Justices often confound predictions

This will be my column in Monday’s Gazette:

When presidents nominate new justices for the Supreme Court, people who care about courts project their hopes and fears onto judges most of them have never heard of.

From the special interests and from the extremes of our political spectrum, we hear caricatures about empathetic or activist judges. And we really don’t have a clue what the justice will do.

Here’s the truth: Presidents (as well as governors) nominate people for the Supreme Court who they believe will be good justices, interpreting and applying the law and the Constitution honestly. They also nominate people they hope will reflect their own political philosophy. They have a better track record on the first score than on the second.

I don’t know how Sonia Sotomayor will work out as a Supreme Court justice, presuming that she wins confirmation. And neither do all the liberals hoping she will be empathetic or all the conservatives who think that “identity politics” play a role in her selection but were irrelevant in the selection of the 108 white male justices who have preceded her to the court.

Do you suppose that when Gov. Terry Branstad appointed Marsha Ternus and Mark Cady to the Iowa Supreme Court that he anticipated someday Cady would write and Ternus would join a unanimous decision overturning Iowa’s ban on same-sex marriage? I think we can be sure he didn’t. He appointed them to interpret the Constitution and they did that faithfully.

Do you think that when liberal icon John F. Kennedy appointed Byron White to the court that he thought he would become one of the most conservative justices? Or that Republican Richard Nixon thought Harry Blackmun would be one of the most liberal?

I do know that lots of anti-abortion voters campaigned hard for Ronald Reagan and the elder George Bush, based on Republican platforms committed to appointing justices who would overturn the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision that legalized abortion. And by the time Roe came up for review by the court in the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey case, Reagan and Bush had appointed five of the nine justices on the court. Add in the fact that the original two Roe dissenters, White and William Rehnquist, remained on the court and this looked like a 7-2 reversal of Roe.

But two Reagan appointees, Sandra Day O’Connor and Anthony Kennedy, and a Bush appointee, David Souter, joined in a 5-4 decision affirming Roe. Put simply, a majority of the Reagan-Bush appointees voted to uphold Roe, and if even one of them had voted the other way, it would have been overturned.  

Keep this in mind as you read and listen to the various projections of Sotomayor as a Supreme Court justice. The truth is that we never know and people from either end of the political spectrum who try to fan hopes and fears are doing so from speculation and ignorance.

Justices, like all people, change and grow through the years. However long a justice serves, we can count on two things: He or she will rule on some issues we can’t now anticipate and a justice at the Supreme Court level is not bound, as appellate justices are, to follow earlier rulings of the Supreme Court.

Presuming she is confirmed, Sotomayor is young enough that she probably will spend the next 20 years or more ruling on the laws of our land. If you know how she will rule on issues we can’t now anticipate, you are either truly wise or, more likely, truly foolish.

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Take 2 on newspaper executives’ secret meeting

Secret is as secret does. 

When I first wrote about Thursday’s NAA meeting of newspaper executives, I had to confess I didn’t actually know what was happening, but was writing based on some blogs that were mostly based on speculation or rumor or on the agenda for the meeting, which James Warren of The Atlantic obtained. After some off-the-record emails and a phone call and after reading Editor & Publisher’s two accounts of the meeting, I know more about what was discussed there. My basic views remain unchanged: The meeting was misguided and newspaper executives’ heavy focus on paid content as a way of protecting the print product is wasting time and energy that we shoud focus on more productive innovative solutions. 

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Seven reasons charging for content won’t work

I hope the newspaper tycoons meeting secretly in Chicago this week come up with a clap-your-hands plan.

Because clapping our hands to save the newspaper industry, like we saved Tinkerbell at the movies when we were children, has more chance of succeeding than the paid-content-cartel approach that newspaper executives are dreaming and talking about but being careful not to conspire about.

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Yet another anti-Twitter piece written in ignorance

It’s OK to be sick and tired of Twitter rants by journalists who don’t understand it.

The same day I posted about Edward Wasserman writing about Twitter without really learning about it, I read another piece from another journalist I respect, Paul Farhi of the Washington Post, writing The Twitter Explosion in the American Journalism Review. 

