Why is Douglas Rushkoff always looking up?

I was fascinated by the Frontline episode Digital_Nation, first aired this Tuesday. As usual, the discussion of technological changes in society was probing and insightful. I will be using this episode in future classes as a point of discussion.

However, as I watched the program, I was intrigued in the consistent use of a couple of visual tropes that I recognized from previous Rushkoff episodes The Merchants of Cool and The Persuaders. Most prominent of these is the fact that apparently Rushkoff looks up quite frequently. We know this because each episode shows us shots of him looking up, apparently in awe of all that surrounds him.

Here are examples of what I’m talking about:

I don’t know exactly what to make of the “looking up” shot, and why it has been such a consistent presence in Rushkoff’s Frontline pieces. More of an observation than anything.

The missing parts of daily journalism

Matt Thompson writes an excellent blog post explaining the 3 key parts of news stories you usually don’t get. I encourage you to read the whole thing. (thanks to @jayrosen_nyu for the heads up)

He breaks it down into these categories:

1. The longstanding facts
2. How journalists know what they know
3. The things we don’t know

This is an excellent insight, and one that could be solved with a little bit of technology and some savvy journalistic forethought.

One solution is what I’ll call the “bookmarking” model, put into practice well by Publish2, in which a journalist shares links related to a story they’re working on. As a journalist gathers information for a story, they add links to the list, giving readers a chance to see what other information is available.

Another solution is the “wiki” model, which goes back to wikipedia. I don’t know that this has been practiced as much in mainstream reporting, but in essence, a reporter could provide explanatory copy that could then be used to provide the “longstanding facts.”

A third solution is the “blogging” model. This could be used for a reporter to explain “how journalists know what they know.” Not every story benefits from the “process” reporting that Thompson cites in this New Yorker piece on health care reform. And there’s a question as to whether most readers would want to hear all about the process. But adding such content to a blog that can then be linked to the original author would be beneficial.

Finally, there’s the “notes” model. Recently, I installed a WordPress plugin on this site called Sliding Notes. This plugin allows me to insert notations into a blog post – think of them as in-text footnotes. An example»

As a reporter goes about gathering information for a story, she should be thinking about all of these means of adding context, especially on complex stories that will require lengthy coverage (like the health care reform debate).

The main problem, as I see it, is that each of these solutions exists within an entirely different technological sphere. What I wouldn’t give to have a content management system that would allow me to face one browser screen in which I could type a story, add “wiki” material, blog material, publish2 links and parenthetical notes, instead of having to switch from platform to platform.

Then there’s the mindset/time question. Adding all this context that can be carried over from story to story takes time, and it takes a concerted effort to break into the reporting process and put all these notes into the system. Especially with the technological problem I mentioned above.

Anyway, it’s a good conversation to be having, and one that can help journalism in the future.

Your thoughts?

Yelvington’s green shoots for newspapers

This is cyclical recovery. We all tend to confuse the cyclical and the secular. Newspaper revenues are subject to economic cycles. They ebb and they flow. But there is a second force, the longterm decline of the primacy of mass-circulation print, that is undeniable. The result is that you get kind of a sawtooth graph, pointing down. You might fool yourself that it’s actually pointing up by failing to consider how much faster the broader market is growing, but the fact is that newspapers have been declining in market share for many decades.

As we begin to crawl out of the hole created by the Bush administration’s disastrous policies, we need to guard against slipping back into the bad behavior of the past. This economy has done us a brutal favor by waking us up. Let’s not waste it.

link: yelvington.com | Steve Yelvington’s media weblog

Steve Yelvington points to some “green shoots” relating to the economy and newspapers. I’m less than optimistic.

With 70 percent of the U.S. economy dependent on consumer spending (and advertising is deeply tied to that particular economic force), I don’t see a huge turnaround in the economy any time soon. Consumers are squeezed by massive amounts of debt and hunkering down in this economic uncertainty. Residential real estate is still weak, and commercial real estate is facing a huge meltdown of its own. And banks are being closed left and right across the nation by the FDIC.

I am certainly not an economist, but economists do predict a “jobless recovery” for the next couple of years. I do not see how consumer spending will rise to the levels that we had prior to this economic meltdown any time soon. And that adds a layer to Yelvington’s point about the cyclical and secular nature of recovery.

The cyclical of this economic downturn may turn out to be much more secular than people think. The Great Depression had a profound effect on the generation that went through it, and this economic cycle will likely have a similar effect on consumers.

