I had some sharp criticism yesterday of Bill Reader, an Ohio University professor, who criticized TBD.com in a blog post.
Now I will praise Bill as someone who receives criticism thoughtfully and engages in positive discussion. While my criticism was sharp, it was not personal. Bill did not take it personally. He corrected some errors in his initial post and engaged me in discussion of the broader issues. While he has not corrected the premise with which I took issue, he has written a response, Additional thoughts on TBD, that grew from our discussion in emails, our blogs and blog comments. The response elaborates on his original points.
I agree fully with the respect he expressed for the TBD team. My colleagues at TBD are indeed, as Bill said, talented and hard-working journalists. I encourage other organizations to hire them quickly.
On some other points in this most recent post, I do not agree with Bill, but I don’t care to air those disagreements. This time, I respect his opinions and I’m quite comfortable letting him have the last word.
Now that we have established that talented and hardworking journalists are insufficient, it is appropriate to seek to understand what could have been done to make digital experiences more compelling.
Perhaps there is an unbridgeable gap between isolated, place- based communities and communities that mingle in metropolitan regions, where TBD operates … and where the majority of the population in this country lives.
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I wholly agree with Bill Garber. Move forward now. I’d like to see post-TBD dialogue moved toward what’s next, and how.
I can talk with, listen to and read Buttry and Jim Brady all day. They’re also great people and great listeners. They have a lot to offer the immediate future of the business.
But I’ve lived in the Washington market almost 24 years and I do not believe community journalism on a broad stroke works here. There’s simply too many suburbs within the suburbs, splintered by a rapidly growing diverse residency (minorities are now majority in Montgomery County of nearly 1 million) and a widely transient audience that simply does not invest very much in their neighborhoods. You will find bedroom pockets here and there (Olney is a great example), but you’re more likely to find comJ fits in the activities, such as youth and participatory sports, arts, etc.
I don’t know the numbers, but it seems TBD’s strengths came from the innovation of traffic and weather delivery, plus dynamite engagement via Twitter and FB and social activities. I clicked on a lot of TBD’s digital touts but rarely went to their site proprietarily. For me, personally, living in Silver Spring, there just wasn’t much there. Content was too D.C.-centric.
Whenever talk about TBD’s demise surfaces, I find myself thinking about Allbritton’s comment about wanting less technology and aggregation and more content. Again, for me personally, I understand what he’s saying and don’t think he is altogether wrong.
But moving forward, the real legacy of TBD, its founders, editors and staff, “can be” in their perceptions, mindsets, creativity, innovation and deliveries. That’s where I’m hoping the dialogue segues.
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Hey Steve,
It’s unfortunate that TBD.com decided to shut down its doors, just as traffic was really starting to grow. Per Compete.com, TBD.com was up to just about 700K monthly unique users. Curious to see if the site will keep its servers up and running, or will you be redirecting to somewhere else?
Scott
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Dennis and Bill, thanks for your thoughtful responses. Scott, let me be clear: We are not closing doors here. We have reduced staff and redirected the focus. We will continue to do much of the news coverage that TBD did through WJLA.com and TBD will focus more on arts, entertainment and lifestyle content. And our monthly uniques were actually much higher than 700K.
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Thanks, Steve, for the crosslinks and the kind words.
One of the many things about D.C. that makes it, possibly, a tougher market for community journalism than other major cities is that it does have an inherent aspect of transience. This has nothing to do with TBD.com, really, but more to do with Dennis’s comments above. In most communities, whether communities of place or communities of identity or communities of common interest, those who have been members of the community for quite some time are the most avid consumers of (and supporters of) community news media. The strong correlations between local news consumption and civic engagement also often correlates with how long one has been a member of the community.
In D.C., transience may be a challenge but also an opportunity. Conceptualizing the various transient populations as distinct communities — for example, congressional staffers, or diplomatic staffers, or lobbyists focused on short-term issues — could be one way for a regional product devoted to local news to say, “D.C. ain’t New York or Paris, folks. If you’re only going to be here for a year or two, ours is the best site for local news that matters to you.”
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That’s an interesting concept, Bill. Would it work here? Twenty years ago, the subscription fax newsletter was very, very big here. I was special sections editor at the Washington Times and we did a fairly successful model of real estate/fax-on-demand products. Nowadays all that stuff is free, but some of the same principles of niche direct audience could apply, I suppose.
The rapid diversity here is a serious consideration in news delivery. I wonder, for example, if someone did community news in Spanish or Korean. The highest-rated radio station in town is the Spanish-language rock station. A few weeks ago, I noticed the ATM at my Wachovia branch now has a language option for Russian.
It. . . boggles. . . the mind.
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Dennis — I think that community journalism can work just about anywhere; it just needs an established community to exist and WANT a publication.
Hypothetical: That you found Russian as an option on an ATM in a U.S. city is a possible clue. Is it near Embassy Row? Or is it farther afield? It could be a sign that there is a Russian-speaking population large enough to need/want/(maybe even already HAVE) their own community source of news. Check out the restaurants, curio shops, and other places where true grassroots journalism often are available (usually in the form of photocopied pamphlets or rudimentary newspapers). If you spot printed material in cyrillic, you likely have found the rudiments of community media.
I hope that gives you some thoughts regarding your specific question. Thanks again to Steve for providing the forum; but, Dennis, if you want to continue the dialogue off this forum, feel free to contact me directly (reader@ohio.edu).
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Bill, the 2010 census for my county shows fewer than 1,000 Russians among a population of 971,000. Unless they’re all staked in my zip code of Silver Spring, I don’t see a trend there—or need to offer the language on a Wachovia ATM. But it is fairly amusing.
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Dennis — Interesting. For identifying niche communities, though, I think the Census is not a reliable enough indicator of transient populations, and certainly not of residents who may, for whatever reason, not want to be counted. The only way to tell for sure (if you or anybody is actually interested) is shoe-leather reporting. Maybe ask the Wachovia branch manager what’s up … it could be even more interesting, or maybe that ATM was relocated from somewhere else and it’s a non-starter.
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[…] Bill Reader elaborates on his views on TBD « The Buttry DiaryBill Reader elaborates on his views on TBD. March 4, 2011 by Steve Buttry. I had some sharp criticism yesterday of Bill Reader, an Ohio University professor, … […]
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