Dear Newsroom Curmudgeon,
I sometimes share your anxiety and occasionally share your concerns about some of the changes in journalism. I learned journalism in the old school, same as you. I am steeped in the same values of accuracy, fairness, dogged reporting and good writing that you cherish. But I’m having as much fun as I’ve ever had in more than 40 years in journalism, I have as high regard for my colleagues’ work as ever and I’m as optimistic as I’ve ever been about the future of journalism and the news business. If you would like work to be fun again, if you’d like to be optimistic again (or, if you never were, to finally be optimistic), I’m writing to tell you about the fun and optimism that I find in journalism.
I wrote about you last fall, but you probably didn’t read that blog post. You’re probably not a regular reader of my blog or a regular user of Twitter, where a lot of journalists learned about that post. Maybe you’re reading this because a colleague emailed you a link or printed it out for you. That’s OK. I’m writing this because an editor asked me recently how to deal with curmudgeons who resist learning the skills, tools, techniques and principles of digital journalism. I gave him an answer off the cuff and sent him a link to that earlier blog post. But upon reflection, I think the best way to deal with a curmudgeon is to talk candidly and directly with him or her. So I’m doing that.
I’m going to speculate on some possible reasons for your resistance and address them (it’s informed speculation, because I’ve heard from lots of curmudgeons as I’ve evangelized for digital journalism, and some of your peers don’t hold much back):
Reason #1: Quality. You may be resisting digital journalism because you think journalism was so great back in the day and today’s journalism just doesn’t measure up.
I share your pride in journalism’s glorious past. I cut my teeth in this business in the heyday of Woodward & Bernstein (loved the ASNE panel with them earlier this week), Seymour Hersh, Neil Sheehan, Edna Buchanan, Robert Maynard, Jim Risser and Don Bolles. I’ve always reveled in stories from days gone by of giants such as Ida Tarbell, Grantland Rice, Nellie Bly and H.L. Mencken. Journalism has served our nation in a lot of ways we can and should be proud of. But our past isn’t all glorious. Most newspapers in the South (the exceptions stand out) were shamefully silent during the civil rights movement (or vocal in protecting the status quo). And most never followed the example of the Lexington Herald-Leader, acknowledging the error decades later. Hearst and Pulitzer are distinguished names in journalism, but not all of their history was distinguished. “Citizen Kane,” based in part on William Randolph Hearst, may be the best newspaper movie of all time, but remember, it’s not exactly a flattering portrayal.
And you don’t have to dig back that far into the past to find embarrassing chapters. Less than a decade ago, most major news organizations parroted lies from unnamed sources about weapons of mass destruction, helping drive our nation into a war that cost us thousands of lives and will burden our economy for generations. Do you really want to exalt journalism’s past, to the detriment of your own professional future?
Digital journalists value investigative journalism and high standards as much as traditional journalists, even if the tools and standards may be different. Blogger Josh Marshall did outstanding investigative reporting as a digital journalist, bringing down a U.S. attorney general. Andy Carvin is using Twitter to be the best foreign correspondent in the world today, often from his desk in Washington, but from anywhere he has his smartphone. You probably are scornful of Twitter, but read how he used Twitter to debunk speculation that the Israelis were arming Libyan insurgents and to expose the Gay Girl in Damascus as a fraud. He was living the first tenet of the SPJ Code of Ethics: Seek truth and report it.
Update: I don’t mean by this to disrespect the outstanding and courageous work of foreign correspondents, especially war correspondents, who do reporting on the ground, only to note how industriously and ingeniously Andy is using Twitter to elevate journalism. I don’t want to detour this piece further with a discussion of foreign correspondence, but I encourage you to read the discussion in the comments below.
Reason #2: You love writing. Maybe what you enjoy most is finding the right words, crafting the perfect lead, telling the story. Maybe you think tweets and blogs and other digital formats aren’t as pure forms of writing as newspaper stories.
I’ve been a writer and storyteller all my life. I loved writing before I started first grade, being tutored by a wonderful retired English teacher, Mrs. Shaw, back in the 1950s. My grandmother, Francena H. Arnold, was a novelist and a great oral storyteller, and some of my earliest and fondest memories are listening to her stories and dreaming of being a writer someday. Throughout my career, I have loved writing more than all the other fascinating things I have done. I wrote a 200-inch newspaper story, for crying out loud, back in 1997, when columns were wider than they are now. (Actually, I wrote 250 inches, but the bastards made me cut it.)
Before I started using Twitter, I made thousands of dollars a year on the side as a writing coach, visiting newsrooms to lead writing workshops and coach writers. People thought – and I thought – that I was an accomplished writer. And then Twitter helped me improve. Twitter forced me to get to the point in 140 characters (if newspaper writers had mastered that skill, you might have more readers and newsrooms might have more jobs). My blog forced me to be a better self-editor, because I’m writing without a net. For me, my love of good writing has been a primary reason I have embraced digital journalism.
Reason #3: Confidence. Maybe you’ve been confident in what you do for years, or even decades, and you’re reluctant to make rookie mistakes as you learn something new.
Here’s something you may not know about digital journalists: We’re very understanding as others learn the skills we’ve mastered (or, more likely, are still trying to master). We’ve all been there. We’re still there. Even the digital natives constantly have to learn something new. Get past that fear of looking like a novice. I won’t say you won’t ever encounter criticism or ridicule as you learn, but it’s nothing like the criticism and ridicule you face for refusing to learn. You earn respect (and build confidence and competence) as you update your outlook and your skills.
Reason #4: You don’t have the time. You’re busy and you may think you can’t squeeze digital tools into your busy routine.
Digital journalists don’t just add new tasks to the work you’re already doing. We work differently. Liveblogging during an event you are covering doesn’t take more time than taking notes during the same event. It just uses the time differently (and may provide notes you can actually need use). (Update: Thanks to Elana Zak for the Facebook post where I noticed the error I just fixed. And I guess that error is proof that I’m still working on that self-editing part I mentioned above.) Twitter’s advanced search function saves you time in looking for sources who witnessed or experienced a breaking news event you’re covering. You can tweet in seconds and scan your tweets quickly, using tools such as TweetDeck, HootSuite or Twitter lists to organize what appears to be the chaos of Twitter. Adding links to stories doesn’t take that long; just save the URLs of the sites you visit in your reporting.
Some of the tasks of digital journalism do require extra time. Editing video can be time-consuming (though with training, you will get faster and learn to decide which videos need heavy editing and which need limited shooting and light editing). Data acquisition, cleaning and analysis can be time-consuming (though it also can save you time, providing answers in seconds). With some experience in digital tools and techniques, you will learn to manage your new multi-tasking job as effectively as you have managed varied workloads throughout your career.
Reason #5: You don’t like Twitter (or some other digital task). Maybe you’ve tried your hand at Twitter, blogging, video or some other tasks of digital journalism and you just don’t like them.
Tough. Did you like every task of old-school journalism? Did you ever sit through a boring meeting or cover a blowout ballgame? Did you ever feel like a vulture after talking to grieving relatives who lost a loved one in the breaking news story you were covering? Do you like filling out expense accounts? Journalism remains a fun profession, but that doesn’t mean every task is fun or every day is fun. We do a good job (sometimes a great job) covering boring events and talking to grieving relatives and we fill out accurate expense accounts. We do this because we love the job most of the time and every great job includes some tasks we don’t relish. And professional pride drives us to do those unpleasant tasks well. So tweet. Blog. Shoot video. Or whatever. It’s part of the job. And it’s still a damn good job.
Reason #6: Ethics. You may think the 24/7 world of breaking news and social media doesn’t uphold the ethical standards you believe in.
Digital journalists discuss ethics all the time. We are re-examining ethical standards in areas such as independence and opinion, but we are not casting aside ethical principles. We aren’t anywhere near full agreement on these issues. But join the discussion and you’ll find this the kind of honest, lively debate among colleagues you’ve enjoyed in newsrooms for decades. On the most important ethical matters, digital journalists’ values are as rock-solid as yours. We stress getting the facts right (and correcting them quickly when we’re wrong). We stress fairness. We won’t tolerate plagiarism or fabrication. I believe we are actually elevating the ethics of journalism. I believe our pursuit of transparency and our commitment to attribution and linking will actually upgrade the ethics of our profession.
Reason #7: Too old. Maybe you think you’re too old a dog to learn new tricks.