Yelvington points to a Gordon Borrell report that predicts rising newspaper ad revenues beginning next year (how they predict growth rates through 2014 is beyond me). But I think the most salient part of Borrell’s post is this quote:

True, it all equates to more of a dead-cat bounce than anything else. And even at 2014 levels of just under $30 billion, newspaper advertising won’t be anything near the $55 billion we saw earlier this decade. Nor will it ever return to that level. (emphasis added)

I do agree with Yelvington’s final point:

Newspaper companies have sinned against their own interests by borrowing like mad to buy more of the past when they should have been investing in the future. Corporate takeovers, luxury offices and new printing plants belong to the 20th century. The future for local media is in new digital products focused on the needs of local businesses. Do we have the will to pursue that future? I think we do, but knock on wood.

Newspaper companies will need to deleverage all of the massive debt they’ve grown, and that’s going to be a painful process. I just hope newspaper executives will learn the lessons from this debt bubble and not go back to spending money they don’t have in the future.

ESPN the latest big media corp to struggle with social engagement

Twitter and other social media sites have broken down a lot of barriers between the personal and professional.

This has led major media organizations (not to mention professional sports organizations) to clamp down on the social media craze by developing policies about these forms of expression. ESPN is the latest media entity to find itself navigating the waters of social media note about 'social media'» . And the results are mixed.

Jennifer Van Grove first reported yesterday that ESPN was putting the clamp down on employee twittering. Then, there was ESPN’s response, which was pure spin. You can read the entire ESPN social media policy at Van Grove’s update blog post.

There are some solid points in the ESPN guidelines, points that I’ve mentioned elsewhere (like not sharing internal deliberations – something that could kill morale in a newsroom). Overall, however, the policy is just as heavy-handed as some previous policies that I’ve seen, and really shows how much corporate hand-wringing can stifle individual creativity and things that would – in my opinion – benefit the company.

Of course, ESPN’s policy pales in comparison to the crackdown that’s been happening in the National Football League on players tweeting from training camp.

Ultimately, these policies which attempt to bureaucratize social media interaction will end up harming the company’s standing in the eyes of viewers who participate in social media. I don’t follow any twitter denizens whose sole purpose is to promote the corporate line (whatever that may be). If I want that, I’ll read PR Newswire or the web site. Give me someone real or I can do without. I suspect many Twitterers would agree.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Espn Wtf??? (twittermaven.blogspot.com)
• Hardline Twitter Memo Makes ESPN Employees Hilariously Paranoid [Media Meltdowns] (deadspin.com)
• NFL Star Antonio Cromartie Fined $2500 Over a Tweet (mashable.com)
• ESPN Limits Social Networking (nytimes.com)

What does that even mean?

The New York Times has a gem of a brain-twister this morning in a report on media spending by consumers. Here’s the paragraph:

An interesting shift occurred in 2008, the report said. For the first time, consumers spent more time with media they paid for, like books or cable television, than with primarily ad-supported media, like newspapers and magazines.

I find this a) hard to believe, and b) a false comparison.

Starting with a), there is the question: for the first time? Would one like to travel back to the 1700s with me and take a look at the amount of time spent with books vs. newspapers and magazines?

Then there’s b. While cable television is partially subscriber-supported, there are also large swaths of the cable landscape that are all about advertising (just pop onto a cable channel between 1 a.m. and 5 p.m. and try to find actual entertainment or news content). Is this report claiming that cable television channels are not primarily ad-supported? Only in the premium channels (HBO, Showtime, etc.) The basic cable channels are primarily ad-supported with some help from the subscription fees.

There’s also this paragraph, which seems to argue against the decline in advertising spending:

In the report, Veronis Suhler breaks down the expected performance of the elements of each area of marketing and communications. Some of the fastest-growing ones are creative strategies that have lately gained favor among marketers. They include paid product placement, with a compound annual growth rate from 2008 to 2013 of 17.6 percent; e-mail marketing and in-game advertisements (both 18.5 percent); mobile advertising outside of texting (33 percent); paid interactive television gaming (38.7 percent); mobile advertising and content tied to broadcast television (35.5 percent); mobile gaming and advertising (46.2 percent); and Internet and mobile home video downloads (34.4 percent).

I may be missing something semantically here, but most of those categories are about advertising, with the exception of video downloads.

Either way, the report shouldn’t be a welcomed one for news media looking to move to a pay-model on the Internet.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Consumers Spending More in Paid Media Than Ad Supported: VSS Study (paidcontent.org)

The only profession?

