telling me what it is.” Nearly six in ten agreed with the statement, and that seemed to surprise everybody.

The response isn’t surprising, however, from a postmodern worldview, because pomos tend to make decisions of trust based on their own experiences, so the concept of “objectivity” is seen as poppycock. There is no such thing as a lack of bias. From a larger perspective, the mistrust of institutional power is based in a fundamental belief that such institutions exist first to serve themselves, and claims that justify a special position within the culture are viewed as disingenuous, to be kind.

So it’s not surprising to find similar thoughts expressed in a new study by the Associated Press Managing Editors group and the Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute at the University of Missouri. The Online Journalism Credibility Study found an unfamiliar disconnect between journalists and consumers.

Some 70 percent of editors surveyed said requiring commenters to disclose their identities would support good journalism, while only 45 percent of the public did. Similarly, 58 percent of editors said letting journalists join online conversations and give personal views would harm journalism, but only 36 percent of the public agreed.

Expressions of personal views seem to help boost readers’ interest and trust in Web sites, said John `Bart” Bartosek, editor of The Palm Beach Post in West Palm Beach, Fla., and chairman of the credibility committee for the AP managing editors group.

“That’s contrary to most of the traditions we’ve all grown up with, to keep our opinions, viewpoints and personal lives out of our story,” Bartosek said. “There’s some indication that readers are looking for something more online. Whether it’s information about our expertise, our knowledge, our background, I’m not really sure.”

People want to trust journalists, but it’s hard to trust somebody whose best argument is “just trust me.” The more we try to separate ourselves from the people formerly known as the audience, the harder it’s going to be to build credibility. Journalists are people, too, although many certainly don’t act like it.

The message from the people is pretty clear: just be real.

A noteworthy piece in the New York Times by Brian Stelter outlines beautifully a postmodern perspective on “the news” and brings a little clarity to the matter of how young people stay informed. It will give modernist, top-down professional news people heartburn.

According to interviews and recent surveys, younger voters tend to be not just consumers of news and current events but conduits as well — sending out e-mailed links and videos to friends and their social networks. And in turn, they rely on friends and online connections for news to come to them. In essence, they are replacing the professional filter — reading The Washington Post, clicking on CNN.com — with a social one.

“There are lots of times where I’ll read an interesting story online and send the U.R.L. to 10 friends,” said Lauren Wolfe, 25, the president of College Democrats of America. “I’d rather read an e-mail from a friend with an attached story than search through a newspaper to find the story.”

While Stelter’s article deals with political information, I would argue that this is taking place across all information niches, because in a postmodern, postcolonial culture, trust is with one’s tribe, not institutional expertise. So why shouldn’t we expect Bill to email his friends when he finds something of interest? It’s word-of-mouth gone-to-seed.

Young people also identify online discussions with friends and videos as important sources of election information. The habits suggest that younger readers find themselves going straight to the source, bypassing the context and analysis that seasoned journalists provide.

Stelter quotes Jane Buckingham of the market research company Intelligence Group recalling a student in a focus group who said, “If the news is that important, it will find me.”

This is a great mantra for the traditional news industry to adopt, because it flips the news mission from putting the word out via “distribution” channels to the active pursuit of “finding” people like the student referenced above. You can’t “find” anybody by insisting them come to you. Old meet new.

(Thanks, Jeff)

Eric Alterman has written an excellent piece for The New Yorker that gives me a chance to remind people of the core of my philosophy: that the real disruption that’s taking place in our world today is the empowerment of people through technology. This is so profound that it will impact every institution of “modern” humankind, and first up is how we communicate with each other, a.k.a. “the media.”

Called “Out of Print, The death and life of the American newspaper,” Alterman brilliantly goes back to the source of “professional” journalism and the social engineering of my old pal, Walter Lippmann. Here’s a sample:

Lippmann likened the average American—or “outsider,” as he tellingly named him—to a “deaf spectator in the back row” at a sporting event: “He does not know what is happening, why it is happening, what ought to happen,” and “he lives in a world which he cannot see, does not understand and is unable to direct.”

…Lippmann’s preferred solution was, in essence, to junk democracy entirely. He justified this by arguing that the results were what mattered. Even “if there were a prospect” that people could become sufficiently well-informed to govern themselves wisely, he wrote, “it is extremely doubtful whether many of us would wish to be bothered.”

