The many disconnects ofJournalism 1.95b

Mark Cuban posts on silly questions from reporters in the wake of the Pistons-Pacers brawl. What I find particularly interesting, though, are the reader comments, where I see a clear sampling of unscientific market research in support of our Journalism 2.0 concepts. (If a blog is a focus group, do you call it a "blocus group"?)

The problem is one that should scare anyone in any industry -- misaligned expectations of customers (readers), manufacturers (reporters), management and owners.

• Customers expect the media to entertain them, and to deliver a fair and unbiased account.
  • A commenter says: I've heard countless complaints about ESPN's "analysts" (former players) doing a terrible job of providing objectivity. How many of those complaining will actually respond by NOT watching ESPN anymore?
    
    While there's no question we have every right to demand more from our media, bitching about their shortcomings, while continuing to faithfully tune in to watch/read/listen to their coverage, is reinforcing the very media behaviours we loathe.
• Manufacturers expect to be given the resources they need to thoroughly report and tell stories.
• Management expects to be able to deliver maximum readership with minimal resources, and while making sure they don't offend any potential customers (readers or advertisers).
• Owners, who are a disparate group of public stockholders, expect an quarterly ROI, manifested solely in the value of a share.

Note points of concern not common to any two parties in that list: The whole truth and a time horizon longer than 90 days.

Meantime, there is a misconception that the media holds some sort of public trust -- This causes the customers to simultaneously put too much stock into the information they're given by the media and to feel too distant and disconnected (as with a government entity) to do anything about it. (The only exception to this would be NPR and PBS, who, as publicly funded entities, do have a public trust. And don't give me that hooey about TV broadcasters and their license to the airwaves. That concept became outdated with cable TV.)

The problems of that misconception are compunded by the media companies, who cling to that "trust" as some sort of entitlement, or worse, moral authority. That's why Jayson Blair and Rathergate happens. That's why the voice of good reporters is sacrificed to the inverted pyramid quote-counterquote style of reportage.

A commenter says: There is a great deal about the media that needs to be changed as they have taken on the self-endulging view that they are our second governemnt and will tell us what is and is not important and will tell us what we need to know and how much we need to know... makes you wonder just who the good guys are anymore

Folks, the fact is that media is a business, just like Wal-Mart, or your corner dry cleaners, or the Dallas Mavericks. I'm not saying that they shouldn't be doing a much better job, but the reason isn't any kind of Excalibur-annointed trust -- it's because that's what the market wants and needs.

The true disconnect exists because the mainstream media has not woken up to the changes in technology that have brought about a disintermediation -- No longer does your local newspaper, or even the major networks, hold a monopoly in terms of bringing you news. There was a time when they did, and there was a good buck to be made in trying to be all things to all people.

Today, that's no longer the case. And the MSM hasn't figured that out. That's why we think that the Journalism 2.0 world means specializing only in areas where you're providing truly unique content, instead of contributing to the "me too" chorus. It means putting opinion into the news, opinion that's been earned by extensive reportage.

(There's a great quote in The Paper, where managing editor Michael Keaton tells Randy Quaid: You're not a columnist-- you're a reporter who writes long.)

A commenter says: The media in this country has become a bloated mass of quick fix journalism and repetitive overanalysis. It is not going to get better as technology advances, and that is a shame.

Another says: It would be nice to live in a world where journalists report useful things, but that'd be a world where money didn't exist.

I say: Not if we have anything to say about it.

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Several other observations unrelated to the main points above:

Mark says:

Once the media got the transcripts  of the suspensions by the league, the transcript of the Detroit authorities and the notice to appeal by the players union  reported, has there been a single additional fact uncovered ?... There are attendance records, there are drop counts, for all the games played by all 30 teams
There are local and national tv ratings for all 30 teams
There are statistically valid surveys that can be done.
Its possible to go back through the tape of the game and look for incidents or situations that might have occored, on the court and in the stands.
One of the refs during the game was miked by ESPN. Did anyone listen to this tape to see if any new info was picked up by that mike ?

How tough would have it been for a single reporter to gather any or all of this and report on it ?

I say to him, and to several of the commenters: You've picked the wrong target. You're attacking the symptom, not the disease. You aren't going to change anything by sniping at the reporters. Instead, go to the management of these organizations with your complaints. They're the ones laying off reporters and cutting corners, eating their seed corn to bolster the quarterly results of a slowly failing business. Hey, if you're really serious, hit 'em where it hurts. Quit advertising with them and spend your dollars in other outlets that will drive the same results.

As an aside, the data-driven reporting that he talks about is a big part of our Journalism 2.0 model.

