NVision, the Future of Journalism, and Social Media

I’m delighted to report that I’ll be hosting a panel today at NVision 2009, a gathering of journalism editors, reporters, business leaders at the Newseum in Washington, D.C.

Our panel is about — stop me if you’ve heard this before — social media. Panelists include Patrick Cooper of USA Today, Etan Horowitz of the Orlando Sentinel, Scott Karp of Publish2 and Jennifer Golbeck, a professor [computer science!] at the University of Maryland.

I’ll do a wrap-up post, including the slides and best-of Tweets. The hashtag is #nvision. In fact, Etan is Twittering as I write. I better get downtown quick.

Update, 1:07 p.m.: I’m here, and have discovered the event is live-streaming. Our panel’s on at 3:45 p.m. EST.

Update, 9:28 p.m.: Great panel.  Of course, I have to say that. But that doesn’t mean I’m not serious. These folks were great.

Read the NVision Twitter stream:

Here’s a writeup of the NVision social media panel by Mary Ellen Slater, my former Washington Post colleague and now editor of SmartBrief on Social Media. [Note: SmartBrief on Social Media is a daily e-mail newsletter that does an excellent job of vetting and summarizing social media news. Between that one e-mail newsletter and Twitter, I don't need an RSS feed for social media any more.]

Here is the slideshow, cheerfully entitled “Everybody’s Talking, No One Cares About You, and Nobody Can Hear You Scream”.

Here are my takeaways from our panel. [These should not be trusted, since I was at the podium keeping an eye on the watch, containing the unruly crowd, etc. and so couldn't take notes.]

Patrick Cooper: USA Today actually has a strategy for using social media, and it seems to be working. [Italics of surprise mine]. It’s collaborating with marketing folks to figure out what vertical niches around which the news organization can build social content. [Check out its Cruise Log, a lively microsite mashup of journalism and reader-generated content on taking cruises.]

Etan Horowitz: The key to success with social media is low expections. Use it, join in, find out what’s valuable…but don’t expect some dramatic payoff.

Scott Karp: By using social media tools to collaborate rather than compete, journalists can produce more high-quality stuff than they can working in silos–especially at a time when fewer people are working in fewer silos. See Publish2, especially if you’re a journalist.

Jen Golbeck: Using Facebook, people can filter their own news based on who they know and trust, a fact which is having all sorts of consequences for the media, users and society. One of these is the mass disappearance of cows in Texas. [You had to be there. But go here anyway.]

These four kept the crowd in their seats for the last panel of the day. Afterward, people hung around so long asking questions that the Newseum people had to kick us out.

And I came away thinking that, maybe, a few journalists and publishers in the audience will wind up diving into the world of social media, or diving in deeper.

I take no responsibility for the consequences.

The Newspaper Revitalization/Beetle Bailey Protection Act

Dear Sen. Benjamin Cardin,

As a Maryland resident, long-time journalist and a citizen with a keen interest in the economy, I’d like to offer my opinion on the bill you introduced yesterday, The Newspaper Revitalization Act:

During a period of monumentally feeble-minded legislative lunging, this bill earns a place right alongside that nutjob 90 percent tax on AIG bonuses your good friends in the House voted for recently. In fact, it has eerie similarities.

Your Newspaper Revitalization Act:

• uses the U.S. tax code to express emotion rather than solve a problem;
• reflects a poor understanding of the industry it will affect;
• could trigger a series of events that threatens our collective future; and
• won’t make it past the first constitutional lawyer who gets her hands on it.

Far worse, unlike the AIG bill, the Act threatens to sustain publication of Beetle Bailey cartoons in perpetuity. More on that below.

Let’s start thinking through some of the issues surrounding the The Newspaper Revitalization Act [hereafter, "NRA"][!], which allows local newspapers [but not big newspaper chains, Senator, you sly populist!] to declare non-profit status as 501(c)3 organizations devoted to public education.

[Insert the sound of knuckles cracking here.]

It provides advantages for newspapers, not news organizations.

Like the AIG bonuses themselves, the NRA rewards the very people who got us into this mess in the first place, which in this case means the retrograde, hidebound lamebrains–excuse me, “public-minded community business leaders”–who have been thwarting innovation in the news industry for the past decade as their world has collapsed around them. By providing tax advantages to a declining business, this isn’t just “picking winners and losers.” It’s making the losers winners.