Farhi, to his credit, did a fairly thorough job of researching Twitter by reading about it online and by interviewing journalists who use it. He just didn’t bother, from what I can tell, to learn anything firsthand by actually using it. And his writing revealed his ignorance.

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Another Twitter expert who didn’t bother to learn

I have long been an admirer of Edward Wasserman’s work. When I was presenting a series of ethics seminars, Our Readers Are Watching, for the American Press Institute, I frequently recommended Wasserman’s Miami Herald columns on ethics in a list-serv for participants.

But his latest work shows how smart people can write stupid things when they don’t take the time to learn and understand the topic they are writing about. Wasserman, a professor of journalism ethics at Washington and Lee University, clearly is smart. His thumbnail bio with his columns says he was educated at Yale, the University of Paris and the London School of Economics.

Apparently that meant Wasserman was so educated he didn’t have to learn anything first-hand about Twitter before writing about it. His latest column, How Twitter poses a threat to newspapers, revealed so much ignorance about Twitter that I knew without looking that he had never bothered to use Twitter. But I look anyway. It’s good journalism to do some research and see if your assumptions are correct. A quick check using Twitter’s “find people” function showed no Edward Wasserman on Twitter. (Update: Wasserman confirmed in an email response that he has not used Twitter. His response, which shows a refreshing humility and thick skin, is in the comments.)

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New York Times social media editor off to a sociable start

First tweets tend to be pretty lame (mine was), often something like “trying to figure out this Twitter thing.”

Jennifer Preston of the New York Times got off to a better start, asking in her inaugural tweet Tuesday:

Hi, I’m the NYT’s new social media editor. More details later. How should @nytimes be using Twitter?

With 40 characters to spare, she identified herself clearly and started being social, starting to learn and preparing to teach, which is exactly what a new social media editor should do. I also like that she’s identifying herself in her profile as more than her job. She’s also a mother of twins, an author and a friend. It’s a nice contrast to the Wall Street Journal’s admonition against mixing personal and professional, which goes against the culture of the social media.

I’m pleased that The Gazette was several months ahead of the Times in designating a staff member to lead us into the social media. I appointed  Jamie Kelly our social media guide last summer.

I suspect Jamie was better qualified for his job than Preston. Unless she had a private Twitter account (I couldn’t find one) before Tuesday’s appointment, her first use of one of the most important and prominent social networks came after her new gig was announced Tuesday. She’s on LinkedIn (only 15 connections, though that will grow; she already has more than 3,000 Twitter followers) and Facebook, though we don’t know yet how much she has used either. I saw no sign of her on Flickr and didn’t check other social networks she might be on. Her social media education will be quite scrutinized. But on the other hand, not many of us are more than a year or two ahead of her. And as I wrote in a pair of posts early in my Twitter time, you learn quickly.

I responded immediately with a tweet  encouraging Preston to talk to Jamie and to check out my Twitter tips for editors and my post on journalism ethics in social networks. I meant to write a blog post offering lots of advice (as condescending as that sounds) to Preston, but two other bloggers (probably more, but I’ve seen these two), David Kaplan and Patrick Thornton, offered some really sound advice already (Preston already acknowledged Kaplan’s).

I’ll disagree with Patrick on one point: The nytimes Twitter feed has 946,401 followers (it grew by 2,000 from when I wrote the first draft of this post last night), just offering headlines and links. That’s giving a lot of tweeps something they want, so I wouldn’t mess with that. Patrick is right that you should be social in social media, and I encourage being more interactive with other Twitter profiles, but New York Times headlines and links obviously interest lots of people more than they do Patrick. So give those people what they want. And then follow the rest of Patrick’s advice.

Adam Darowski also offered (not directed at Preston, but valuable to her anyway) some helpful advice on “How To Use Twitter and not Be a Douchebag.” I tweeted a link to his piece and then was retweeted 11 times, which is a lot for me.