Bullshit. I am 57, probably older than you but certainly a contemporary unless you’re past the normal retirement age. We are nostalgic about the same movies and music. I also stumble and fumble in learning new digital tools and techniques. But learning new tricks helps me feel young again. It energizes me and it can you, too. Ask one of those young journalists who intimidate you to show you how to tweet or live-tweet or blog or shoot and edit video (a trick I still need to learn).
Or ask me. Here’s an open offer to any Digital First journalist: I’ll take whatever time you need – on the phone or by email or by some other digital connection such as Skype or Hangout – to help you work through any skill I know. If too many of you take me up (or if you’d just rather work with one of my colleagues or if you need help in an area where I still need to learn), I’ll connect you with others on our engagement team, and we’ll coach you through the tough parts. Too many curmudgeons asking for help would be a great problem and we’ll handle it. For topics where lots of you need help, we’ll lead a webinar and/or livestream a workshop from one of our newsrooms. We’ll provide links to tip sheets, tutorials and other helps. If you’re in Connecticut, our Digital Ninja School is designed to help you master important digital skills and reward you for mastering them. (And if you’re not in Connecticut, the links will help you anyway.) Contact me at sbuttry (at) DigitalFirstMedia (dot) com, and we’ll discuss how my colleagues and I can help you.
If you don’t work in a Digital First newsroom, email me anyway – use my private email: stephenbuttry (at) gmail (dot) com. I can’t take the time that I’m promising my colleagues, but I’ll at least send you some helpful links.
Digital journalism is the future. I value your journalism experience and your knowledge of the community and how it works. I’d like that experience and knowledge to be part of our digital future. If you’re willing to learn and adapt, you can share in a future that can be as exciting and fulfilling as our past.
Your admiring colleague,
Steve
P.S. When you start your blog, you should include links in posts, which I did not do above, except for the Digital Ninja School link (wanted you to be able to click that one right away if you were reading this online). Links are good journalism, but I didn’t include them here, because I knew you wouldn’t be likely to click them, and you might be reading a printout anyway. Email me at stephenbuttry (at) gmail (dot) com and I’ll send you some links to help you learn some digital tools and techniques. Below are links I mentioned in the piece (I hope you’ll go online and read them):
How do you “convert” curmudgeon journalists to using Twitter?
Washington Post coverage of “Watergate 4.0” panel with Woodward and Bernstein
Lexington Herald-Leader acknowledges it “neglected to cover the civil rights movement”
In a first, Polk Award goes to blogger, TPM’s Josh Marshall
Andy Carvin uses Twitter to debunk speculation that the Israelis were arming Libyan insurgents
Andy Carvin uses Twitter to expose the Gay Girl in Damascus as a fraud
Twitter time management (these tips are two years old and in need of updating, but still should be helpful)
I’ve added these links in response to a comment from Andrea Gillhooley, raising valid questions about the workloads on staff members. While these are valid questions, we need to change how we work to recognize the importance of our digital future. Here are my blog posts about the digital first workflow:
How a Digital First approach guides a journalist’s work
How a Digital First reporter should approach statehouse coverage
Questions to guide a Digital First reporter’s work on any beat
I think more than anything people aren’t resistant, but I think they are thoroughly confused as to what’s out there to use and how to use these new tools. And, at least with the skeleton crew I work with, they seem interested, but already working more than 40 hours a week kind of makes learning more about these tools a hassle because it is time consuming. I think we are doing a lot of the things mentioned, and if we’re not, we’ll get there. And our computer system thoroughly sucks. We are using a program from 1997… yes, that’s right, 1997, that has essentially destroyed our computers. When we type, one letter appears on the screen every 2 seconds if we are using Twitter. One of our computers quit on us this week because it couldn’t handle the Firefox update! When it was fixed, all of my managing editor’s bookmarks were gone as was the editorial server. It’s this kind of stuff (which happens a lot) that is very frustrating as well. I think that with actually being properly equipped with the hardware and software might help. Looking forward to your training…. hopefully still sometime this month at Lebanon Daily News.
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Andrea,
Thanks for your thoughtful response. I do hope to get to Lebanon for some training soon, possibly this month. You’ve identified a couple of important challenges in making our Digital First transition. We do need to change how we work and manage our time differently. I addressed this last year in my blog posts on working digital first, which I’ve added to the links above. We’ll be sure to do this workshop when I visit Lebanon. We also need to upgrade equipment. That is a high priority for Digital First, though it takes time to update as many newsrooms as we have. I hope you’ll see some new equipment soon.
I think it’s important for management to address these issues, but it’s also important for journalists not to use them as excuses for failure to move forward. We aren’t going to grow beyond today’s skeleton crews until we succeed as a Digital First business and grow our revenue streams again. So we need to rethink how we work and what we cover with what we have.
One final point: Perhaps you don’t have anyone truly resisting change in your newsroom. I hope that’s the case, and I’m glad if it is. But I have encountered many journalists in many newsrooms who truly resist change, some of them passively and some of them actively. The problem is genuine for the editor who asked me, and I have heard each of the seven reasons listed above cited as excuses. Those are the journalists I was addressing in this blog post.
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That would be good, and I think people here would be happy to learn some things on how to do their job differently so that it’s a benefit to them. A def. upgrade in equipment is very important because I can’t tell you how many times we’ve had to wait an hour to reboot our system, or how many times our internet goes down throughout the day. Or even how long it takes to post something online sometimes.
I agree it shouldn’t be an excuse to move forward. Like I said, I think we’re doing pretty well with the resources we have, and I’m learning new things every day and trying to figure out ways to enhance our online coverage.
I know some people are resistant and they shouldn’t be. I think this is fun, (though I’m really disappointed that my wage is still at the poverty line and won’t budge for apparently another couple of years. That might be a stresser for some people as well who are resistant to this/)
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Reblogged this on Publisher's Office.
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Steve, you may remember me from our conversations about the Victims and the Media Program at MSU. I am turning 68 on May 1, and I am having the time of my life in this new online world.
In addition to producing Sustainable Farmer http://sustainablefarmer, I co-publish Lansing Online News – http://lansingonlinenews.com, an experiment in citizen journalism.
I just finished navigating the system to publish my first print-on-demand/ebook Speaking of Murder: Media Autopsies of Famous Crime Cases – http://speakingofmurder.com (Journalism teachers can download a free study guide.) Now that I know the kinks in the system, I am eager to finish my new book on Surviving Tough Times as an ebook – http://survivingtoughtimes.com
I just reached 1.5 million hits on YouTube, and the City of Lansing has kindly given me a $10,000 grant for new video gear to do features on local residents. A young genius developer in town is working with me on BSqueaky.com – an app where people can rate local businesses based on how progressive they are.
The digital world is an amazing place to share information quickly with people who care. My suspicion, however, is that the newsroom curmudgeons are too entrenched in their ways to come play with us in this new media sandbox. I just read an aphorism on Facebook at applies: it’s not that you became too old to play – it’s that you stopped playing and became old.
I know the frustrations of dealing with bad technology can kill the spirit. But that’s why I try to find ways to fund my own initiatives. A paid-off home, monthly Social Security and some part-time teaching help keep us afloat. But the key is to re-invest in your own technology and take the time to keep learning new skills. I was 52 years old when I built my first website in 1996, and I had to figure it out on my own back then. You’re never too old to learn how to use these incredible new tools.
I am teaching a class at MSU right now on Creating and Marketing Journalism Innovations, and my students are creating all sort of new enterprises, from a news site designed to explain top stories to college students to a phone app for fashionistas. One team is already planning on how they can launch their product for real this summer. (I’d tell you what their idea is, but they don’t want it stolen.) The opportunities are endless.
I was five years old when my father bought us our first TV. I grew up listening to the whining of print journalists about how television was the undoing of quality journalism. Now the complaints are about digital journalism. But the big difference between then and now is that I could never have had enough money to set up my own newspaper or TV station. But for less than $100 a year, I have created sites that allow me to be my own publisher.
Know more than your bosses? Start your own niche publication. An invited guest speaker from a major news chain came to our class a few weeks ago and said that he hoped that within two years, his corporation could think web first for breaking news. Two years? Internet years are like dog years – that’s like saying you will change in a couple decades. Those of you trapped in stodgy bureaucracies can run circles around the out-of-touch suits if given the chance. So it’s time to make your own opportunities.