It punishes innovation

So: An entrepreneur who has invested in new technology, is moving the industry forward and training a workforce for the 21st century will face unfair price competition from the folks who continue to cling to a dying business model and distribute news on forest products.

This is like granting tax advantage to steam-powered automobile makers when the gasoline engine threatened to put them out of business. [I wonder if we'd have a steam-powered auto industry today if the Steam Powered Automobile Revitalization Act had been passed in 1920.]

It rewards small newspapers over bigger ones.

Since “large newspaper conglomerates” [from your press release, Senator] would not be covered under this bill, the newspapers of diversified media companies would be at a competitive disadvantage in local markets, since their revenues won’t be shielded from taxes and their pricing must account for some profit margin.

The result may well be the survival of small, non-profit newspapers and the speedier decline of larger newspaper companies. Hello, Moline Weekly Journal-Register-World, goodbye Gannet local paper! Is this outcome in the public interest? Beats me.

The bill is silent on the, how we say, “nettlesome” issue of online news distribution by tax-advantaged non-profits.

Under the bill, can a non-profit newspaper publish its content online? If so, is its digital revenue tax-protected? Can the paper sell content created under tax shield to big, for-profit online media companies? Can these non-profit newspaper organizations make their content available for online-first distribution? If not, would holding news back until it’s been dropped off by truck at the local drug store be in the public interest?

Let’s get us some lawyers and dig into this stuff!

Non-profits can be fat, rich and plutocratic, just like for-profits.

It’s sweet to think of non-profits as humble organizations with hard-working people devoted to the public good. Some are. But take a look at non-profits like United Way, the Red Cross and AARP–great buildings, comfortable salaries, cool technology, folks who come in once a week to polish the shiny surfaces in the lobby, etc.  The major difference: what private companies call “profit,” 501(c)3’s must invest [most of] every year to keep advancing their mission.

And while we’re on the topic of non-profit plutocracy, how long before someone realizes that hey, if I can lash together a group of local, non-profit newspapers under the umbrella of a bigger national non-profit, that’d be a sweet business–I mean, public service organization. [Look at that, someone just thought of that already!]

The new non-profits will be permitted to receive tax-advantaged donations from companies and private individuals.

Yes, NPR, PBS and their affiliates take donations from benefactors. But in a local market, let’s say the area chamber of commerce and its leaders, donating as individuals, pony up 20 percent of the newspaper’s annual budget with generous contributions, hoping to support “fair and balanced” coverage of the local business issues.

[Moment of silent reflection here.]

The problem of definitions

The bill defines a newspaper that may convert to non-profit status in this way:

(1) the trade or business of such corporation or organization consists of publishing on a regular
basis a newspaper for general circulation,

(2) the newspaper published by such corporation or organization contains local, national, and
international news stories of interest to the general public and the distribution of such newspaper is necessary or valuable in achieving an educational purpose, and

(3) the preparation of the material contained in such newspaper follows methods generally considered educational in nature.

All right, let’s just drive the ol’ Ford 150 through some of the bigger holes:

• Does the newspaper have to include local, national and international news stories? Two of the three? Any one?
• Who will determine what’s “of interest to the general public”? And what sort of accountability would there be?
• And do you really mean that the preparation follows methods considered educational? i.e., that the process of newsgathering must be done via a method considered educational? I don’t get that one at all. Did someone proofread this thing?

The Beetle Bailey Educational Conundrum

Let’s talk education.

Will such non-profit newspapers be allowed to run stuff like Beetle Bailey as part of their “educational” mission? Crossword puzzles? Feature stories on cute cats? Hollywood gossip? A publication devoted to pro-choice issues? Pro-life? How about a newspaper about the issues and personalities of the local transgendered population? Computer gamers?

Or would the newspaper to achieve educational goals have to run nothing but “hard news” and “investigative reporting” or “public service journalism,” however you want to identify that? And if so, who would choose to read it? And if nobody reads it, how could even these publications survive, even as non-profits?

++++++++++++++

Senator, I share your concern that the publication of news from a variety of independent sources is essential to a vital democracy.