Rather than echoing or adding to the good advice offered already, I’ll weigh in with a review of Preston’s first 31 tweets (the most-watched Twitter debut since Oprah?):

• She already has the hang of retweeting, echoing the advice offered to her by several tweeps and replying to more.
• She understands the importance of links, passing along a link to Kaplan’s blog and to a list of Times Twitter feeds (another link she attempted to pass along was a busted link).
• Preston understands the value of courtesy, thanking tweeps seven times for their help and praising suggestions she received.
• She discussed the Times’ use of Twitter, mentioning that Andrew Sorkin had tweeted from an event.
• She told us that she had attended a Twitter session by some Times colleagues. That would have been a great event for twittercasting (or a liveblog using Twitter feeds from her and other Times staffers attending). She got some advice in that session from Jennifer 8. Lee, whom I enjoy following.
• She’s seeking (or listenting to) advice from veteran Twitterers, as she noted in thanking Mathew Ingram, communities editor at the Globe and Mail, one of Canada’s Twittering journalism experts. I hope Preston also seeks advice from Times staffers Nicholas Kristof and David Pogue, two Twitterers I enjoy.
• Preston converses with her tweeps, asking questions to seek clarification or elaboration (sometimes necessary with the 140-character limit).
• She shows enthusiasm. I’d like to see more sense of humor, though that might be a bit of a challenge to the very serious culture of the New York Times (but it is the culture of social media). (Kristof shows some humor in his tweets, another reason for Preston to study his style and discuss his approach with him.)
• She doesn’t regard social media as a 9-to-5 job. That tweet thanking Ingram was one of three she posted yesterday evening fairly late.

I hope Preston will lead a vigorous (and public) discussion of how the Times should use social media and what are Times standards regarding opinion, when and how to mix personal with public, etc.

Times ethical issues are aired publicly (Public Editor Clark Hoyt’s column Sunday examined issues dealing with perhaps the two biggest Times superstars, Maureen Dowd and Thomas Friedman). One of the greatest injustices in journalism ethics in recent years was that Rick Bragg was smeared in the wake of the Jayson Blair scandal with a matter that was simply a case of changing standards. Bragg followed a common procedure of using stringers and got pilloried when the standard changed beneath him. We don’t want to see a quality Times journalist smeared by changing or unclear standards regarding social media.

I’m glad the New York Times is venturing into social media in such a public way. I hope @NYT_JenPreston and her colleagues share some valuable lessons with the rest of the industry as they are learning.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Nieman Journalism Lab: NYTimes appoints Jennifer Preston as social media editor (blogs.journalism.co.uk)
• Gazing into the Twitterverse (briansolis.com)
• How to Show The Value of Twitter In 2 Minutes or Less (adamhcohen.com)

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No cure yet, but millions of us are cancer survivors

This will be my column in the Monday Gazette:

Imagine the excited news coverage if a major medical journal announced that scientists had developed a cure for cancer.

Editors would splash it across the front page of every newspaper. It would lead the evening newscasts and talk shows would chatter incessantly about it. The word would spread instantly on Twitter and blogs.

That’s probably not how we’re going to cure cancer. But the dramatic progress we have made in fighting cancer is big news that doesn’t get the big headlines or generate lots of chat or tweets because it’s happened so gradually.

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C3 commentary in Finnish (and swift social media help)

I’ll start by acknowledging the obvious: I have an ego and it’s not small.

This post will share some praise for me and the Blueprint for the Complete Community Connection. Yes, I do enjoy being called a visionary and having people in Finland encouraged to check out my writing and I don’t mind telling you about that. But I hope this post will also illustrate how the connected world of social media works and show the value of digital tools. The story involves blogs, email, three different social networks and a Google translator. And it all took place in less time than it will take me to write this blog.

I received a pingback this morning on my blog, alerting me to a new link to the C3 blueprint. I clicked on the link and didn’t understand much at all in the Mediablogi post by Matti Lintulahti. I was puzzled about what language it was. It had lots of umlauts, but I took some German in high school years ago and knew it wasn’t German. Some of the words had a bit of a Russian sound, but I had never seen umlauts in Russian. I wondered if it might be another Slavic language, but the blog wasn’t using the Cyrillic alphabet. Didn’t seem quite Germanic or Slavic.