I sincerely believe the knowledge workers of the future will have to rely on a number of different income streams – freelancing, consulting, teaching, direct marketing of new ideas. Take any buyout offered to you. Grab Social Security if you can (while it lasts). A lifetime of experience and a basket of new skills make it possible to re-invent yourself at any age. Time to play.
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I remember those conversations well, Bonnie. Wasn’t it the New York State Press Association where we met? Thanks for this thoughtful response and for providing another example that age is no excuse for failing to learn and update. Many in our generation are thriving in digital journalism. I grieve for peers who have chosen to diminish their value by becoming outdated.
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Andrea, I don’t want to argue with you because I do believe there are people out there who are thoroughly confused, but it’s been my experience that they are indeed resistant to change. Maybe they are just plain stubborn or they don’t want to spend the time (where time=money) to learn new things or to train their staffs on new tools. Most of the newspapers in Arizona are in rural communities and I have heard publishers on more than one occasion declare that their communities aren’t active on web and mobile, so why should they be? Not to mention the fact that those who want to try something new are often limited by their corporate owners until they can show a proven revenue model for these “new-fangled” ideas. I sometimes work with the students at the local journalism school and their passion for journalism is in such contrast with those old curmudgeons in the newsroom, who just want to hang in there until retirement. It’s sad. I am forwarding your post to them, Steve. I hope they catch whatever it is you have and bring some much-needed change to their organizations.
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Thanks, Perri!
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Steve, good post. But for every curmudgeon you’ve met, I’ll bet there are now at least 20 journos who understand the importance of digital and want to work more with it. The journo-curmudgeon is almost dead; he/she is nearly extinct, thanks to the evolution of the news. I’ve worked in three newsrooms over the past six or seven years, and I can recall maybe two or three curmudgeons. To put the final nail in the coffin of the curmudgeon, we need to devote our energy to promoting the ideas you discuss under reason no. 4, and maybe doing more to encourage newsroom managers to give staff time – even a little time – to learn. Sure, journos can learn lots on their own. But the adoption rate, I think, will grow rapidly if managers show digital is among their priorities. As we know, once one journalist in a newsroom demonstrates the power of digital, most of the rest typically follow.
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Ian,
I greatly appreciate your thoughtful response. But I disagree about how near death the journo-curmudgeon is. You were fortunate to work in the newsrooms that you have. I encounter and hear from curmudgeons all the time. The question that prompted this post came from an editor who deals with them daily. Some resist passively, because they have decided that open resistance might harm their careers. You are right that digital learning and acceptance can spread quickly in a newsroom. But many newsrooms have more resistance than the ones where you have worked.
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Steve,
I very much appreciate your comments to the curmudgeons. But a colleague of mine brings up a very interesting point… haven’t we said all this before, years and years ago.
And, this colleague goes on to say, aren’t we going about conversion all the wrong way. Haranguing journalists doesn’t do much of anything… especially if you understand the mindset of the journalist.
Instead, why aren’t the digital enthusiasts showing how the new medium allows for better storytelling or different storytelling rather than telling them.
It’s a good point – and one that makes me think twice. My immediate answer was that we have to fight on all fronts… show how it is done… cajole at all times.
What would you say?
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Michael,
I agree about fighting on all fronts and certainly agree that this has been going on for more than a decade. I remember similar resistance when I was encouraging colleagues to learn data skills and start using the web back in the 1990s.
I think I showcase digital storytelling techniques and examples frequently on this blog. I have a storytelling category: https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/?cat=1400 I also showcase storytelling frequently in my Digital First journalists at work category: https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/category/digital-first-journalists-at-work/ and my breaking news category: https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/category/twitter/breaking-news-twitter/
I’ll also ask whether you really think I was “haranguing” here (and you didn’t necessarily say that I was, but my piece was the context in which you used that verb)? I tried to show understanding by addressing the reasons I hear for resistance. I opened by saying I wanted to bring fun and optimism back to people’s work and I closed with a sincere offer to help them personally. It didn’t feel like a harangue to me, despite a couple blunt words. I hope it doesn’t feel like a harangue to curmudgeons. I was thinking fondly of personal friends as I wrote it, friends for whom I wish fun and optimism.
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Well, I was trying to relay a conversation on Twitter I had with a colleague and probably put that word in his mouth … and then put it here.
No, I believe that we have to speak openly about the lack of digital acceptance in newsrooms.
But I do think we have to do as much showing as telling.
The Public Insight Network ( http://www.publicinsightnetwork.org/ ) recently did a webinar with the National Center for Media Engagement with the aim at trying to show examples of how newsrooms can make journalism more of a collaboration with the audience. Hope you don’t mind if I share that here.
http://w01.publicinsightnetwork.org/drupal/blogs/mixing-journalism-engagement-why-its-worth-it
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Fully agree, Micheal. Telling doesn’t amount to much unless you show. Thanks for sharing.
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Steve, I love your post, and enjoy your encouragement, to try the new!
Andrea, I hear you!
We talk to your colleagues in news and magazine publishing every day, and you are not alone with the challenges you are talking about. Actually, my founding partners and I were in very similar shoes a few years back – and decided that we needed to take a stab at building a new technology platform.
So we’re publishers and media experts turned technologists :-).
The platform we built, now makes it easy to create, manage, publish and distribute all-media content, requires content to only be created once and delivered into any and all devices without requirements for apps, has built in social networking components, and more. Everything on our whichbox® platform is hosted and delivered as Software as a Service – so the publishers we work with can go back to focusing on content, audience engagement and revenue. I’d be happy to share some of examples with you that we are seeing with our customers (i.e. 50% organic audience growth in 6 months, 75% revenue growth in 12 months on our platform, increased audience engagement, and ….)
Having said all that – clearly all of this is only helpful if there is a willingness to change and to embrace new processes and concepts. At the end of the day – technology solutions can only do so much – real success comes when those who have access to them, use them, and make them their own.
Good Luck – and it sounds like the training Steve will be doing, will be really fabulous and helpful for you and your colleagues.
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Re “Andy Carvin is using Twitter to be the best foreign correspondent in the world today, often from his desk in Washington, but from anywhere he has his smartphone.”:
When National Public Radio social media expert Andy Carvin, for instance, explained how his connections to normal people in the Twitter world helped him package and relay information about the media unfriendly climate of last year’s “Arab Spring” revolution, Nasser Weddady, sitting just a few seats to his left, relayed a quote:
“My stream became the newsroom,” Weddady tweeted, “[a] collaborative effort among users generating news.”
http://wvgazette.com/News/201204040274
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And Bonnie Bucqueroux is right: “The digital world is an amazing place to share information quickly with people who care..”
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Thanks for sharing that, Hal!
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In my limited experience with newsroom curmudgeons, they tended to be brilliant, disillusioned people who felt their managers cared less about quality journalism than about advancing in a corporate culture.
Frankly, those managers have something to offer: corporate survival skills. Ideally, one can put those skills to work advancing quality journalism. When they get it right, the newsroom reflects it.
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Good read, Steve, and thought-provoking.
I’d also point out that all the “curmudgeons” aren’t of an advanced age. I see them all around me, from twentysomethings on up.
I think a major factor is the prevalence of old-school lessons taught at the college and university level. Many of the nation’s J-schools have a long ways to go in teaching the skills of the present and future, IMHO.
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I fully agree on both points, Richard. That’s why I put the age excuse (whoops, I meant reason) last, and why I said the curmudgeons are probably younger than me. I’m delighted by Bonnie’s comment, which also noted that age is no excuse. I think people my age cite age as an excuse (perhaps indirectly), even though they would be outraged (and rightly so) if discriminated against because of their age. I have been discriminated against because of my age, and that’s outrageous. If you’re able to work, you should be able to learn. Those young curmudgeons you refer to will either update their outlook or find another line of work. But the curmudgeons my age are hoping to hang on to retirement.
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I am (sort of) a curmudgeon. But for different reasons I think.
For me, the issue is less with journalism per se than the blog-culture. I love blogs. I’ve written and write one. But I also believe strongly that when you say something you have to be at least a little fair to people and you have to do real reporting.
That is, what an old prof in my j-school called GOYAKOD. Get off your ass and knock on doors. Too few bloggers do that. And that means to me they aren’t getting the “real story.” Or any story.
Lord knows I do a lot of work online. But I draw a pretty sharp distinction between news and opinion, and not because a news story has a point of view. A good story should have a strong one. It should outrage us.
