The Process of Journalism

Jeff Jarvis has an interesting post up about the evolution of media online, and he must have taken some time with it because it has graphics and everything — just kidding, Jeff. But seriously, Jeff’s general point I think is well-taken: that the way journalism occurs has changed, and is continuing to change. Like most other forms of content, instead of a one-way, production-line approach in which news is manufactured (metaphorically speaking) by mainstream media entities and then distributed to news consumers, the news — and I’m using that term broadly — occurs and is reported, then more details emerge, other sources join in, the story advances, and so on. In other words, a process.

This is not really new, in the sense that Jeff and others (including yours truly) have been saying it for some time now. But it bears repeating, if only because some media entities are only now coming to realize just how much their business is changing. As a friend of mine who used to work at the Washington Post’s (WPO) website has said often, there is a whole generation of editors who need to realize that we are moving from the “report, write, edit, publish” model to something more like a “report, write, edit, publish, edit, write, report, publish” model. It never stops.

Let’s be clear about something: I’m not saying that journalists — whatever their background, whether it’s mainstream media or blogging — should stop caring whether something is right, or should rush to publish something because someone else will fix their mistakes. And it’s true that expensive investigative reporting is almost always going to be the province of the established media. This isn’t some kind of blogosphere triumphalism thing I’m pushing here. But I think only an idiot would argue that journalism hasn’t changed, or that the industry can continue to do things the way it has done for centuries. It has, and it can’t.

There’s more in Jeff’s post than I have dealt with here, so I encourage you to go and read the whole thing. And if you just can’t get enough of people writing about the future of newspapers and the media online, Britannica has an ongoing debate about whether newspapers are doomed.

Comments

[George R]

Hi Matthew,

Thought you might be interested in my response to Jeff Jarvis as copied below. As you no doubt can tell, I am also a frustrated journalist.

George

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Excellent post, Jeff

However, I think you assume one thing which may throw your entire analysis out of kilter.

It appears to me you take for granted that today's journalists have the same integrity, ethics, and fair minded principles of their predecessors.

From my experience in the technology industry over the past ten years, I think you may want to reconsider the vital role interaction plays, or should play, in keeping this new wave of journalists honest and assuring they report the scandals as aggressively as they do the profits and those making all of the money.

For those of your readers who are interested, I have attached an article I wrote recently on a similar subject. It is called Journalism 2009. Beware. It is a bit long.

Thanks for keeping these important issues, and debates, front and center.

George

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Journalism 2009

You know, it occurred to me lately that one of the main victims of a society laden with greed and corruption, such as the one based out of Wall Street and the Silicon Valley today, is the professional journalist. These men and women who were idealist in their youth, and set out on a career path based on sound principles, personal integrity, and honesty ... not simply on deceit and the accumulation of cash. From my experience, these folks, in general, believe that telling the world the truth far outweighs any potential financial gain one might achieve by being deceitful or twisting the truth around to suit their sponsors and/or investors.

This appears to be the dying breed, however, and I find it all very sad and depressing. Not so much for me, but for my children and grandchildren.

I actually thought I might want to be a journalist when I ended my first short-lived career as a Navy Officer some time back. But sticking to my roots as a graphic artist and designer won out. Some refer to us as the "starving artists" of our society. I now own several of the leading electronic graphic arts content businesses in the world, however ... so, lucky me.

It all started with the "dot com" boom

This notion about the current state of objective journalism first came to me back in the late 90s when the "dot com" industry was just starting to boom. Every Tom, Dick, and Harry was going public. Let alone Jane, Sue, and Abigail.

I started noticing that many of the companies going public were loaded with nothing more than stolen property and hot air. Since several of the major ones (I won't name names, but some of their initials were Xoom, ZDNet, Lycos, InfoSpace, Jumbo, and ArtToday) had also pirated our proprietary graphic arts software products and were giving them away for "free" as an incentive to sign up "eye-balls", we stood up and took particular note of what was truly happening in this new Internet world. That, too, was very sad and depressing.

It didn't take a rocket scientist to learn quickly that the likes of Bear Sterns, and other prominent investment banking concerns on Wall Street and elsewhere, were actually encouraging these Internet scams, not trying to report them, or protect their clients or customers, in their IPO circular disclaimers. The term "due diligence" had apparently taken on an entirely different meaning to the investment bankers, lawyers, and auditors in the new "dot com" world.

We were blown away. We weren't doing things like that in Central Virginia where we were based. In fact, no one I knew was even thinking about building up bogus shell companies based on stolen property, and false promises, and promoting them heavily to unsuspecting little old ladies in Omaha. I guess you could say we were doing things the old fashioned way ... with a bit of creativity, integrity, honesty, hard work, and fair play.

Wait a second, since these new Internet IPOs are loaded with stolen property and hot air ... what could we do?

Well, we were forced to hire attorneys to protect our property, attorneys who made more in an hour than any of our employees did in a day, or in some cases in an entire week ... and things only went from bad to worse after that. The copyright laws in this country were not being enforced by the judiciary at all in the early Internet days. Journalists would not report on the obvious. Journalists did not help us fight this cascading disease. It was as simple as that. Piracy was the new secret weapon in the high tech world. And it was far more profitable than any other weapon in the Internet company arsenals, by a huge margin. Stealing, and promising extraordinary profits from the eyeballs of the future, was accepted as the "new norm".