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Journalists shouldn’t hide behind a mask

I’ll use a shortened version of this for my Monday column in The Gazette:

Mixing the personal with the professional has always been uncomfortable territory for journalists and especially for journalists’ bosses. Voicing opinions is another touchy area.

The Wall Street Journal weighed in on both matters last week with a resounding “no” to staff members who might be tempted to do either in their use of social media.

“Business and pleasure should not be mixed on services like Twitter,” a Dow Jones email guiding staff use of social media warned. The message also admonished staff: “Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views … could open us to criticism that we have biases.”

The point of both rules seems to be to hide the person you are, as though reporting were a plastic Mardi Gras mask you could hold in front of your face and fool unsuspecting readers.

I was one of several bloggers and Twitterers during the past week who criticized the guidelines on various counts. I don’t want to re-plow that ground here, but I do want to address – and debunk – the notion that journalists can or should hide our humanity.

The fact is that the Wall Street Journal (as well as The Gazette and any journalism organization) already is open to criticism about biases. Readers attribute bias to us based on their own biases and based on their understanding of the fact that journalists are human and that all humans have biases.

Of course, we should maintain neutrality about topics we cover. But, as I have written here before, humanity actually helps us be better journalists. And I believe it can help build the credibility of our reporting. I will illustrate with three stories, one from the Wall Street Journal:

In the early 1990s, I was editor of the Minot Daily News (and wrote a weekly column) and my wife, Mimi, was a columnist for News. When she first started writing a column in Shawnee, Kan., before we moved to Minot, I advised Mimi that it was better to reveal occasional personal glimpses while writing about the community, and have the readers wanting to know you better, than to write frequently about yourself and have the readers feel they were getting too much personal information.

Mimi has never felt bound by my advice and pretty much ignored this counsel. She did write frequently about the community, but also dealt with our family life and her personal interests a lot (sometimes to the mild embarrassment of the husband and sons who became characters in her stories). My editor’s column did give occasional personal glimpses, but mostly wrote about lofty issues of journalism, the community or the world.

When I was fired, the publisher also dropped Mimi’s column. My firing drew some mild criticism from readers, but they were outraged to lose Mimi’s column. Four other North Dakota newspapers, whose editors were loyal readers, quickly picked up her column. Even as a columnist, I spent too much of my time behind that Mardi Gras mask, while Mimi was making a personal connection.

I covered religion for the Des Moines Register a decade ago. In addition to writing news stories, I wrote a column about faith, frequently expressing opinions or dealing with my own faith and experiences. People I interviewed frequently asked about my own faith and I answered candidly. I later learned from other religion writers that many are reluctant to discuss their own faith with people they cover and recoil at the thought of writing anything personal or opinionated.

I also wrote a lot about religion when I was at the Omaha World-Herald, but I didn’t write a column there. I’m quite sure I was accused more often of biased coverage (sometimes by people who inferred inaccurately about my own faith or opinions) in Omaha, where no one actually knew anything about my opinions or personal perspectives, than I was in Des Moines. When people knew we held different opinions or came from different faiths, I frequently heard appreciation for my fair and unbiased coverage.

Now for the Wall Street Journal example: In 2004, Farnaz Fassihi, a reporter in the Journal’s Baghdad bureau, sent an email to friends about her life in Baghdad. “Being a foreign correspondent in Baghdad these days is like being under virtual house arrest,” she started. What followed was detailed, well-written and candid, describing how difficult and dangerous work and life in Baghdad were then, one of the most chaotic times of the war in Iraq.

Someone posted the email online and it became an immediate sensation. Critics of the Journal questioned how she could continue reporting on the war. But others noted that the blunt assessment gave a more accurate account of life in Baghdad than the stories she wrote behind her mask for the Journal’s news columns.

Journalists are people. We can acknowledge our humanity and still uphold the principles of accuracy, independence and fairness. Sometimes showing our humanity helps build our credibility. People stop wondering who that is behind the mask.

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More on newspapers’ social media rules: NY Times, Washington Post, etc.

Update: Gina M. Chen blogged about the New York Times and Washington Post social media rules, providing thoughtful insight on both. “Newspapers are really, really afraid of readers, sources, everyone. Good grief.”