But that doesn’t mean doing everything from home. I mean, 90 percent of what I do is on the phone. But my better work, not coincidentally, was stuff I did when I wasn’t on the phone.
Also, too often we hear the mantra of “new! new! new!” and people forget ordinary things that make journalism the tool it is. I used to supervise reporters raised in the digital age. Their basic respect for the English language was sometimes abysmal. I liken writing to carpentry (which I used to do). Before you use the fancy new tools, learn to use a hammer and a nail. Learn to use a hand saw. Learn to measure with a ruler and a pencil. Learn the basics. Too many people seem to think digitizing the profession means you don’t need those.
To but it another way: typos are fine, we all do them. Consistent bad usage made me cry. Honestly, if I were teaching writing now, I would force every student under 15 to use a pen, paper, and pencil only, and ban computers or typewriters of any sort when writing (as opposed to research).
So maybe my issue isn’t with digital journalism per se. But I do understand why a lot of people in the profession get a little wary of some bloggers and Twitterers. I love twitter, but I also recognize its limits, you know?
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Thanks for your thoughtful comments, Jesse. Yes, I recognize Twitter’s limits, as I recognize the limits (and uses) of all the tools I use. And it’s the most useful tool for journalists that has been introduced in my 40-year career (possible exception of the cellphone, but since you use the cellphone for Twitter, they add to each other’s value, so it’s not worth arguing). The point is that the curmudgeon doesn’t recognize the value of Twitter and exaggerates the limitations because he or she hasn’t bothered to learn about the tool.
As for the bloggers, I hope you didn’t paint with such broad strokes when you were reporting and blogging. Your description of blogging doesn’t fit many (I believe most) of the bloggers I know. And it does fit some print journalists I know. You just described bad journalism and assigned it to a particular platform. And that wasn’t very good journalism.
Your rant about poor English usage was misdirected, too. It’s a comment on our education system, not on digital tools. I could have made (probably did) the same rant about students I was teaching in the 1980s, before digital tools were an issue.
Finally, your statement about writing with pen and paper is just silly. Get a grip, and not on a pencil. Journalists should use the tools of the trade and learn to use them well, not fear them. The reporters you describe would just use poor English with their pens and pencils. And you wouldn’t be able to read it. Share my “grammar matters” post with them if you encounter them again: http://wp.me/poqp6-1Gx But don’t talk about pens and pencils or they will know you are a curmudgeon (not sort of). Then they won’t get the benefit of your experience because they won’t take you seriously.
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That’s why I spoke about blog-culture (I couldn’t think of a better term). I understand very well the limits of journalism and what we all do. But that doesn’t mean that the blogs we write make or opinions more valid. And there is a difference in the culture that produces blogging and that in many newsrooms. At least the ones I worked in.
Like I said, I love blogs. But I think too many bloggers don’t do the reporting, as we say. Can you imagine going to your editor and saying “I didn’t check out any of the facts I just compiled from all these other reports?” Bloggers do that a lot. Do bad journalists do it? Yup. But many bloggers take that as their right to do. I don’t mind it, but don’t tell me I’ve done a bad reporting job on X story when you haven’t bothered to call any of the principals.
And while I think the storify of Carvin’s Tweets is interesting, dang it, I know a few people who worked in risky places, getting guns pointed at their heads. I know a few journalists who were on the ground — and doing work digitally — who risked their lives. Carvin’s a great guy, I’m sure. But calling him the finest foreign correspondent made my hackles rise. I hope you understand why. He took no risk from his desk.
The whole thing about grammar and such was precisely because of my comment about tools. Basics first. I see digital tools the same way I see some advanced tools in carpentry. Or anything else. There is a reason we teach people to add and subtract without a calculator first.
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I have great respect for foreign correspondents who risk their lives in dangerous places to cover the news. And I should add that Andy started his work from DC but has traveled over to the Middle East multiple times.
As for your “basics first” argument, you’re using bad analogies, Jesse. A calculator adds and subtracts for you. A computer doesn’t write for you.
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So we’ll go back to carpentry. A saw or a hammer don’t build for you, nor will advanced tools like a router or high-tech levels with lasers, or the latest automatic-whatever on the infomercials. But if you want to learn to build houses you start with hand tools. Why? Because until you understand them, until you know how to measure, until you know how to cut straight by hand, you can’t begin to understand how to make a joint.
And while computers don’t write for you, the instant access to information makes people think they know a lot more than they do. It’s the difference between information and knowledge.
That’s why I ask anyone who writes a story, “Did you call the person involved? Did you track them down? How do you know what you saw on the web is real at all?” That’s the basics. Before the Internet you had to call someone. You had to go to the house. You had ways that were a mite harder to fake. Did it happen? Yes, but as explained below in the comments the signal to noise ratio of something like Twitter actually makes verification harder. I certainly get really, really nervous about sourcing things to web sites unless I can track them down to real people, for instance.
I’ve said before, I like a lot of things about the tools on the web. But if I am hiring a reporter I want to know they can spell and construct a coherent sentence, that they know how to find real sources who are real humans, that they know how to read statistics and data — and most importantly, know how to go about asking questions and how to find stuff out. The medium in that case matters less. None of the issues of quality you brought up have anything to do with the medium at all, in fact.
I brought up using pen and paper because what those force you to do is concentrate on getting stuff down, and thinking a bit longer. I take that advice from no less than Joe Haldeman — the award-winning science fiction writer — who writes his novels with a pen by lantern light. I’ve written using both analog and digital tools, and I can tell you that there is a very different mode of thinking when going analog. Older ways of thinking and doing are not always bad.
I think what I object to is that too often I see the triumphalist mode that says just because a medium is new it’s better. Having a web site/blog doesn’t make you a reporter, and working at a traditional outlet doesn’t make you a good one.
Twitter is a fine tool. But it also has severe limits. To me, using twitter and calling it journalism is like using a screwdriver to hammer nails. It can be done, strictly speaking, but not well. Twitter serves a rather different purpose, IMO.
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I encourage you to learn more about Twitter, Jesse. You tool analogy kind of breaks down when you start dissing a tool you clearly don’t understand.
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I also should add that you don’t describe the blog culture I’ve been a part of for the past eight years.
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Also Jesse – I’m surprised that we continue to use the term blog.
Any reporter must bring the same rigor and professionalism to anything they put out there…. whether in print, on the air, online.
This idea that a blog implies a lax approach is antiquated. Most people who are “blogging” regularly have a reputation at stake as well, and most want that maintained.
I wish that we would think of the reporting and storytelling as, well, reporting and storytelling. I wish we’d put the word “blog” to bed – with all the old connotations. This post says it better than I am….
http://www.andymboyle.com/2012/04/02/stop-calling-it-a-blog-please/
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As some have asked on Twitter, how is Andy Carvin “the best foreign correspondent in the world today”?
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Read the two links above (and the rest of Andy’s Storify account) and follow him for two weeks on Twitter. Get back to me if you have questions after that. The biggest continuing international story of the past year-plus has been the Arab Spring uprisings (you could make a case for the Japanese earthquake-tsunami-nuclear-crisis, but I’m going with Arab Spring). And no one has covered Arab Spring better than Andy. I say that with deep respect to the journalists who have spent more time on the ground in Arab countries, facing grave danger and even giving their lives in pursuit of their stories.
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I’m not questioning the importance of the stories (though I would argue that the specific stories you mention were not monumental among the many stories that came from those subjects), I’m questioning how you or anyone, including Carvin, can claim that these stories would not have been broken without his tweeting them. Or that his form of curation/editing/dissemination was more effective and accurate than any other form of online editing done at the time.
As a big Twitter user myself, I’m a fan of the service, but its limitations as a news source are clear. Because of its streaming nature, it is inherently difficult to discern the ratio of the noise to truth-breakthroughs.
Given a hypothetical news-tweeter who tweets 20-50 times an hour on a news topic, what percentage of following Tweeters do you think read each tweet? How many open each link? If the news-tweeter tweets a correction, what percentage of even the devout followers will miss it? There’s no built-in-system to track statements or claims in a body of even just 20-50 tweets, nevermind the hundreds or thousands that might be sent over the transom.
I fully give Carvin the benefit of the doubt and will assume for the sake of argument that he does his curation and reporting with the upmost diligence. But the problem isn’t with him, it’s the nature of the service that makes Twitter a challenging medium to tell fact from noise. You seem to be offering as proof curations of the tweet-streams well after the noise has settled down, but how do you know what ratio of good to non-useful stuff actually occurred during the time of reporting and publishing? Twitter makes that virtually impossible.
