Final Panel: the View from the Newsroom

by Nicholas Bramble | November 14, 2009 | Other | 1 Comment

It’s an honor to be liveblogging the final panel, featuring Linda Greenhouse, David Carr, Marcia Chambers, Bill Mitchell, and Ari Paul, and moderated by Emily Bazelon.

Linda Greenhouse observes that the Harvard Crimson created an endowment to subsidize students who otherwise would have had to do work-study at other parts of the university. Describes the benefits and burdens of life on the web. LG could not be doing what she’s doing now re the Supreme Court without the Internet (e.g., new Guantanamo posts on SCOTUSblog, How Appealing). In the past, there was only the information that journalists chose to write about, but now, through websites and blogs, you can get a nearly real-time idea of what’s happening from court to court, in terms of orders, transcripts, and conversations among people with similar interests. But there are also burdens. (1) Quick turnaround time for reporting precludes having a few hours to think about the opinions that have just been handed down. Have moved from a contemplative posture to posture that more closely resembles coverage of a football game. (2) A second challenge is how to add value: if anyone in the world can read the opinion/briefs/arguments at same time you can, you have to do more than simply duplicate those. Hard to justify paying for something that is free. But websites can create model where you can *read* everything for free and to participate in the conversation, you have to pay something.

David Carr calls it a worthwhile thought exercise to think about what US public understandings of the Supreme Court would be like without the past 30 years of Linda’s work. He will attempt to make sure that his presentation does not “suck.” Where I am as a reporter, things are very murky, and you realize you’re in a barrel about to go over a waterfall. You examine the barrel’s efficacy and preparedness for after the fall; the barrel we’re in is not fine. There’s an air of uniqueness at NYTimes newsroom, but the mood is still one of dread, excitement, and fatigue; people are happy to have a job. File and face-plant paradigm: do a story, video, facebook/tweet about it, try to get into every platform as fast as you can. But you end up being at an event and not experiencing it at all. I love what I do but I don’t want my reporting to be thin and stupid; there’s an explosion of pixels in content, editorial, and advertising, and there’s *so much content*. I can’t make a living doing $20/story rates. A person like me is the result of a legacy business model; Craigslist shot off the back-end of the media biz (classified = 40%); regional monopolies gradually eroded by insurgent technologies. I am overpaid in the current paradigm; this is an artificial construct, as explained by Clay Shirky earlier. Advertisers pay for scarce assets and adjacency, but on the web there’s no scarcity, and adjacency is much broader. In Ken Auletta’s book about Google, search advertising is explained to old media rep, who responds, “you are fucking with the magic.” Other than lining pockets of shareholders, the legacy models produced great journalism; it’s not just expensive to execute journalism, it’s also expensive to defend (e.g., prison innocence articles). All these wonderful hybrid citizen models have to understand: after you write a good story, “you better put a nut cap on and you better hire a damn good lawyer!” I’m a believer in citizens and collaboration, but you have to be ready to defend your work as well. Kraft, Bank of America, etc all produce workarounds to what media does. Holds up laptop: this contains far more resources (if you assume the cloud) than any other newsroom I ever walked into. It makes me so much more powerful than I ever was when entering the business. 17M+ users is a huge audience that we’ve never had, and a very powerful tool in the hands of a journalist. I do 1 minute podcasts from my basement every morning. The problem, though, is that space is infinite and you need to fill it. Both my toolbox and my heart is full. We have been developing a common dialogue over production of news; the web allows you to listen so much better; I have targeted RSS feeds, when something is important, it finds me. I like what I do, and I want to develop new business models; but I don’t want to put on a sandwich board that says “will write for food.”

Marcia Chambers: like LG, I was fellow at Yale, and many of our fellow graduates are out in the field. I made leap, however, from print to web, with creation of Branford Eagle. A lot of the conversations I had were related to political transformation in local politics; I called New Haven Independent and Paul Bass, and I started writing without any clue as to how to write online. Published story called “Dark Side,” that began coverage of what was happening in Branford town politics. People began writing to me and asking me to keep up the good work; I began bringing tape recorder to meetings so as to ensure there was context; many people *didn’t* like this, as seen in story “Enemy of the Press.” One thing I’ve learned is how different the web is; esp w/r/t linking, e.g., property tax article. Annie Le case was fascinating for revealing separate forces in law as pertaining to print (libel) and web (more of a wild west regime). Two separate versions, due to different legal issues. The local press did well because they are repeat players in a case that occurred in our community; we kept breaking stories left and right *because we were here*. In 3 years since Eagle founded, a lot of local stories, and quick comments from audience. People no longer wait for the news. Stories about feral cats in Branford.