But government bailout is not the answer. I endorse what your esteemed colleagues across the aisle call “a free market approach.”

The way to ensure survival and growth of news–of journalism–is to let the free market take its course.

Let the newspapers die so that the next generation of news operations can grow and thrive.

Think of the death of newspapers as a down payment on building a competitive, dynamic, democratic future with an informed citizenry and accountable public officials.

And freedom, forever, from Sargent Snorkel.

Sincerely,

Craig Stoltz

seattlepi.com: Go Web-Native, Please

And so the  Seattle Post-Intelligencer, the former No. 2 newspaper in a 2-paper town, has dropped its pulp-and-petrol format. Its paymasters at Hearst Corp. have decided to keep it going as a news-and-local-information operation, but to publish only online.

Bully, I say. I’ve long been agitating for this outcome. Congrats to the suits at Hearst for making a brave decision to experiment during a time when every dime counts.

It’s vital for legacy news operations to explore online-only publishing. And not just to see if  they can make money this way, although that’s certainly the most important question.

But this will also provide a good chance to see how–and, more to the point, whether–journalists who carry the ink virus in their blood can figure out how reporting, writing, editing and publishing are different when done for online-only readers.

Many  journalists, including very good ones, do not understand this. I say this with firsthand knowledge.

I recently was a judge in the “online” category for a national journalism contest. Some great work was entered–important, richly-reported stories that serve the public interest. Some were produced by online-only, publicly funded journalism organizations, others by multimedia organizations, others by legacy newsrooms.

But I was surprised to see how few of the entries, even in the online category–even those produced by purely digital operations!–seemed to embrace, or even acknowledge, the medium for which they were created. With the exception of two inspired blogs, the other significant entries were essentially long-form–really, really long-form–traditional feature or investigative stories.

[Aside: As required by the rules of the contest, which were set up mainly for print journalism, the entries came to us judges printed out on paper. "Just send the urls," said I. Um, no, said they. The whole lot of them showed up one morning on my doorstep, as heavy as a cinder block.]

Some of the entries contained interactive elements as decor–a photo gallery here, an audio clip of an interview with the author there. Links to sources riding in the sidebar like Google ads, but smaller. But I didn’t see one that truly embraced the digital medium.

Not to belabor the entries to that contest. My point is that web-native journalism is not print journalism distributed on a screen.

Journalism created for the web needs to accommodate the behavior of web users and exploit the tools of reporting and analysis that only an interactive digital, social platform can provide. For instance:

Interactive maps that show what happened where, ideally presented with a timeline that shows when it happened. Ideally with items linked to content that explains the item and takes you to the reporting about it.

Links to high-value content such as public documents, full interview files, video with reporting value [i.e. security camera shots]–and to reports off-site, including those done by other journalists, to provide context and diversity. [Journalists fight that last one to the death. "Why send people away from our site?" they cry. That's a subject for another day, but go to this blog entry by Scott Karp for a seminal document on link journalism.]

Datavisualizations that interpret and present data interactively in a way that words or print-style graphics cannot.

Automated data sources that continue to update long after the story publishes to keep it current and allow users to follow the story after it’s “done.”

Tight, fact-rich copy, delivered in screen-sized chunks and optimized for online consumption–not the malingering, flaccid narratives produced by journalists who realize they are working in a format with no space limitations.

Anecdotes and personal stories presented as sidebars, via appropriate multimedia, such as video, in which people tell their own stories rather than have them filtered through the brain of a reporter.

It’s far too early to pass judgment on seattlepi.com, which is just a few weeks into its only-only adventure. It is being led by Michelle Nicolosi, whose record as a reporter [Pulitzer, investigative reporting, fertility fraud], veteran online editor, digital business operator and university instructor of online journalism makes her extremely well qualified for this job.

So far the site includes local print-style news reports, a bunch of blogs, aggregated wire service and Hearst Corp. content, and opportunities for Seattleans to provide content. We should assume this the “before,” not the “after” online-only seattlepi.com

My hope: That the 20-person team doesn’t behave like print journalists doing business-as-usual reporting, playing local-news scoop against the Seattle Times.

A news operation unburdened by a print product can do things the printists cannot. Users will choose the news source that serves local news and online users the best.