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Dan, do you follow Andy? I think if you follow him for a couple weeks, you will see that he makes great sense of the chaos that you see in Twitter. Good journalists make sense of confusing situations. What you describe as “virtually impossible” Andy does day in and day out.
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Steve, I describe it as virtually impossible because it *is*. Not because of any problem with Carvin specifically. This is a function of the limitations of the Twitter API and the tools that access it, and the limitations of human beings to process streams of information, given a specific time limit.
I challenge anyone to take the curated Storifys that you mention and not only read through each tweet, but do a limited verification of the user (something as simple as, did this account exist more than two weeks before that particular tweet, i.e. isn’t a bot/troll account?) and a skim through of the bit.ly-linked stories.
I imagine that would take a few hours, even though the Storifys ostensibly include the best of the material that Andy and his followers had to sift through. So a rough extrapolation from that would indicate that it would take an incredible amount of time and effort and focus to filter through the noise at real time.
I argue that it’s “virtually impossible” for any single person, even with crowd-sourcing assistance, to do this in a way that significantly and uniquely moves the story. You think that this is something that’s possible “day in and day out.” Who is right? Well, we can’t really show that because that would require evaluating not only the noise that Carvin himself put out — that is, tweets that did not advance the story or even set it back — but also, comparing his tweet stream to the other news sources/Twitter users who may have been simultaneously advancing the story. That is, you don’t know whether a Carvin tweet caused an advancement or coincided with it.
Furthermore, if you happened to follow Carvin in real-time during these events, to the point where you can confidently say that Carvin’s work was quantifiably great, then that would’ve required the amount of attention that would likely make you ignorant of whatever else reporting might have been going on (assuming that you also had other day-to-day things going on besides following these stories on Twitter). Again, not a problem with Carvin, but of our limited brain sizes and computers.
I don’t say this to diminish Carvin’s work in reporting the news. But I think a claim that he is the best of foreign correspondents requires more evidence than what’s been presented. But not to lose sight of the bigger picture here: I’m only being a nitpicker because I’ve been in the news industry long enough to see its troubled transition to the digital age and it’s been riddled with instances of “This is digital, this is new, ergo, it’s innovative and effective” without enough objective evaluation of the results versus tradeoffs and inherent limitations.
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You’re welcome to your opinions, Dan. I see journalists making sense and finding and verifying facts every day on Twitter. Andy is just the best. And the best foreign correspondent working today.
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But you don’t say that Andy – with all respect to his work – is a “good” journalist. You say that there are no foreign correspondents today who are better, which to me seems a distraction from your main message. Sort of like saying, “Hey, I’m here to help you do your job better, and let me do that by slagging your colleagues overseas. Wait, why won’t you listen to the rest of what I have to say?”
Coming as it does soon after the death of Anthony Shadid, who gave his last breath to do a very difficult job in a manner that should make any journalist proud, it seems unnecessary and, frankly, thoughtless. You could have made your point without it.
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Thanks for your response, Derek. I’m sorry it distracted you from my message (I’m hearing enough praise from others that I’m sure that distraction wasn’t universal, though). Andy is a great journalist, as was Anthony Shadid, who was gracious and helpful to me when I was making a pitch for a grant to do some journalism training in the Middle East back in my American Press Institute days. Anyone would rank Shadid as one of the best journalists of our generation, and I certainly do. In saying that no foreign correspondents are better than Andy, I am not disrespecting any of them, living or dead. My one brief experience at foreign reporting gave me tremendous regard for the people who do that full-time. The daunting challenges of foreign correspondence on the ground limit them geographically and in many other logistical ways. I was just honoring and valuing Andy’s contribution to journalism today. When and how does calling someone the best at something disrespect others who are also excellent?
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When and how? Possibly when it’s enough of a subjective opinion that others may disagree, or possibly when you make no mention of any others until pressed in the comments. You have every right to honor and value Andy’s contribution to journalism; here the way you did it came off badly to me.
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Derek, I think that would be a valid point if I were writing a piece about Andy or if I were writing about foreign correspondents. To detour into a discussion of foreign correspondents wouldn’t fit well. And I don’t mind at all elaborating in comments. I do appreciate the feedback, though, and, since you’re not the only one who has raised the issue, I can see that I didn’t express myself as well as I intended. I will add a note to the text.
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I’m willing to concede that it’s possible that Andy Carvin is a better foreign correspondent than Anthony Shadid. OK, but under what criteria? I personally don’t care who is “best” at it, whatever that means, and I imagine anyone who qualifies for the title wouldn’t care for the debate either. My problem is that this blog post goes on the offensive against “curmudgeons” and points to Carvin as the exemplary anti-curmudgeon. Which means…what, exactly? That if more reporters put the intense amount of time into social media that Carvin has to to do his work, that there would be noticeable benefit to the public good and/or their company bottom line? Without more explanation of what makes Carvin outsanding at foreign reporting (or, replace “foreign reporting” with any hypothetical beat), there’s not much for curmudgeons to work with.
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Only in my dreams will I ever be as good a reporter as Anthony Shadid or the many others who put their lives on the line to report from the field. What I do is different. I do my best to complement what my colleagues do in the field. Yes, I may be one of the first to apply certain reporting techniques to social media, but that hardly puts me in the category of greatness, let alone the best.
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I think it’s clear I did not express myself well on that point, Andy. I considered you a foreign correspondent before you started going abroad and I still do. I say that to respect the example you are setting for other journalists of dogged reporting, vetting, verification & curation, not to disrespect the risks and reporting by others in the field. In fact, I think the logistical challenges of reporting in the field are part of why you are better able to help us see the big picture and contact sources in many different places. I have never thought that recognizing someone as the best was a sign of disrespect to others who are great. Perhaps I should have called you an international reporter, rather than a foreign correspondent. It’s a noble term and I guess I like that people revere it so. I wish we had a lot more foreign correspondents than we do these days.
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This is a great post, Steve. I understand you are addressing the journalists who are genuinely resistant to change, but from where I sit, an equally significant obstacle is the pressure from newspaper owners to sustain a print model that no longer makes sense. The readers who like print products the way they are now will all be dead in about 20-30 years, while not enough news organizations are investigating enough in the products that will succeed them.
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You are right, of course, Terry. I have addressed owners and business issues many times in this blog. Today I decided to address the curmudgeons who work for them.
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Good points, Steve. In my experience, there are some other reasons as well.
RESENTMENT: You’ve seen your colleagues lose their jobs, your newsrooms shrink. And you need to get angry at something or someone. So you blame the Internet, and people who use the Internet.
Fact: The interest of Americans in paying for daily news has been shrinking steadily since, oh, 1946. The problem was masked as the overall population grew and individual newspapers picked up circulation from their fallen rivals. But in truth, for decades more and more people have been finding that they were satisfied with the free alternatives — radio and TV at first; the web now — or nothing at all. The Internet didn’t cause the decline the newspapers.
SUPERIORITY: Your words are the important thing. All this other stuff is extra.
Your grandfather said the same thing about photos 50 years ago. Heck, you probably said the same thing about photos 20 years ago. And infographics. Frills, you said. Some art to pretty up the page.
It took a long time before photography was accepted as an act of journalism. We don’t have time to wait for such a long process with our new online tools.
Our goal should be to make our readers understand the facts we present. That is not an easy task. Talk to some teachers: They’ll tell you that you can’t just lecture a class day after day and expect that at the end all the students will have learned. You have to vary your approach. You have to reach different students in different ways.
I am a writer, too. I love the challenge of making my words interesting and informative. But I learned back in college linguistics classes that my efforts were ultimately doomed to never be perfect: Language is an imperfect tool. The precise connotations of a word to me are not the same for you. The syntax that seems so clear when I write it, knowing what I know, hearing the accents in my head, is a confusing or misleading sentence in yours.
What’s fantastic about working online is that our arsenal of ways to communicate facts and ideas is so much richer, and we can weave them together in creative ways.
NOT YOUR JOB: Let the Internet monkeys do this stuff. You’re a reporter. You don’t have to shoot your own photos, you don’t have to put together your own graphics. Isn’t that what those service departments are for?
Yeah, and that attitude is why copy editors make notches on the side of their computer screens every time they kill one of your ledes. (Trust me, they do that. I was a copy editor. I know.)