Bill Mitchell: as speaker #38, I feel obligation to return to Dean Post’s framework. “Routinized circulation of texts” required as democratic core of what journalism represents in democracy. In 1993, I was working at San Jose Mercury News–we had a paywall in partnership with AOL, for $9.95 for the first 5 hours, and $3.95 for subsequent hours. Didn’t work very well–was owned by Knight Ridder back then. In the undergraduate dorm where I live, I find that 3 of 450 students have newspaper subscriptions. Any debate whether transition has taken old becomes academic, when you look at how people are consuming news. Dean Post’s idea, in context of what’s happening in Detroit & Ann Arbor–news orgs are disrupting old routines of circulating fundamental texts and starting new ones. Penny Abernathy made point that job #1 for news orgs is to shed legacy costs, but these costs must be shed as part of strategy for migrating readers from old to new platforms. It’s harder than just asking people to move, b/c we ask them to change routines that they really care about. Detroit cut back from 7-day/wk to 3-day deliveries. Other option is to read papers & e-editions online. But in Detroit, people are losing not just newspaper habit but also the *news habit*. This interim period is messy: Detroit needs public-service journalism, and we need to wrestle with these consequences. Ann Arbor experiment is even broader: newspaper shut down entirely; quick shedding of legacy costs in move to annarbor.com. Old newsroom had 66 reporters/editors; new had 28, paid less than they were in print newsroom. However, they are thinking more about reader’s experience of the news; newsroom no longer set up as fortress, instead first floor is now set up as a coffeehouse where readers can interact with journalists face to face. So question remains: what kind of routines will replace the old routines, and how we’re going to pay for it.

Ari Paul: works for Chief (Leader) newspaper covering public sector workers in New York City. Reflecting on conference as someone just at beginning of career, I thought about how 40 years ago I would be perceived as a sort of public sector worker, but now I am perceived more like an actor, or a full-time activist, or a starving artist. One thing not often brought up at this conference, and sometimes avoided, was how news orgs are going to act as employers. W/r/t collective bargaining, compliance with labor law, etc. Yesterday president of CNN commented how many people are willing to do journalism without needing money–this has created wage deflation. In my job as a labor columnist, no one is getting paid for working in my area. The lesson we should take from this is that we should focus less on how to cheaply extract labor in creating revenue streams, and more on how to create real careers for people starting out in their 20s. We need to keep people past their 20s so that they commit to making a new media model.

QUESTIONS FOR PANEL:

Emily Bazelon: one thing we’ve been talking about is authority, how people know about authority, linking/ranking/etc. This is a function of personality: it puts pressure on journalists to be out there with Twitter and fan-feeds and be less anonymous. Is it OK if journalists are becoming more like actors, or is this a perversion of the role in some way?

Linda: The Times used to have a policy that seriously disfavored people appearing on Sunday morning talk shows, etc. Now it’s completely the opposite. During Bush v. Gore, the Times PR people kept feeding me media requests; I finally demanded a raise, which in those days you could still get. Other side: if people are supposed to be personalities, the old constraints–you’re not supposed to have a thought in your head about the event you’re covering–are diminished. When I said Bush admin had created legal black hole in Guantanamo (at private event), was reprimanded by NY Times, but this seems outdated now.

David: In the course of spreading versions of yourself around, no one would have any interest if my last name wasn’t NY Times.

Emily: can’t you take your own brand past the Times, now?

David: that’s not an experiment I would run now. An editor recently called me up and said they didn’t like how I was addressing issue on Twitter, and I said, “that’s not really yours, it’s mine.” My objective has always been to fit in, not to stick out.. but my objective has become more to stick out, recently. Although some of the most important people at the Times, you’ve never heard of and never will.

Marcia: I don’t do much Twitter. If people are really interested in what you’re writing, they’ll read it. It’s all about what you’re covering. I do have Branford Eagle community TV show, where I interview public officials from town and talk about column events.

Ari: it’s more peculiar for me because I’m in niche media market where I’m one of the few people willing to listen to union leaders.

Bill: current NY Times public editor went so far as to make contribution to story funded by outside group. Values changing.

Edwin Baker (from audience): what do you think generally about the conversations at the conference? There have been a number, which fit into different boxes. One kind of conversation is how to have an economically viable business model, a second kind is how to have a media that serves society, a third kind is what’s likely to fall out of all this. In the second conversation, two divisions: Yochai Benkler’s works previous to Wealth of Networks, including works on copyright, show how certain copyright laws favor different sizes of actors & discourses: commodified vs. non-commodified. Some debates are whether we want more or less commodified; other debates are how we can make either of those discourses more ideal.

Bill: a tax break that would reimburse news organizations for # of reporters, might perpetuate journalism as it’s always been done, and not produce the kind of journalism society really needs. We need some pressure to respond to what people are asking for.

Linda: some of the new ways of delivering information are resources, and others are distractions for people trying to do journalism. E.g., PR push, overflowing inbox with requests to quote law firm partners and write about certain cases. Towards end of my time in daily journalism, it was like swimming through molasses to get through the day of a major case. This environment requires different skill-sets of attentiveness–knowing what to ignore; knowing not to go on Google Blog Search to see what someone’s saying about you.

David: as a media reporter, this is extremely exciting time. For 10 years, kept hearing sky was falling, but nothing happened; but now, a grand piano is hurtling towards our heads. Gawker, Pro Publica & NY Times, etc — these are new models and collaborations; we’re in a more-than-theoretical state, and the work is underway. Legacy media is going to have more trouble walking back to a state where they can make a living; there’s going to be more new media forms built on the business. If it’s going to be good, it can’t just be done for the love of it, because you’re going to work your ass off over and over.

Marcia: I’m on the cutting edge; we’re very dependent on gifts, donations, etc. We never know if we’re going to be funded. But I believe that the people of Branford really want and need what I give them; we haven’t given up old-fashioned reporting skills, we rely very little on the Internet. It’s a great new day for journalism. We need a new financial model to get us there.

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Thanks for reading!

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