I thank Emily for her critique of “Confidence Game.” Alysia Santo is pulling together other responses, and I’ll get to those later.
Emily and I agree on a lot, so I’ll get straight to the main point of disagreement.
I say:
The cruel truth of the emerging networked news environment is that reporters are as disempowered as they have ever been, writing more often, under more pressure, with less autonomy, about more trivial things, than under the previous monopolistic regime.
Emily says:
The suggestion that the Internet has “disempowered” journalists is just not true. In a global context it is willfully wrong. But even in the narrow context of journalism in the US, to say that individual journalists are disempowered by a medium that allows for so much more individual reporting and publishing freedom is baffling. If this case is made in the newsroom context of reporters having too much to do, then maybe this is an institutional fault in misunderstanding the requirements of producing effective digital journalism. Unlike the pages and pages of newsprint and rolling twenty-four-hour news, there is no white space, no dead airtime to fill on the Internet. It responds to 140 characters as well as to five thousand words.
I don’t know, but I sense that her point about journalism being better off now in the “global context” is well-taken. As I say in the piece, there’s no proving any of this, but let’s grant the general point and hope we can hear more about how things are better around the world.
But regarding the idea that US reporters are more empowered today: Let’s just say we can both find testimonials that take opposite sides of the debate. She should see my inbox, for instance. “Everyone’s running around like rats,” is what a Wall Street Journal editor told me for my piece, “Hamster Wheel,” and I don’t think it would be hard to find that sentiment echoed in newsrooms around the country.
The Project for Excellence in Journalism, for one, backs me up:
In today’s newspapers, stories tend to be gathered faster and under greater pressure by a smaller, less experienced staff of reporters, then are passed more quickly through fewer, less experienced, editing hands on their way to publication.
And I won’t cite chapter and verse, but a University of Cardiff study came to similar conclusions, and so did, if I may namedrop, the FCC, which discusses “hamsterization” at some length.
And, to stay with my old paper as a case study, no one has yet responded to the data from “Hamster Wheel” showing that 13 percent fewer unionize WSJ reporters turned out nearly twice as many stories in 2008 as compared to a decade earlier. I also think it’s relevant that, as Ryan Chittum showed, that long-form reporting in the WSJ has, quantitatively speaking, dropped through the floor.
Thomas Frank, I think, made a compelling case last year (see the aptly titled: “Bright Frenetic Mills” [$$]) in Harper’s that intra-newsroom labor/management issues are implicated. To say that these need some thought is an understatement.
Emphasizing a key passage in the quote from Emily above, as commenter CW Anderson did below the post:
If this case is made in the newsroom context of reporters having too much to do, then maybe this is an institutional fault in misunderstanding the requirements of producing effective digital journalism.
Yes, that’s exactly the case I’m making—and that the FCC et al. are making—except that it’s an industry fault, not just an institutional one. And here is where the public intellectuals come into play.
I agree with future-of-news arguments about the benefits of networked news, engagement with readers, and new storytelling forms. But productivity and quality issues should be on the table, and they haven’t been.
In the end, it all boils down to the stories. My problem with future-of-news thinkers is that they seem to want to talk about everything else.
Ms. Bell: You mention at the beginning that you are included in Mr. Starkman's article "in passing." He's perhaps being unduly generous to a Columbia colleague, so perhaps you can inform us how much you are getting from Alden Global Capital, the owners of Digital First, to "consult" on the vulture fund's' dismantling of a large part of the media landscape. Since Alden owns large shares in just about every major newspaper company in the country, your paid-for-view will be necessary reading for thousands of soon to be unemployed journalists.
http://www.poynter.org/latest-news/top-stories/139303/how-alden-global-capital-has-become-a-major-player-in-the-media-business/
#1 Posted by H. Barca, CJR on Thu 10 Nov 2011 at 12:43 PM
I was offered a spot on the digital advisory board by John Paton the chief executive of JRC in September 2010. The post is one which is not contracted, it is fully disclosed (I make a point of this) and editorially focused - it is not strategic in terms of deals or decisions on investment.
My views though have been fairly consistent, and pre-date my arrival in the US.
#2 Posted by Emily Bell, CJR on Thu 10 Nov 2011 at 01:15 PM
I'd just like to take issue with your last sentence, Dean, because I would argue that is precisely where the views conflict.
You write:
"Put another way, I, too, find inspiring the anecdote of the student who was able to network her way to great sources. But the anecdote is all about the reporter’s experience, the process, when what matters is the product."
I would argue that the process is precisely what needs to be rethought, not the product.
Professor Clay Christensen has a theory that he calls the 'RPP Model: Resources, Processes, and Priorities.''
The RPP model proposes that resources are only allocated as a result of a defined set of processes. Processes are defined as a series of hundreds of tasks that are formed by the establishing priorities of the organization. So for example, a factory worker who produces widgets will only do the necessary tasks required to achieve the goals set out by the priorities of the company. These tasks form the process, which in turn result in the necessary allocation of resources. This allocation of resources results in the final product.
So all of this is a long winded way of saying that the process matters just as much, if not more, than the product. You don't get to the product without deconstructing the process.
On this issue, I would argue that the FON thinkers are absolutely correct. We will not be able to improve the quality of journalism and news-gathering without really doing some heavy lifting on the processes involved in how we gather news. Emily is at the tip of the spear in tackling these challenges and her results at the Guardian prove that she knows of what she speaks.
If as you argue, reporters are dis-empowered, then the challenge for all of us is to rethink the process by which we gather and disseminate news.
I thank everyone involved for having this intellectual debate. It is a worthy one and there are strong arguments made on all sides.
Kind regards,
David Skok
#3 Posted by David Skok, CJR on Thu 10 Nov 2011 at 01:40 PM
Perhaps the title "Confidence Game" is unfortunate.
Whether the news comes from inspired high priests of the trade or an amateur blogger, what matters is the focus. (I do not see that conspiracy theories about Emily's work will help us understand the issues).
Leaving aside all of the pathologies in the UK, Canada, and Australia, why do we have no comprehensive account of the sickness of American college admissions practices? Why don't we have formal admissions curricula, instead of the SAT and easily twisted admissions essays?
We can't confront our cognitive limitations, it seems. We can't mine Ashcraft's "Cognition" for what it could tell us about good practice in journalism. We can't apply "The Art of Being a Parasite" to an analysis of the international trade in bogus and parasitic English.
The English language is infested by parasites such as ETS, Kaplan, and IELTS. This virtual cartel is bigger than Wal-Mart. Yet when issues arise, as with IELTS right now in Australia, it is as if it is for the very first time, all over again.
The High Priest Journalist is as likely to misjudge the nature of reality as he is to produce a masterpiece.
#4 Posted by Clayton Burns, CJR on Thu 10 Nov 2011 at 01:41 PM
Emily Bell: Your "editorially focused" work is the driver for Alden Global Capital to gut whats left of its news operations and to spread the disease to the rest of the "distressed properties" it plans to gobble up. It's at the heart of its "strategic" investment. I don't care that you are willing to soil your own reputation. But you are dragging Columbia down with you. If Nicholas Lehman had any sense, he would ask you to pick one or the other.
#5 Posted by H. Barca, CJR on Sun 13 Nov 2011 at 12:16 AM
Lemann, not Lehman. My apologies, Dean.
#6 Posted by H. Barca, CJR on Sun 13 Nov 2011 at 12:18 AM