…in one of the oddest formulations of his long career, Lippmann proposed the creation of “intelligence bureaus,” which would be given access to all the information they needed to judge the government’s actions without concerning themselves much with democratic preferences or public debate. Just what, if any, role the public would play in this process Lippmann never explained.

Alterman brings into play John Dewey, who made it his calling to “debate” Lippmann’s positions. Dewey would love today’s blogosphere.

Dewey did not dispute Lippmann’s contention regarding journalism’s flaws or the public’s vulnerability to manipulation. But Dewey thought that Lippmann’s cure was worse than the disease. While Lippmann viewed public opinion as little more than the sum of the views of each individual, much like a poll, Dewey saw it more like a focus group. The foundation of democracy to Dewey was less information than conversation.

…Dewey also criticized Lippmann’s trust in knowledge-based élites. “A class of experts is inevitably so removed from common interests as to become a class with private interests and private knowledge,” he argued. “The man who wears the shoe knows best that it pinches and where it pinches, even if the expert shoemaker is the best judge of how the trouble is to be remedied.”

As I have been writing for years, Lippmann is the “father of professional journalism,” and the apple never falls very far from the tree. And so we’ve had decades of an elitist press getting all comfy with the power brokers of the culture — in fact, becoming the NEW power brokers — and it is against this that the people of the culture are objecting.

I mean who wants to be treated like a herd of dumb cattle, a la Lippmann? And worse, Lippmann’s elite gets its status, in part, from money earned by the relentless carpet bombing of the herd with unwanted ad messages. Does anybody really have a problem understanding the revolt? This is the energy that drives J. D. Lasica’s “personal media revolution.”

Contemporary journalism MUST honestly deal with this issue or face certain extinction.

So Dow Jones is leaving the Associated Press. This is a very big deal, folks, and I think it’s fair to examine the assumption of the “co-op’s” value proposition in light of disruptive technologies. While the AP began as a cooperative, it has evolved over the years to that of a monopoly, and one that can exercise complete control over pricing. You want the “service,” you pay for it, whether you can afford it or not. This is reflected in AP Chief Revenue Officer Tom Brettingen’s reaction to the Dow Jones decision.

“We did not believe we were being adequately compensated for the use of our content on DJ Newswires,” Brettingen said in a statement. “We weren’t able to resolve that with DJ, so we’re going our separate ways.”

I love it. “Our” content. If the AP paid members for that content, it would be easier to justify such a statement. That’s not the case, however. AP members contribute the content and then pay stiff fees to get in on the aggregation of everybody else’s. Regardless of the shade of your rose-colored glasses, the reality is that it is very much a one-way street.

So the question for media companies is whether the service is really necessary anymore. DJ has decided to go with the French news service Agence France-Presse, but the bigger issue remains — what will the AP do when “members” begin searching out a less-expensive, less dictatorial system?

A wire service is a middle man in the news business, assembling items from members and passing various feeds back to those members. This is the spirit of a cooperative, but there are two problems with this for the group. One, the Internet makes assembling items into a feed ridiculously easy, so the cooperative simply can’t make the case that costs keep escalating. Two, newspapers are especially well-position to go their own way, because they’ve been working together with the Yahoo! consortium and other cooperatives for many months in an attempt to shift their business model to one that’s more web-centric.

The AP has recognized that shift, but rather than use its resources to help the industry, it’s used the occasion to charge more for “different” uses of the same material.

Believe me, it isn’t cheap to be an AP “member,” and at a time of industry-wide expense reduction, one wonders how long that money can be justified. And anytime the AP decides to create a new feed from its content pool — niches, for example — the price goes way up, period. The AP argues that it’s cheaper to pay them than to organize such content for yourself, but that value proposition is, frankly, on-the-table.

Meanwhile, the AP continues to go where the dollars are. They just hired 21 new staffers to bolster their entertainment news offerings, knowing that media companies covet this content. That feed, I promise you, will cost plenty. The problem in this niche, for the AP, is that the existing sources of entertainment news don’t give a rip about being a part of the cooperative, so the AP has to have its own staff to keep up.

And that reflects the real problem for the AP overall: sources of news content aren’t scarce anymore, and machines — like Google News — are taking the place of editors required to assemble all that content and spit it out.

Like everything else in the world of media, the nature of the wire service is being disrupted by technology. Just because the world of journalism once required wire services to organize and distribute news from faraway lands doesn’t necessarily mean that it does today.

Moreover, the real battle that media companies face is local, and with consumers able to tap other sources for regional, national and global news, the value of that content to local media companies is declining rapidly.

