The Latest Death-of-Journalism Spat, Condensed for Easy Reading!
November 16, 2008 by Craig Stoltz
Many pixels were spilt in last week’s sh*tspatter feud between digital news evangelist Jeff Jarvis and veteran print author Ron Rosenbaum.
I read the whole damn thing and, as a public service, present this tidy downboil. Links provided for future-of-news geeks and shut-ins.
1. Washington Post reporter Paul Farhi writes in AJR that neither journalism nor journalists are responsible for newspapers’ death spiral.
2. Jarvis responds in the Guardian, to Farhi and others, that inflexible print journalists are indeed at least partly culpable for the crisis.
3. Rosenbaum writes in Slate a bitter, personal attack on Jarvis, accusing him of profiteering and excessive glee at journalists’ misfortune.
4. Jarvis retaliates with a condescending, personal rebuttal of Rosenbaum, depicting Rosenbaum as sentimental and ill-informed.
5. The digisphere responds mostly with reflexive defenses of print journalism, from both mainstream and sidestream sources.
6. Digital news consultant [!] Amy Gahran does some impressive web reporting [!] that reveals evidence of Rosenbaum’s startling online naivete.
My two cents: Blame doesn’t matter. Journalists unwilling to think and work differently to save the profession should take the next buyout.
n.b. Each summary above is fewer than 140 characters, no longer than a Twitter update.
Craig,
Well done.
Your right that blame doesn’t matter. My mistake, perhaps, to respond to Farhi on the terms he set. Responsibility is what matters; that’s why I was trying to say. We agree. You said it well.
Some editor I was. I meant “you’re”, of course.
[...] Stoltz does a masterful job summarizing the Farhi-Jarvis-Rosenbaum fest in six Twitter-sized bites. His 2 cents at the end: [...]
A triumph for all our misplaced attention.
The thing that I object to in Jarvis and his ilk, and something that I think Rosenbaum correctly identified and criticized, is Jarvis’s apparent glee at the difficulties journalists are facing. Jarvis seems to welcome every newspaper layoff or negative profit statement, not just as proof that his theories (and surely they are no more than theories) are correct but as a necessary corrective. And anyone who mildly points out that there’s something sad about these seismic changes–regardless of whose “fault” it is– gets blasted for living in the past or living under a rock or living under a rock in the past.
Glee? No. Sadness at the lost opportunities. Tragic. I worked for too many years trying to get journalists to move to the future. The future will arrive no matter what. And journalism is hurt. That’s the sadness. The community is hurt.
[...] “between digital news evangelist Jeff Jarvis and veteran print author Ron Rosenbaum” as Craig Stolz puts it. If you need to catch up with the latest twists and turns, Stolz brings all the pieces [...]
[...] “between digital news evangelist Jeff Jarvis and veteran print author Ron Rosenbaum” as Craig Stolz puts it. If you need to catch up with the latest twists and turns, Stolz brings all the pieces [...]
[...] The Latest Death-of-Journalism Spat, Condensed for Easy Reading! Craig Stolz condences an online discussion amongst journalists and Jeff Jarvis about the death of journalism, or more precisely the current woes of print journalism into six Twitter-size summaries. Jeff responds saying that blame doesn't matter, but responsibility does. I think the key take away is that journalists aren't powerless in this. They can change. They can take their own futures into their hands, but the sad thing is that many journalists have put more energy into defending the past rather than preparing for the future. (tags: journalism businessmodels training) [...]
Thanks all for the comments.
As someone who no longer works in a newsroom, this is easy for me to say. But:
What is stopping a reporter from — upon receiving an assignment *today*, right now — going to the editor and saying, “You know, why don’t we get with the web people and see how we can do this so it’s a real web story, maybe something visual or with an interactive graphic or mainly a list of annotated links, or something like that. And let’s post it on the web first and then see if it’ll work in the paper tomorrow.”
[Added, after about two hours of cogitation: And don't think for a moment that news optimized for the web is "inferior" journalism. Think of RealClearPolitics, which in the runup to the election aggregated polling data in real time and allowed users to game their own electoral projections. Can anybody argue that a daily news report in print summarizing polling data is a "better" service for readers? Is it "better" journalism? Think of the maps that illustrate crime patterns, linked to public databases and/or user reports, showing data that is selected by users, Interactive stories that show images of an incident paired with a timeline. I could go on: In nearly every case, these constitute superior journalism compared to the kind whose toolkit consists of 26 letters.]
Don’t wait for Da Man [or Da Gal] to force your hand. Bottom-up change is the only kind that really sticks. And unless change sticks, it’s ultimately going to be game-over for institutions that can fund journalism.
So what’s stopping you from doing that, today? “Them”? Or you?
To quote a certain President-elect: *You* are the change you’ve been waiting for.
Craig, I always subscribed in my 40 + years in the newspaper/media business that the publisher runs the show. The buck should stop on the Publishers’ desk. A good publisher lets his edit and business folks know where the business is going, gets all to do their job as well as getting them all to work together. Please send me your e-mail address and I’ll send you my checklist of what a publisher in 2008 needs to do to grow the franchise.
[...] These frustrations are playing out on the broader stage, summarized very well by Craig Stoltz. [...]
[...] there’s the recent wave of spats between journalists and bloggers. Many of the articles I’ve read lately feature defensive [...]
[...] there’s the recent wave of spats between journalists and bloggers. Many of the articles I’ve read lately feature defensive [...]
[...] there’s the recent wave of spats between journalists and bloggers. Many of the articles I’ve read lately feature defensive [...]
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