First, all these things are journalism, too. They matter. Take away the photos and the graphics and the copy editing, and what do you have? Well, you’ve got a blog. (That’s a joke, son.) Point is, if you want to tell your story well, all the pieces have to work together, and all the people doing those pieces deserve respect.
Second, there are several good reasons why you should not want the editors to find someone else to do all that “Internet stuff” to go with “your story.” Like, our newsrooms are shrinking. Do you want to be the one-trick pony when the next cuts come? Like, the job world outside the newsroom is further along this path than we are. Do you want to shut yourself out of job alternatives. Like, it’s “your story,” right? Just how much control over how it’s told do you want to pass on to other people?
IT DOESN’T MAKE MONEY: You know that the print paper still brings in the bulk of the revenue. You’ve read all the stories about how online can’t pay for journalism. Even if your newspaper is now putting up a paywall, you can’t see how that’s going to make enough to pay the bills. So why should you spend any time making stuff for online? It’s not paying your salary.
Ah, I remember the days when reporters boasted about how little they knew about the other part of the newspaper — the paying the bills part, the advertising and circulation. The industry’s train may have been plunging off a cliff, but there was a party in the dining car.
I could give you technical reasons why it’s easier, if you want to do both things well, to aim first at online and then translate into print. Or I could explain more about how our audience has been fleeing print for decades, and with the Internet we finally have a chance to grab them again.
But let’s bring this argument down to some cold logic. Your company has placed its bet: It wants a digital tomorrow, today.
Dumb bet? Wouldn’t be the first time in this industry, would it? But the decision is made.
Say you’re working in an auto plant. Making SUVs. Good SUVs, you think. Nobody much is buying them, not as many as before, but you figure that’s just because the buyers are dumb.
The company, though, decides to switch to hybrid compacts at the plant. You’ve been putting axles on SUVs for 10 years, and, dammit, you’re good at it. You’re just going to keep installing those axles, whether they send SUVs down the line or compacts or jetskis. Because you’re convinced the hybrid compacts are a bad idea, the profit margins are terrible and the whole fuel economy thing is a fad, anyway.
Yeah, I spent a lot of time working in the business section. You want a sports analogy instead? Say the new football coach installs the option offense. Dammit, you’re a pocket passer and you’re going to keep dropping back and heaving because you just know the option won’t work. Who cares if the rest of the team’s running a different play.
You think THAT’s a good plan?
Can we guarantee you that learning these online tools will save the company and your job? No. But we can tell you that learning them is essential to our strategy.
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Excellent points, John. I was pretty sure I wasn’t getting all the reasons. But, as someone already noted on Twitter, it was already pretty long. I appreciate your elaboration.
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Reblogged this on Behind the Press.
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Here’s one way to force yourself to learn: work as a freelance journalist. It’s not just a question of relevance, but of livelihood. Today if freelancers don’t have a web presence, and can’t use the tools you mention to report and publish their work, they either aren’t going to get noticed, or get the jobs. In the past four years, I’ve gotten freelance jobs blogging, live tweeting a conference, managing a blog series and helping launch a news microsite because of the digital journalism skills I essentially taught myself. Experiment – it’s a fun way to learn.
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Excellent point, Michelle!
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There’s a lot of angry curmudgeons still out there. I have met a few at conferences and the like (and I thank my lucky stars daily that I have none at my workplace, where our range is more “now let’s see, how do I do this?” to “OOH LET’S DO THIS AWESOME THING”).
In my experience, the angry ones are not going to listen to something like this. Whether they see the utility of some individual tools they use online, they do not want input from the public, they have nothing but contempt for twitter and, indeed, young people (interpreting their desire to have a life and/or work from home with flexible hours as “laziness”), and they blame all of the industry’s problems on a. the internet and b. not having paywalls.
For anyone unlucky enough to be an advocate of new journalism, all they have is contempt, nasty comments and lots and lots of eye-rolling.
I don’t know what you can say to get past that kind of rage.
Showing them new tools, I suspect, would only be met with a refusal to look at the products they produce and contemptuous comments about how they are a waste of time. Sure, the numbers will bear it out, but they won’t look at or acknowledge the numbers, either, so that really doesn’t help.
If you’re not in a management position, is there really anything you can do?
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Thanks for your comment, K. I think colleagues can sometimes be more helpful than management. There’s no authority issue, just journalists helping each other improve. (Of course, some do refuse help from any source.)
And don’t get me started on paywalls …
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Steve,
As much as I admire you and your work, I think this column is about 5 to 10 years, maybe more, past relevance.
Although I am no longer in a newsroom, I still get around. Every newsroom, and that includes digital, has the malcontent in the back corner bitching and moaning about this or that, claiming the old days were better (even if the old day were last year) and so on. Malcontents and curmudgeons are part of the business, built into our character, and part of what makes a newsroom so interesting and, dare I say it, fun.
The professional, legacy journalists I have known (and still know) came to accept the digital transofrmation some years ago. They might not have all of the tools — or the time to use them. They may lack training (what newsroom still has a training budget?). And they may well lack leadership.
It isn’t curmudgeons holding back traditional journalism, it is publishers too locked into traditional business models to invest in their institutions, letting their legacies wither and die while journalism moves on. It is corporate managers so focused on cost cutting (and their bonuses and parachutes) that they forget it is journalists who produce journalism.
The pace of layoffs and buyouts has slowed a bit since 2007-2008, but not by much. The life is still being sucked out of too many print and broadcast newsrooms. Our best and brightest — and that includes a whole lot of your curmudgeons — are left to wonder if there is a place for them in the new world order.
Steve, with respect, I would argue against your generalizations and object, without rancor, to your patronizing. The journalists I know embrace the new technology and the new models and wish they could do more. But mastering Twitter (which is not the be all/end all of good digital journalism or even necessarily a good indicator) doesn’t mean much if you are a 62-year-old sports editor at a midsize daily who has just been laid off after nearly 40 years of good service to craft and community.
Curmudgeon, maybe, and justifiably. Luddite, no.
I teach entrepreneurial journalism, among other things, at the University of Idaho. I have never been more optimistic about the future of journalism. My students will enjoy long and fulfilling careers.
But I won’t point fingers at the curmudgeons or blame them for lagging behind when their industries are tossing them overboard.
Steven A. Smith
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That was the point I think I was trying to make too. I just think that not understanding how to utilize these new tools coupled with not having an experienced, knowledgeable digital “captain” steering the ship are the issues ( that we’re facing, at least.)
I’ve been the one to delve into new digital territory for our newsroom, but I’m learning as I go and I don’t have a clear vision of everything we need to do from a digital standpoint.
We’ve come a long way in the last year and a half, but there are things that I’m discovering every day that I’m just looking at thinking ‘Aw, this would be awesome to do… but what story would I use it for?”
I’m just blindly throwing darts and hoping that it hits the target. On occasion it does, but I want better odds than that, you know?
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Steve, I wish this post were 5-10 years past relevance (though you’re not the first to question that). By 3 p.m. I had passed my all-time record for views on my blog in a single day, and I can’t recall getting as much discussion for a blog post on Facebook, Twitter and in the comments. Curmudgeons are alive and well. Everything you say about the business is true, and I have blogged dozens, if not hundreds, of times about news-business issues. I knew this would be relevant not just because I hear regularly from curmudgeons (not the same types of crusty veterans I recall from my youth, but people actually resisting the use of valuable journalism tools) but because I was answering a question an editor had asked me.
I am curious to know what you thought was patronizing. I made a conscious effort not to be patronizing. I stated my purpose clearly at the top — to help colleagues reclaim the fun and optimism of journalism — and I closed with an offer to help. I’m not saying I wasn’t patronizing, just asking where you thought I was.
And, by the way, congrats on the teaching gig. We need more journalists with your experience teaching in j-schools.
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It’s Good Friday and a topic worth bloviating about.
One point worth mentioning, amid the who’s-best side discussion: The quality of the journalist matters more than the particular tools. The complaint about news management jettisoning talent is legit. I want to keep the best people working with the best tools available. Some news outfits seem indifferent, or even hostile, to the notion.
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I agree about jettisoning talent and keeping the best people, Hal. The loss of experienced journalists because businesses have failed to transform has been tragic. And it will continue until we succeed at transformation.
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Well said. (that was 9 characters, including the period)
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I’m honored. (10)
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Steve,
Well, any question re: tone is subjective.