And I’m especially pleased with Jamie Kelly’s simple, brief advice on social media use by journalists: Identify yourself and don’t endanger your reputation.

No time for extensive new commentary, but I have to note that the New York Times guidelines for staff on social media are more enlightened than the Wall Street Journal’s. But isn’t it comical (and a little pathetic) to see an organization that stands for openness in the rest of the world whining about tweets from a newsroom meeting? Note to Gazette staffers: You can tweet anything I say in any staff meeting.

Joe Strupp of Editor & Publisher has rounded up more newsroom policies/guidelines/rules/advice on using Twitter and other social media.  The Washington Post’s don’t-embarrass-us approach recognizes that rigid rules aren’t the way to handle social media.

Patrick Thornton of BeatBlogging wrote one of the most scathing and insightful shots I’ve seen at the Wall Street Journal approach. Thornton (who linked to my first post on the topic) wrote:

The policy seems better fit for a different era and a different medium. The policy repeatedly tells employees to “consult your editor” when using social media. The Journal appears to be operating in the same top-down, slow, patriarchal manner of newspapers of old, instead of the open and nimble ethos of social media.

James Poniewozik of Time illustrates the absurdity of the WSJ rules by showing how many of them he would be in violation of (in all cases by doing things I would regard as good journalism or harmless fun).

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A response from the Wall Street Journal

As punishment, I guess, for posting that I was too busy to continue this discussion (or perhaps because I wished a flight delay on Jeff Jarvis), I got a response from the Wall Street Journal right after I posted my last update in a series of posts that started last night.

I had emailed editors Alix Freedman and Karen Pensiero, asking them to respond to the earlier posts. You won’t understand his response unless you have read the post about my conversation last month with Pensiero. The response came from Robert H. Christie, vice president, communications, at Dow Jones & Co. (and yes, it does say something about the WSJ culture that a blogger’s question to an editor is answered by a PR person):

While Ms. Pensiero found it interesting to hear what others in the industry had to say about Twitter during your April 2009 webinar, the Journal had at that time already written and distributed its own online ethics guidelines, building upon the journalistic ethics we’ve practiced for years. Those online guidelines were sent to staffers in October 2008. (In a response to a question from me, Christie said the guidelines “were released in October and updated a few days ago.”)

The phone call from Ms. Pensiero was by no means a consultation. Ms. Pensiero called you after the webinar because she disagreed with your contention that it was a good idea to let a reporter break news on Twitter rather than on his employer’s website, and she wanted to discuss it further. (The example you had used in your webinar was a Wichita reporter tweeting news from a courtroom with no link back to his employer’s web site.)

I appreciate the clarification from the WSJ. I do recall that Pensiero was concerned about Ron Sylvester‘s Twitter trial coverage for the Wichita Eagle. I think that the discussion became broader than that and I remember her saying the Journal was concerned about staff use of social media, but if the WSJ guidelines came out in October, I had no input.

Christie did not say whether Freedman or Pensiero use Twitter (as noted before, I couldn’t find either of them on Twitter). Christie also sent me a copy of Freedman’s email to the staff, which follows (with my strong approval that the Journal is discussing these issues with the staff, even if I am critical of the conclusions):

Colleagues:

The use of social and business networking sites by Journal reporters and editors is becoming more commonplace, and we’re eager to have our journalists participate in our own network, the new Journal Community (wsj.com/community). It’s a powerful way to interact with readers, get story ideas and participate in discussions about our interests.

You’ll soon hear more from our WSJ.com colleagues regarding opportunities to participate in Journal Community. Some recommended activities include creating discussion groups for readers in your coverage area (wsj.com/community/groups), linking to an article you wrote and presenting the questions that it raises. You may also want to respond to a reader’s comment on your article or answer readers’ questions by citing information from your reporting or linking to an online source. If the subject is unrelated to your beat and more leisure or hobby-oriented, you can express your opinions more directly.

As we embark on this new service to readers, I’d like to remind you of some familiar ground rules, as well note some new ones that should guide all News Department employees’ actions online, whether in Journal Community or in social-networking, e-email, personal blogs, or other sites outside Dow Jones.