These are tough times that call for asking hard questions.

Dow Jones is just the beginning.

Broadcasting & Cable reports on the Project for Excellence in Journalism’s fifth annual State of the News Media report due out tomorrow and quotes one of the conclusions:

News consumption has become continual, with news morphing from a “finished” product — a newspaper, a newscast, even a Web site — to a service that helps consumers “find what they are looking for [and] react to it.”

Please refer to News is a Process, Not a Finished Product by yours truly, published last fall.

I’ll bet I don’t get quoted in the report.

So Newsweek has a story this week titled “The Myth of Objectivity.” A few days ago, the New York Times ran a piece called, “The Rise of the ‘Citizen Paparazzi’.”

I love these kinds of articles, because they all sound vaguely familiar — as in my 2003 essays “The Rise of the Independent Video Journalist” and “Argument Versus Objectivity,” both of which were doubtless poo-pooed by the mainstreamers who published the stories this week.

Who knew?

In one week, we’ve had two “studies” telling us different things about where Americans get their news.

In a report from Magid and Hearst-Argyle, most people choose local TV news. The study made mouths water and lips smack as a chorus of “we told you so” rang from the board rooms of various local broadcast companies.

Not only is local TV news content the biggest audience draw for news and information on-air and on digital platforms – it is also the most effective video advertising platform, according to new research results…

But a second report, this one from Zogby International, reveals that the Internet is the top source of news for nearly half of Americans. Two thirds, the survey found, are dissatisfied with the quality of journalism, calling it “out of touch.”

So who do you believe? Both can’t be right. The truth is neither is right. The Magid study is of 2,700 viewers of local news. Of course, they’d say that local news is their top choice. The Zogby study is of 1979 adults on the Web. Of course, they’d say the Web is their top source for news.

We badly need research in this area, but we shouldn’t pay any attention whatsoever to studies like these, because research is all about the source.

Minds much better than mine have examined this whole business with the New York Times and their allegations of hanky-panky involving Senator McCain and a female lobbyist. Jay Rosen brilliantly dissected the whole thing, and Jeff Jarvis expressed astonishment over Times Executive Editor Bill Keller being surprised at the negative reaction to the story.

I only wish to add a comment about the public reaction to the story that Keller finds so surprising.

The Modern Era is giving way to the Postmodern Era in Western culture. A foundational element of postmodernism is a practice called deconstruction, the systematic (or not) taking apart of an argument to examine its roots, many of which are assumptions based on the life and times of the author of the argument. This practice is facilitated — in fact, actually forced — by the structure of the World Wide Web, with its associated links to source documentation. If John Smith writes that the water in Lake Whatever is polluted, we ought to be able to determine why he thinks that by examining not only the lake but also John Smith and his background. We don’t have to take John’s word for it.

This concept of relentless deconstruction is a disaster for modern institutions built on “facts” of history and maintained by hierarchical systems of rule, order and especially tradition, for each — deconstructionists teach — is subject to examinations that reveal the subjective nature of humankind and its decisions, big and small.

It is in this light that I wish to state the argument that Bill Keller — and many, if not most people in such positions within the institution of modernist journalism — continue to function as if their access to knowledge is unique and justifies conclusions that can be used to manipulate culture, whether deliberately or otherwise. So deep is this belief, that Keller expresses shock when the Times’ conclusions are challenged.

The problem is that the public now has access to enough information — in most cases — to make up its own mind about issues and events, their causes and results. Moreover, the public now has enough knowledge to rightly question the assumptions and history that shape even the day-to-day decisions of the press, and with that knowledge, they also increasingly have the ability to make up their own minds. This will never return to the way it was, and in fact, will increasingly impact the culture as a whole.

So to me, Keller’s “surprise” is legitimate, but it’s based in the confusion of the era, especially for modernist, institutional thinkers. The public is a lot smarter and better informed than anybody in media gives them credit for being, and they are armed with simple tools to do their own investigating. And every time the curtain is pulled back on the editorial decision-making process within the institutional press, it gets easier and easier to find the natural biases and influences that drive the information gatekeepers of the culture.

So deconstructionism isn’t limited to a handful of far-out academic intellectuals in ivory towers; it’s being practiced every day at the ground level, and that has profound ramifications for the culture as a whole.

Romenesko: “In a blog post, Alan Mutter wondered if it’s time for newspapers to edit out some editors, then asked his readers how many editors they believe it takes to vet a story. Of the more than 400 respondents to his survey, 55.2% favored two editors per story, 21.9% advocated three or more editors per story, 20.4% said a single editor was sufficient and a mere 2.5% said reporters didn’t need anyone looking over their shoulders.”