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A commenter says: I once asked a news reporter whether he thought sports writers were journalists.

He refused to answer.  I think his non-response says it all

So what is a journalist? I'd argue that this fellow is tangled up in the old notion of what a journalist is. The noble Woodward and Bernstein image is a relatively new creation. For most of their history, journalists have been viewed as a pretty liquored-up and untrustworthy lot -- hookers with hearts of gold, at best.

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A commenter says: The media has long since been referred to as the "fourth branch of government" because of the inherent power they have. Yet, in this power they are suppose to be the guardians of the people's right to know. What has sadly become the commonplace trend is that the media has assumed, perhaps an even worse mindset than the government, of what the people have [a right] to know. Some would argue that this stems from the fierce competativeness existing between the media agencies and to some degree it is a valid point. But I believe it also stems from the age old analogy of "absolute power corrupts absolutely".

Another victim of the Objectivity Myth.

Comments

[Sterling Wright]

I've wrote it once on Blogmaverick.com as a comment, I will write it again herein:

The lack of rudimentary fact finding and the pursuit for profits are essential prerequisites to the emergences of the eventual massive failure of many news organizations. The optimist in me would like to think people will be turned off and tune out. I am glad that you posed the question of how the media could—or should—represent reality. What larger generalizations can we draw from the media’s reporting of the NBA fracas.

What are the effects on American children who will have a life-time exposure of miss reporting of facts by the media? The vocation of journalism no longer exists; journalist use to acknowledge the barrier of fact and fiction before the onset of television.

There are interesting lessons to be learned about the relationship between legitimacy, journalism, and their influence on societal values. Today journalism demands a total ruthlessness and means that journalist must be able to ignore values, loyalty, and anything other than their own financial interest. Has anyone noticed the contemptible news reporting on Dan Rather’s retirement by Fox news subsequently followed by other news outlets?

But, I guess it is what it is. Most Americans have become unaware the media has become institutionalized organizations of ignorance; “journalism” is disintegrating at the same tempo of the American middle class. All of the values and illusions that are the pride of American society’s cloistered world are already doomed as untenable illusions which have made it and the U.S. currency the subject of ridicule by much of the word. But Americans do not realize that journalism and historical spin is also changing their absurd, cloistered world. More serious and therefore more dangerous are the misreports of journalists.

American rockets can find Halley ‘s Comet and fly to Mars with Amazing accuracy, but side by side with these scientific achievements is the unraveling of a scientific approach to journalism. The passing of the Presidential election in America brought about an ever greater resistance to the attempts to constructively scrutinize the problems that are emerging within and outside the country. The media will continue to manufacture presentations of a “problem-free” reality while focus on other proclivities that divide us within and from the rest of the world.

Accordingly, American society has become a country fueled by hypocrisy and jugglery. Journalist are embittered and blinded by ambition.

[Publisher]

Makes exactly as much sense here as it did over on Cuban's blog.

[Scott Chaffin]

Thinking out loud here --

- BlogMaverick is an interesting experiment, and I think it's going to stand as a monument to "controlling the story" at some point in the future. Didn't Cuban start it as a way to avoid talking to reporters so he wouldn't be quoted out of context? Well, this way, he only answers questions he wants to answer, and he gets to answer them on his own schedule (and cross-market that horrid teevee show.) Which means, basically, that I don't trust his reporting of "facts" any more than I trust Belo or ESPN. Cuban even types it out loud: There were other questions I asked and got answered that I cant list here. Gee willikers, why not?

More to the point: reporting becomes harder to do as control is exerted. ESPN's control of the tape of the miked ref, NBA's control of the game tape, attendance counts controlled by individual teams (we KNOW that this gets gamed), etc. Right now, this control aspect is (IMHO) rampant in sports. I expect it to move that way faster in bidness. Governmental agencies have a more difficult time of this, but institutionalized bureaacricies staffed by lifetime employees are getting better and better at controlling their message. How does J2.0 attack these problems?

P.S. to Sterling: the belief that Americans are stupid, cloistered and hypocritical is exactly why Fox can be successful while poking fun at Dan Rather. Rather is a pompous ass and has been for 30 years. His good reporting, unfortunately for even me, gets overlaid on the template of his pompous ass-ity and hence, gets discarded or ignored. In fact, Americans are not stupid or cloistered...they don't need Fox's reporting. Fox is playing to the crowd. Besides, in J2.0, there will hopefully be nothing but a blurb that a news reader is taking off the pancake. It should be a ZZZZ moment, not a matter to reported on other "news" shows.