All postings in Journal Community that may be controversial or that deal with sensitive subjects need to be cleared with your editor before posting.

• Never misrepresent yourself using a false name when you’re acting on behalf of the Journal. When soliciting information from readers and interview subjects you must identify yourself as a Journal reporter and be tonally neutral in your questions.
• Base all comments posted in your role as a Journal employee in the facts, drawing from and citing your reporting when appropriate. Sharing your personal opinions, as well as expressing partisan political views, whether in Journal Community or on the larger Web, could open us to criticism that we have biases and could make a reporter ineligible to cover topics in the future for the Journal.
• Don’t recruit friends or family to promote or defend your work.
• Consult your editor before “connecting” to or “friending” reporting contacts who may need to be treated as a confidential sources. Openly “friending” sources is akin to publicly publishing your Rolodex.
• Let our coverage speak for itself, and don’t detail how an article was reported, written or edited.
• Don’t disparage the work of colleagues or competitors or aggressively promote your coverage.
• Avoid giving highly-tailored, specific advice to any individual. Phrases such as “Travel agents are saying the best deals are X and Y…” are acceptable while counseling a reader “You should choose X…” is not. Giving generalized advice is the best way to avoid legal claims by readers.
• Don’t engage in any rude dialogue with those who may challenge your work — no matter how rude or provocative they may seem.

Much of this is new territory, so please speak with your editor, the on-line team or me as questions arise.

Allbest,

Alix M. Freedman

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More on Wall Street Journal and social media

Update: I’m too busy to add the exchange between Jeff Jarvis and Tim O’Brien of the New York Times or update responses from Alan Murray, but I recommend following them if you’re interested in this issue. I may add the continuing exchange later.

For now I will add and endorse this view from John Robinson, editor of the News & Record in Greensboro, N.C., and one of the most Twitter-savvy (and web-savvy) editors in the business: “Twitter rules: I trust the staff to report the news. Shouldn’t I trust them enough to tweet? Is twitter that much harder than reporting?”

Update on the Wall Street Journal and its social media rules, which I’ve addressed in two previous posts:

WSJ Deputy Managing Editor and Executive Editor Online (now there’s a title!) Alan Murray and Jeff Jarvis, author of What Would Google Do? (highly recommended reading) are having an interesting exchange about the rules on Twitter:

Jarvis fired the first salvo: Somebody at The Wall Street Journal should tell Sherman to stop the Wayback Machine before it’s too late.

Murray responded: What’s your beef today, Jeff?

Jarvis: the wsj twitter and interactivity rules that cut off openness & collaboration, since you asked.

Murray: We’re encouraging people to use Twitter and Facebook. Just encouraging them to use some common sense when they do.

Jarvis:  Yes but isn’t the 1 rule: Don’t be stupid? Telling them not to discuss ongoing stories cuts off collaboration. Nose/spite/face

At this point, Murray either stopped firing (perhaps inhibited by the rule about letting coverage speak for itself (does that apply to rules that don’t speak very well for themselves?) or the don’t engage in “impolite dialogue” (though this is polite, just pointed, in my view) rule. Or maybe his fire has just been delayed (perhaps checking with an editor because it’s controversial?). But Jarvis had more to say: There’s a new definition of common sense.

And more: Why not ask twitterers – starting with your own – to suggest common-sense rules?

Still more (140-character limit per tweet, you know): Wouldn’t the better memo have been to brainstorm all the new ways to do journalism via Twitter & Facebook – openly?

Then Jarvis linked to some comments on his blog: Another good response to WSJ’s Twitternoia: http://bit.ly/12X9HU

Nothing more from Murray, but Jarvis is waiting out an air-traffic delay, so he might not be finished. (No answer yet to my emails to WSJ editors inviting comment.)

This just in: No sooner did I write that and post than Murray returned tweet: I’m wondering: Have you read the memo? What part of it do you find so objectionable?

And Jarvis tweeted right back: Come on, Alan. Of course, I’ve read the memo. I blogged about it. http://bit.ly/3lKMXy (I think you just violated your rule)

Will update if the exchange continues. No offense, Jeff, but I’m hoping for a bit more of a flight delay.

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