The Bangor Daily News has a fascinating tale of the Las Vegas Sun’s Pulitzer-winning research that is worth a read.

Unfortunately, the lede contains a fallacy (as pointed out aptly by Jay Rosen):

Let’s look at the First Amendment for a moment:

There are numerous parts to that amendment. It might help if we broke it down into its constituent pieces:

1. Establishment of religion
2. Free exercise of religion
3. Freedom of Speech
4. Freedom of the Press
5. Right of Assembly
6. Redress of Grievances

Now, the writer of the Bangor piece clearly confuses “press” with “newspaper,” which is a major problem as we shall see later.

But first, I’d rather point out other “professions” that are “enshrined” in the First Amendment.

Probably the first would be “preacher,” as in “religious authority.” Freedom of the Press is only the fourth right granted by the First Amendment, behind freedom from establishment, free exercise, and freedom of speech. So “preacher” or “religious authority” would be the first “profession” enshrined in the First Amendment.

What about freedom of speech? Well, clearly, “community organizers” would seem to be enshrined in the amendment as well. And lobbyists, for all anyone cares to curse them, seem to be protected by this part of the amendment as well. We could also add “comedians” to that list of people protected by the “free speech” clause of the First Amendment.

And even if we turn to the “freedom of the press” part of the amendment, we run into problems related to the current “newspaper journalism” ideal that such journalism is “enshrined” in the FA. The clause clearly points out that it is freedom “of the press” that is protected.

“Press” includes book publishers, authors, magazine publishers, printers, etc. It would actually cover anyone who could get ahold of a printing press to spread their political ideas (e.g. – the Federalist papers). Indeed, the advent of the Internet and weblogs and other publishing platforms shows decidedly that it isn’t just the platform that determines who gets to enjoy First Amendment protections for their “freedom of the press.”

In short, the editorial is hopelessly wrong in its assertion that “newspaper journalism” is the only profession “enshrined” in the First Amendment.

Indeed, one could argue that NO “profession” is enshrined in the First Amendment, per se. Rather, the First Amendment “enshrines” ideals – free speech, free thought, free practice of spiritual exercise, freedom of political thought.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I applaud the reporter whose research won the Pulitzer. I think there is a case to be made for why newspaper journalism is important. But this egotistical blathering about the special place newspaper journalism holds in the First Amendment is the wrong approach.

Simon Owens p0wns HuffPo

Simon Owens does the legwork to show that the majority of Huffington Post front page stories are not “original reporting.” Check it out here.

Very reminiscent of a paper I did with Chris Roberts at South Carolina. Here’s the PDF.

FWIW, I’m less than enthused about HuffPo. Ariana Huffington rode the wave of blogging by gathering a bunch of A- B- and C-list celebrities, paying them NOTHING for their thoughts, and now she shuffles a lot of AP content through there as well. So she’s not unlike the traditional media elites in that respect.

I hope to repeat our study in the future. Oh, to have the time.

NYT threatens Boston Globe?

Am I the only person who thought of this classic National Lampoon cover illustration when I heard this news over the weekend: New York Times Co. is Said to Consider Closing The Boston Globe?

As far as bargaining tactics go, this seems like an incredibly high stakes game of “Chicken” from the Times Co.

The Globe last year reported weekday circulation of 324,000, the 14th highest in the country, and Sunday circulation of 504,000, the 11th highest.

Of course, there’s a part of me that wants to say, “Go ahead” and see if the Times is serious about closing the Globe. But that part of me is tempered by the lives that would be impacted by such a move.

The six stages of media twitter coverage hell

Mike Elgan makes a funny. The Six Stages of Media Twitter Coverage Hell.

He misses a stage:

7. Twitterati make fun of coverage to gain traffic.

To quote Mr. Elgan:

The so-called backlash is just the media’s knee-jerk pseudo-contrarianism, right on schedule. Obviously Twitter has been clearly overexposed and overhyped in the media, and now reporters and commentators are both slamming their own hype, and, inevitably, attacking Twitter itself.

My advice: Don’t take any of it too seriously. The media does this with every truly major Internet phenomenon that comes along. It happened with the Internet itself, then e-mail, then the Web, then the tech bubble, then social networking and now Twitter.

heh.

Honestly, I don’t care who’s covering Twitter. It’s the same as Facebook, MySpace, blogging, IM, etc. Play the same record so many times and it gets old. Just enjoy the ride, because it’ll come around again.

Do what you want. Use it. Don’t use it. Talk about it, write the lifestyles feature. Whatever. I’ll keep plugging away.

Am I getting too cynical in my old age?