So, we came up with a brilliant idea. Let's provide some incentive to the journalists to tell this story truthfully and see how the little old ladies in Omaha, and elsewhere, react. Journalists love "scoops", or so we thought. We tracked down the most prominent and active investigative journalists at companies like Marketwatch, TheStreet.com, CNET, Forbes, the New York Times, CNN, NBC, Wired magazine, and elsewhere, and guess what we learned? As soon as a responsible journalist would start reporting the truth about these Internet companies and their IPO scams, the journalist would suddenly clam up completely ... be transferred ... or disappear off the face of the earth.

What? Why? Well, it seems that almost every company you could imagine was planning their own IPO, acquisition, or merger scam to take advantage of the tech-ignorant public, demonstrate how tech-savvy their aging officers and directors were, and enrich their owners. I won't name the specific journalists here, or even their companies, but there were quite a few, believe me. I am sure you know many of them. It shocked us all.

So, who did the "dot com" bust really wipe out?

Well, the inevitable "dot com bust" wiped out all of the little old ladies in Omaha. And the little old men, who were counting on their pension, stock portfolio, and mutual finds for survival, as well. The Internet visionaries, venture capitalists, privileged clients, and investment bankers had already taken out all of their millions of dollars quickly, and quietly, and retired, if only temporarily, to their mansions and penthouses overlooking Central Park, San Francisco Bay, and Lake Tahoe.

For a few years after the bust, things started to drift back towards normal, but not for long. You see, a whole new breed of greedy investment bankers, unscrupulous venture capitalists, and unethical business executives had found a brand new prey. A two pronged prey this time. Prong one. Bring in the top software engineers and rocket scientists in the world to bamboozle a still unsuspecting public with blazing Internet speeds, more new technogarble that no one could possibly understand, and new products and services. An even some of the more profitable products and services, like stolen property in digital form, from the past. The Googles of the world set out to make the late 90s and early 2000s look like a pleasant stroll in the park, or a neighborhood tea party, in the annals of history. Their new sights were set in the billions, not the millions.

Where were the objective journalists in all of this?

So where did all of the professional journalists go? Are you kidding? Many of them formed new companies to ride on the Google express train this time around, many settled back into other arenas outside the continuous scams of the technology elite, some formed new media and television shows to capitalize on "the next new wave", many moved on to other professions, and still others reported the story just as Google, Yahoo, AOL, and Microsoft instructed them to do. A few who I admire stood their ground and got pushed aside by their corporate executives.

How many journalists at the Wall Street Journal today do you think are researching unlawful operating procedures, and ongoing copyright infringement activities, at MySpace ... with the intent of actually reporting what they find? Who at the New York Times has anything objective to say about some of questionable information being distributed by About.com? Even CNET, perhaps the ultimate hypocrite, is in rumors to be dating Google seriously, while still courting other potential deep pocketed suitors, in the Internet space. Do you think their reporting is objective these days? Okay, who's job is it to report on digital piracy found throughout the CNET Network, itself. ZDNet and TechRepublic ... I don't think so!

So what is the solution? The vast majority of real people out here want objective journalism in their lives. Not journalism directed only to where the advertising and the money is.

Can bloggers save the day?

Thank God for the bloggers. The little old ladies and men of Omaha are fighting back. They have taught their children to be bloggers (or maybe it was the other way around) ... and they have personal stories to tell ... and plenty of them. They are not blinded by ambition based on greed, or under the threat of losing their jobs if their public company bosses don't like what they say. They don't have to worry about anyone coming down on them for reporting the truth. They are the great equalizers. They may even help to set the woeful politicians and the legal community straight. How great would that be for all of us?

But readers ... please beware. It was naivety that got us into this mess in the first place. Many of these new bloggers are lions in sheep's clothing. They are poisonous snakes in the tall green grass. When I hear that the top blogger reporting about copyright law and protection issues in the country is actually a lawyer on Google's payroll, it gives me the creeps. It makes me want to hug someone in Omaha. When I watch Yahoo assist China in sending someone (just like your college son or daughter) who has simply reported the truth to jail, it makes me cringe. When I see Google, Microsoft and Yahoo willfully placing advertisements on illegal pornography and gambling web sites, it really makes me wonder. When I realize that the public is actually financing this organized attack on American integrity and honest journalism, it makes me want to scream out even louder.

You would scream out, too, if you really knew all that was happening. The next generations will pay the price for this greed and deception.

Come out bloggers ... we are counting on you. And there are now over a billion of us connected to this Internet world who are not out to make our fortune off of stolen property or from greedy business practices and deceit. And billions more to come. Please help us clean up, and wipe out, this greedy and unethical Internet and Wall Street investment banking crowd before it is too late.

For some reason, I have confidence in the people on this one. I am one who is anxious to see the NEW Journalism 2009 come into play.


George P. Riddick, III
Chairman/CEO
Imageline, Inc.

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