I reacted badly to this paragraph in your lede: “I wrote about you last fall, but you probably didn’t read that blog post. You’re probably not a regular reader of my blog or a regular user of Twitter, where a lot of journalists learned about that post. Maybe you’re reading this because a colleague emailed you a link or printed it out for you. That’s OK…”
I am sorry, but that seems patronizing to me, a clear suggestion that curmudgeons are not just Luddites, but also are so disconnected as to be unaware of the fine, thoughtful reflections — mostly distributed through social media or blogs — of people like you and me.
I am concerned too at the unapologetic ageism reflected in the piece. As an editor who drove recolutionary and transformational change as much as anyone in the business in the last decade, I found my younger staffers, in general, far more resistant to change. The veterans understood that journalism always has been flexible. Craft and values trump the technology of any given moment. The veterans I encourntered in my travels, generally understood they had to adapt or die because they had been adapting to one change or another their entire careers. (Remember typewriters to computers to Internet was not insignificant disruption.)
Recent college grads were too often so intent on upholding what they saw as tradition that they could not embrace the new ways. Now that is a generalization and so not accurate in the specific. But my point is this — change resistance is not limited to the old farts like me and you. So I thought your post too smugly suggests it is old timers lost in a nostalgic fog for times gone by who stand in the way of progress.
In any event, that was my reaction. And I present it with respect for what you have written in the past and what you will write in the future. I really am not trying to be overly critical.
Still, it seems to me the best way to promote and to encourage change is to try to avoid stereotypes and generalizations and deal with people on the ground, young, old, rookie, veteran, print or digital. If they can’t embrace the new, so be it.
And thanks for the congrats.
This teaching gig is fun and exciting. And it keeps an old dog feeling young.
Steve
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Steve,
Thanks again for this feedback. If that’s what you thought, I did not express myself as well as I intended.
I don’t presume that curmudgeons don’t read blogs, but I think it’s a safe bet that few of them read a blog as focused as mine is on digital journalism. I meant that only as a reflection of reality. I don’t read lots of good blogs about topics that don’t interest me. But I understand how you saw that as patronizing.
I’ll push back on the ageism point, though, on three counts: First, I said I was probably older than most curmudgeons. That was a specific and intentional recognition that curmudgeons aren’t all old. Second, when I encounter my peers (as I did this week at ASNE and as I have, too many (but by no means all) of them express their curmudgeonliness directly and not very subtly to me. I do encounter too many younger curmudgeons, but I’m not going to pretend my peers aren’t hurting their careers with
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Whoops! Tried to edit that on my iPad app & couldn’t get back to the bottom, so I posted mid-sentence.
I was saying that many of my peers and friends have diminished their value with their stubbornness, and I’m not going to pretend they haven’t. My final point: Perhaps because I am a peer, I have heard people cite age (not that explicitly, but pretty close) as an excuse, so I addressed it.
Again, thanks for the feedback, Steve.
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Steve,
The only part of your post I don’t like is that I discovered I’m older than you are! But I suspect – as Bonnie’s said in her comments – our ages could add to your argument that age should not be a deterrent to learning.
I think your points are great. They should be required reading, not only in newsrooms but in journalism schools.
I had to chuckle when I read your notion that Twitter has made you a more concise, stronger writer. I’ve heard colleagues disparage Twitter because they haven’t tried to understand what a great tool it can be for journalists. Not a replacement for all forms of journalism, but an additional tool and delivery mechanism. I teach Twitter in an editing class because if you can’t summarize a story and link to it in 140 characters, you probably can’t write a headline either.
Life has changed since I first entered a newsroom in the Watergate era. Is everything perfect? Of course not. But another reason that we should be excited about today’s digital world: Our work can easily be seen/read/heard/viewed by a much bigger audience. Back in the day, when I first started working as a reporter, only the folks in my circulation area were apt to see my work. Now, the impact a journalist can have is so much greater, at least in part because the Web audience is so much bigger. How cool is that for the 20-somethings just starting out.
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Excellent point, Sue! Thanks.
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Just for the sake of good old fashioned fun let’s use merriam-webster.com:
Definition of CURMUDGEON
1 archaic : miser
2: a crusty, ill-tempered, and usually old man
— cur·mud·geon·li·ness noun
— cur·mud·geon·ly adjective
Disregarding the first definition because it is “archaic,” let’s move on to the second.
I don’t know of any young people (under the age of 50) who are ever referred to as ‘crusty’ except if the reference is ‘Krusty The Clown’ (ref. Please see ‘The Simpsons’ and the ‘The Itchy & Scratchy Show.’)
I am not aware of any women who are referred to as ‘curmugeonly,’ except inappropriately. Women may be characterized in other derogatory terms but only as ‘curmudgeonly’ if the speaker or writer has a limited understanding of the English language. (I would expect that journalists have an above average understanding of the English language.)
Then there is the little giveaway at the end of the second definition “usually old man.” So if you were wondering whether the word ‘curmudgeonly’ was pointedly used to define a male person of advancing age, this latter phrase will clear things up quite nicely.
I see the use of the term here as leaning towards a managerial posture of discrimination based upon age and gender. Not something that you intended, I hope, but nevertheless is quite plain on its face.
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Simpsons references always appreciated here, Chris. Thanks also for sharing the dictionary definition. I certainly didn’t mean this in a gender-exclusive way or limited to the old. (We’ve already discussed the age issue here in a few comments.)
As much respect as I have for dictionaries (and I’m a bit chagrined that I hadn’t looked the term up myself), I view and used the word as gender-neutral, the way I no longer call performers actors and actresses or call pilots aviators and aviatrixes (or whatever the hell the plural is). And, since we’re using TV references, the way Jesse Pinkman on “Breaking Bad” uses “bitch” to refer to men. Language changes, and I believe many gender-specific terms are and should be used as gender-neutral. But I appreciate your noting the definition, and will gladly clarify.
I have encountered many female curmudgeons in the business, as I have encountered curmudgeons of varying ages. I used the term in the way that Jay Rosen and Steve Outing have (will try to find those links and share them soon) to describe journalists who cling to old ways and use outdated thinking, fear of change and flimsy excuses to rationalize their own refusal to adapt.
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As promised, some links about media curmudgeons:
a couple Jay Rosen links:
http://bit.ly/91d2CN
http://bit.ly/I9vL1p
This one includes this definition of a media curmudgeon (not exactly how I used it, but certainly overlapping):
“A curmudgeon thinks the proper response to the changes swamping professional journalism is to project his resentments at people he sees as representing—or championing—those changes.”
I also recommend Googling “Jay Rosen curmudgeon museum” and you’ll see plentiful tweets about nominees for said museum. I didn’t notice of recall that Jay has compiled a collection of such specimens, but I’ll flag this comment to his attention.
Some Jeff Jarvis links:
http://www.buzzmachine.com/tag/curmudgeons/
http://bit.ly/IlEn0E
And Steve Outing’s new blog (which, I notice, cites a female example):
http://mediacurmudgeons.tumblr.com/
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That’s exactly what happened to me at my previous job.
I became a sort of visible symbol to project one’s resentments at.
And those curmudgeons were, in point of fact, female.
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Some quick thoughts:
If we start saying things like, “I’m not a curmudgeon, but …” then we probably are. And we need this shot of tough love.
Equipment complaints are legitimate. The right setup makes a huge difference.
But the staffer who says, “OK, let’s do this digital thing,” then says, “You’ll train me, right, and equip me, right, and this means extra work, right,” all reasonable questions by themselves, is going up against the staffer who is already there and thinks nothing of it. But the ones you should watch out for are the two or three buddies or the retired couple who bring their own gear to their own startups.
Down the road, we’ll look back and the concerns about how much time this takes will sound as if we’re saying, “You want me to answer the phone, AND answer my email AND listen to the police scanner? Jeez, how much time is this going to take? I have work to do.”
Age has little to do with it. Some older folks are inveterate tinkerers and are open to such things, while some younger folks got into the business for classic reasons like wanting to be a writer, in print.
Also, Andy Carvin is a first-rate bureau chief of a Bureau of Irregulars. If you think Twitter can’t be trusted because of the noise and you don’t know where the info is coming from, don’t dismiss what he’s doing — be grateful. I don’t think people realize how much back channel work he does to vet his sources. To say that Andy Carvin can’t be doing it because it can’t be done on Twitter is probably a pretty good example of curmudgeonry.