Um, who knew? Alan’s read by editors and journalists who want to be editors. Kinda like asking lawyers if there’s a need for judges.

Mike Allen wrote in The Politico this week that he doesn’t vote, because he’s a journalist.

I’m part of a minority school of thought among journalists that we owe it to the people we cover, and to our readers, to remain agnostic about elections, even in private. I figure that if the news media serve as an (imperfect) umpire, neither team wants us taking a few swings.

Where in the world do people get the idea that we’re “umpires,” imperfect or not? Umpires? Good grief! He quotes Leonard Downie Jr., executive editor of The Washington Post:

“I decided to stop voting when I became the ultimate gatekeeper for what is published in the newspaper. I wanted to keep a completely open mind about everything we covered and not make a decision, even in my own mind or the privacy of the voting booth, about who should be president or mayor, for example.”

This caught my attention, because the firing of Chez Pazienza by CNN follows this line of thinking. Many, many people have commented on Chez’s blog, and here’s the reasoning of one:

I’m sure he knows deep down as a professional–if he attended journalism school–that he couldn’t be writing what he was writing and be in the news business.

So let’s take a step waaaaaaay back and examine this position of neutrality vis-à-vis the news business, something I have done many times here and in my essays. If there exists in the mind of collective America the idea that the press should be “neutral,” it is there because we put it there. This idea is not and was not a part of the First Amendment; it grew out of largely economic necessity — the creation of a sterile environment within which to sell advertising. Moreover, it is the social engineering centerpiece of Walter Lippmann (the “father” of professional journalism), Edward Bernays (the “father” of professional public relations) and other members of the Creel Committee formed under Woodrow Wilson as a way to convince the public that the U.S. needed to be in World War I.

I hate to be so bloody cynical, but the objectivity concept is crap, and we owe it to ourselves and our trade to let it go. Why? Because it’s impossible, it is used by special interests to mold culture, the public doesn’t believe the holiness of the calling, and it’s turned our political process into predictable mush. Read Chris Lasch, for crying out loud. Investigate the Creel Committee and the writings of Lippmann and Bernays.

I’ve no clue how we get from where we are now to a more ardent and involved press, but the blogosphere seems to have taken up the call. I will say that firing writers like Chez Pazienza isn’t the path.

In Mr. Allen’s column, it’s pretty clear that one of the reasons some journalists don’t vote is that it would make their jobs harder in the halls of power if people knew they batted for one team over the other. The poor political reporters need to protect their sources, right? (”They like me. They really, really like me.” Jim Carrey in “The Mask.”)

When will we find the courage to point the light of our own brilliance back onto ourselves?

Let’s file this one under unreal.

Chez Pazienza, a producer at CNN assigned to American Morning, was unceremoniously fired from his job today — without severance — over the content of his popular and edgy blog, Deus Ex Malcontent (warning: adult language). He had worked for CNN for four years, beginning as a Senior Producer in Atlanta. Chez is a member of my tribe and a friend, and I’m not happy about this turn of events.

According to Chez, he was terminated for violating network policy by not running what he was writing through their vetting system. So he was fired not for blogging but for the content of his blog. “It’s not that I’ve been writing,” he wrote in an email. “It’s WHAT I’ve been writing.” That may be the official decision, but the truth is he was fired because he had the balls to write about the industry without telling CNN. I would add that there is no mention of his connection to the network on his site, and as a producer, it’s hard to justify the notion that he’s in any way a public figure or publicly connected with the company.

What Chez Pazienza is is a damned fine writer and an even better observer and commentator on life. So spot on is the guy that he’s been “discovered” by sites like Fark, Pajiba and the Huffington Post, where he was recently brought on as a guest commentator. The guy is a brilliant new media writer, and CNN’s position is that it’s in their best interests to fire the guy. Go figure. What they should have done is find a place for that sensational talent.

Chez told me he knew that this day was possible, because he was determined to be true to himself, his history, his observations and his craft. Frankly, our industry needs more people like this and a few less of the people who fired him. What’s WRONG with us?

I feel bad for Chez, but I think this will turn out to be a blessing. I know that’s hard for him to see, because he and his wife are alone now in New York with a baby on the way and with only Jayne providing income. This is one extremely talented, albeit angry man, and I can hear the sound of doors opening elsewhere.