It would be a shame if this opportunity to explore online news creation were squandered not because it didn’t produce good print-style journalism–but because it did.

Print ‘n’ Read: Clay Shirky’s Last Word

Clay Shirky, NYU adjunct professor and author of the book Here Comes Everybody, has written the most spectacularly devastating analysis of the newspaper mess I’ve ever read.

I offer his long blog post, “Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable,” as my latest Print ‘n’ Read feature. PnRs, as both regular readers of this blog know, are online articles so important they are actually worth printing out on paper to read later. [Note unsettling irony that a seminal piece on digital journalism is best appreciated on paper.]

His central points: The disruptions that imperil the newspaper industry are driven by an irreversible cultural revolution; that fighting to sustain current structures with a new “business model” is futile; that nobody knows how journalism might be funded but that thousands of experiments might eventually produce answers.

Delightfully, Shirky manages to dismiss the dimwit fantasies of the  newspaper business conservatives with a deft combination of historical context and powerful insight that makes those who disagree seem not only hopelessly wrong, but foolish.

Passages crackle with aphoristic brilliance:

“It makes increasingly less sense even to talk about a publishing industry, because the core problem publishing solves — the incredible difficulty, complexity, and expense of making something available to the public — has stopped being a problem.” . . .

“When someone demands to know how we are going to replace newspapers, they are really demanding to be told that we are not living through a revolution.” . . .

“The [high] expense of printing created an environment where [major newspaper advertisers like] Wal-Mart [were] willing to subsidize the Baghdad bureau. This wasn’t because of any deep link between advertising and reporting, nor was it about any real desire on the part of Wal-Mart to have their marketing budget go to international correspondents. It was just an accident.” . . .

“The newspaper people often note that newspapers benefit society as a whole. This is true, but irrelevant to the problem at hand; ‘You’re gonna miss us when we’re gone!’ has never been much of a business model.”

“When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse.” . . .

Maybe Shirky’s post should be turned into one of those “interactive training modules” newsrooms use to make sure all employees understand other important stuff, like sexual harrassment, diversity and libel. Employees who don’t score 80 percent on the quiz would have to repeat it.

Either that or they can be made to read the post with their eyes forced open as in another influential work of revolutionary futurism, A Clockwork Orange.

Newspapers and the Parable of the Humping Elephants

With morbidity nearly universal and mortality increasing daily, America’s newspaper publishers are shouting “Code Blue!”

As the number of failing news organs grows, some are calling for newspapers to charge for access to their content online.

Others hope charitable endowments will sustain newspapers, much as they do other things the free market can’t support, like soup kitchens and opera.

Yesterday David Carr of the New York Times proposed that newspaper owners be allowed to collude, in ways that may violate anti-trust law, in order to preserve the public service they provide. [If all newspaper publishers agree to put their news behind pay walls [say], more people might decide to pay for it online.]

There will be other occasions to flick a Bic at these strawmen.

But as I’ve absorbed this in the past two weeks I’ve been reminded again of a favorite metaphor.

When I was a kid, a nature TV program showed a pair of elephants, the female on the ground near death. The male tried revive her–nudging her, trying to feed her, snuggling her.

Finally, in a desperate attempt to forestall the inevitable, the male elephant mounted her and tried  to copulate.

This was horrible to watch: a creature in panicky love and denial, trying to hump his dying soul-mate back to life. She died soon thereafter.

I suspect you know where this is going.

The elephant is dying. We all love her. We have nudged her, tried to feed her, snuggled her.

But for god sake, let her go. There is life on the savannah.

You will never join it until you realize it’s time to get the hell off.

Maintenance Report: Blog Functioning Again

This blog is currently having its gaskets replaced and an aortic stent installed. The mechanic says this should take between 7 days and 6 months. Will report back when formal estimate is received.

Update, 2/10/09: Happily, I was able to find a single professional who could handle both piston gasket replacement and aortic stent installation.  The only guy I could find with certifications from the National Institute for Automotive Service Excellence and  the American Board of Thoracic Surgery. Had to schelp out to Hancock, Maryland, though.

For $1,500 he was willing to do both operations and rotate my tires. I think that’s a good deal.

But the important thing is, the blog is back and functioning. It may blow some smoke for awhile, but it should work itself out.