Also, Steve Buttry is personifying right here how newsrooms should be dealing with their comments sections.
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Thanks, Brian! I know that my blog is different from a news site in audience and their inclination to engage and discuss civilly. But I do think that journalists should join the conversation on their blogs and their stories. I had trouble keeping up on this yesterday (especially when it was time to hop on a plane to go visit the in-laws), but I value discussions like this tremendously.
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What do you do when the newsroom leader is the curmudgeon, when the reporters and other editors are doing their best for change, but aren’t being led? I’ve, in fact, slowed down my efforts because It’s too frustrating to be gung ho, only to realize I will forever work for a “print first” manager.
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That’s a difficult and unfortunate situation. If I had alternatives, I wouldn’t stay long in such a newsroom. At the least, I’d leave a printout of this for him or her.
And I’d still develop and use my digital thinking and skills as much as possible. I long ago decided I would not let my bosses’ backward thinking hold me back. When the Omaha World-Herald did not give reporters spreadsheets or Internet access from our desks in the 1990s, I frequently went into the library or worked from home to use spreadsheets, email and the web, because I saw the value of those tools.
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My objections to “journalists” on social media are not among those you rebuke above.
I worked as a writer and editor for daily newspapers for many years, and have been freelancing as a writer, editor and writing coach for the past decade or so.
The best journalism, whether it is writing or reporting, is accomplished through teamwork, at the very least a reporter and editor, with veterans sharing their experience, skills and knowledge with younger journalists.
Too many modern-day bloggers think they can become as good as they can be on their own without editing.
They have not learned yet that mastering the computer skills needed to Tweet or post a blog does not make them accomplished journalists.
Many of those I have talked to do not know about journalistic ethics, cannot define libel and cannot distinguish between fact and opinion.
It’s not a matter of having a college degree, but mostly having common sense and the ability and willingness to learn about such mundane things..
I use Facebook, Internet research and email constantly. I could Tweet, but choose not to. I already write tighter than most journalists, so it’s not a matter of being able to say what I want in 140 characters.
The truth is that I do not want to be seen by readers as being among the growing crowd of self-appointed experts on the Internet — those who blog on whatever they feel like saying without really saying anything at all.
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In other words, I am a professional who is concerned that the image of our profession will be denigrated by the ever-increasing influx of amateurs who present themselves as professionals.
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Actually, what a lot of us are worried about – – and have been worried about since newspapers started giving their product away for free — is the business model that is going to help us keep paying people a salary in order to tweet, blog, film video, record podcasts, whatever. What some “curmudgeons” are questioning is not the need to use digital tools, but the presumption that the tools themselves are the solution to our underlying business problem. The “changes” that we’re resisting aren’t blogs, Twitter, etc. We are resisting unpaid furloughs, hiring freezes and quarterly layoffs. Nothing in this blog post addresses that. I found the whole tone very condescending.
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Provocative post, Steve. I like the distinction between the passive and active resistor. Having had both types in my current job as executive editor of a JRC paper in Michigan (transparency: I work for Steve), I’ve found that a lot of this is fear of failing at something new. We’ve had some success by simply pushing one tool — Twitter, Facebook, a new blog — and getting the passive resistor to work to master it. Then, expand that success to the rest of the toolbox. It’s worked for me in several cases.
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[…] Dear Newsroom Curmudgeon … « The Buttry Diary […]
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Steve,
Thanks for this post. However, I will posit that this argument/discussion predates moving to digital, and that it’s been ongoing for decades. It’s a question of new tools, new methods by which to gather and disseminate news. I remember when ABC News was making the switch from film to videotape; the film editors were told they’d have to learn how to edit on video. They were horrified that they could no longer “touch” the images, if you will. But except for one who stayed on as a film editor, they all made the switch, some more willingly than others.
Has anyone worked with a colleague who moved from writing for radio to writing for television? I remember coming out of college, where I wrote 30 to 45 second readers, and then having the gauntlet thrown down at me to write a 2:00 TV piece. I sweated over that for days.
And at my current place of employment I was told by a veteran radio correspondent that TV journalism was not “real” journalism because you had to make the words fit the pictures. It was, and in some cases, continues to be, an uphill climb on that one.
In 38 years in this profession I have literally gone from radio to film to video, to digital disc to digital online. I knew I had to learn and adapt to all these new forms of news gathering and production. I wish I understood why it’s so difficult for others, but I keep trying to show them there’s nothing to be afraid of.
And so it goes.
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Good piece, Steve. I agree with all of your points, but I think you didn’t mention a key concern I have about digital journalism, which is the way it is driving down the compensation of good journalists.
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John, that’s a valid issue, but I think you have misstated it. I think the failure of traditional news businesses to respond to the challenges and opportunities of the digital marketplace has driven down the compensation of good journalists. When we build a successful business again (as I believe Digital First is), we can become growing companies again and start rewarding good journalists the way we should.
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Great piece Steve.
Having been a journalist for a long time, not nearly as long as you though, I share your feelings with some who are dragging their feet to accept digital journalism.
Heck, back in 2010 I was an executive editor for a magazine where I probably spent the better part of my time trying to convince the older publisher to redesign the website to reflect current layout and to better use Facebook and Twitter, only for him to tell me that the Internet as a whole was nothing more than a passing fad and it will eventually die away.
Not long after I left and joined AOL’s Patch as an editor where I can still do great old-school journalism (yes folks, I and my colleagues cover breaking news and do investigative features), but we’re also benefiting with digital: Twitter, Facebook, videos and blogging.
In fact, my colleagues and I were live blogging when Mitt Romney was in the area last week and we beat major newspapers (The New York Times) and networks on that story. We had pictures, articles and video up. It was tiring but it was fun and rewarding as well.
But I think older journalists who are not too fond of digital journalism need to rethink it. Blogs, video and social media shouldn’t dictate how a story is told but it does give us new ways to tell the story if we wish. And it certainly gives us better ways of reaching our readers.
And by no means do I think these great digital tools should ever replace traditional methods of journalism: Writing and reporting well, gathering the facts and being fair and objective. Everyone needs to look at digital journalism as welcomed additional arsenals to help us better inform our readers.
But one bit of advice that I’ve found that has worked for me when trying to get a few old timers to embrace digital journalism: Make it familiar to them.
For example, what is Twitter? A digital newsboy (or girl) who is yelling “Extra, extra, read all about it!” And instead of a street corner these digital newsies hangout at Twitter, Tweetdeck and Hootsuite.
And Facebook? Facebook is nothing more than a digital paperboy (or girl) who is delivering the news to people. And the digital paperperson delivers the news all day long, not just in the early mornings.
But of course, digital newspeople and paperpeople can do a lot more than their predecessors such as creating a conversation with the readers to get them interacting with the story and drawing them in even more.
I have found that these methods of comparison helps some reluctant old timers to embrace digital journalism and I think it’s a great way of introducing digital journalism to them and hopefully it will open them up to more creative ways of using it.
I just wanted to pass this along to you and many others.
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Thanks for sharing that, Anthony! I would add that the paperboy analogy covers one of many ways journalists would use Twitter.
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As always, an interesting read. The thoughts above make one think of the monks vs. the printing press. I heard a high tech executive once apparently compared journalists protesting this Internet thing as monks running around wanting anyone who would listen to understand why the printed book isn’t as good as their handwritten work.
Turns out, when I researched this idea, it turned out there was a book on that topic. De laude scriptorum manualium…“In Praise of Scribes” by an abbot speaking on behalf of those who wrote by hand…which essentially argues this point. There is a short article about this book and a few related issues here:
http://wondermark.com/true-stuff-monk-vs-press/
It summarizes some of Abbot Trithemius’ arguments as thus:
“In other words, the way it has always been done is better, and the harder you have to work to keep doing it the old way, the more it proves you really care.”
Perhaps, as the author of the article points out, this is what defines him as a curmudgeon.
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Gutenberg and the monks? Very familiar metaphor, one I’ve used before: https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2009/04/16/googles-no-threat-to-press-freedom/
And one that Clay Shirky has addressed, too:
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
Don’t know who used it first (I used it extensively after actually visiting the Gutenberg Museum in Mainz in 2007), but I like the comparison. Here’s a photo of me outside the Gutenberg Museum:
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Reblogged this on Bridges All Over's Blog and commented:
One of the better blogs about converting your newsroom into a digital first place.
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