About that “social” media

The last couple of days, I’ve been thinking a lot about “social media.” I’m not an expert, I grant you. But I do see where the lines are blurring, and that is something that culminated in my responses to Pat Thornton earlier today on Twitter.

What is “social media?”

To hear some people talk, it’s closer to Facebook, MySpace and Twitter than it is to blogs and podcasts and YouTube.

But I’m going to argue that “social media” encompasses all those things. It is FaceBook. It is Twitter. It is MySpace. It is YouTube. It is blogs. It is even – gasp – comments!

Because social media isn’t about the platform, rather it’s the ability of people to interact with the content, to provide feedback, to provide their own views on whatever content is supplied. Some media are more social than others. I’d argue that newspapers – for instance – are gradually moving toward a greater social media presence through the use of blogs and comments. But it’s a slow movement. Some are more attuned than others.

Twitter sounds like a good example of “social media,” since people can respond to one another and follow one another, but, honestly, that’s been happening since the beginning of the blog explosion in 2001. “Social Media” is really just another term for “Web 2.0.”

Now, the real crux of the issue is whether people “respond” to “social media” and change their practices based on the feedback of their userbase (for a great discussion of this, listen to this episode of On the Media).

If I really wanted to dissect “social media,” I’d come up with an operational definition that excluded some of the simplistic means of “socializing” media (like comments) and go through every media outlet and score them on their “social media” ability. It’s a good idea, and one I’m throwing out for free to anyone who might like to apply for a grant. I’ve got a dissertation to finish.

The point being, “social media” is amorphous. You can’t nail jello to the wall. Let’s quantify the phenomenon with better data before talking about who’s doing what. I would welcome the details.

Next Page »

• Supporting the site

• Recent Comments

  • Full color printing on Failed banks by state visualization
  • beverly hills dentist on Failed banks by state visualization
  • Listening to Digital Nation: how culture is transformed within a generation « Fredzimny's Blog on Why is Douglas Rushkoff always looking up?
  • Virus Protection on Living without television: cut the cord on the boob tube and still enjoy quality entertainment
  • Virus Protection on Still working on this new theme

• Tags

  2008 presidential campaign Alaska Apple AT&T Barack Obama Barack Obama presidential campaign 2008 blogs BoingBoing CatholicGoogle Chicago Tribune Chicagotribune blogging ericzorn theswamp copress wordpress collegemedia Daily Kos Dog Whistle ethics Good News Google Internet censorship iPhone iphone 3g IPod touch John McCain Journalism law Mass media media Mitch McConnell Mitt Romney New York Times Politics Randall Stephenson Random Ideas Roman Catholic Church Running mate Sarah Palin Search Search Engines social networking Society and Culture Text messaging Twitter Unicorn Chaser United States Web 2.0 wordle

• Pages

  • About
  • Academic Resources
  • Amazon Store
  • C.V.
  • Disclaimer
  • The Random Idea tumblr
• 

• Popular Posts

  • A real semantic network analysis of Obama's inaugural speech
  • Failed banks by state visualization
  • Obama's 2nd Press Conference - Semantic Network Analysis
  • Living without television: cut the cord on the boob tube and still enjoy quality entertainment
  • Random Idea: Newspaper Tycoon
  • You know you're in Texas 2 tag: Texas
  • Hulu rocks and infuriates
  • Newspaper industry woes deconstructed
  • Social networks and the 2008 political elections
  • "CatholicGoogle" has got to be some kind of trademark violation, right?

• Random Quote

  For some reason, I am portrayed as the one who is evil in formulating policies that people disagree with. I consider myself a casualty, one of the many casualties of the war on terror. — Alberto Gonzalez

• Academic Voices

  • Doug Fisher
  • Jay Rosen
  • Len Witt
  • Mindy McAdams

• College Media Voices

  • College Media Matters
  • College Rag
  • CoPress

• Economics

  • Brad DeLong
  • Calculated Risk
  • Naked Capitalism
  • New Deal 2.0
  • Paul Krugman
  • Planet Money (NPR)
  • The Baseline Scenario

• News Industry Voices

  • Howard Owens
  • Jack Lail
  • John Robinson
  • Rob Curley

• Political Voices

  • Huffington Post
  • Steven Taylor

• Young Journalist Voices

  • Daniel Bachhuber
  • Greg Linch
  • Jessica DaSilva
  • Meranda Watling
  • Ryan Sholin
  • Will Sullivan

• Flickr

  
  By Blogates.com
• 
  View My Stats