Update Sunday: I have added some further comments and videos of the panel at the end of this post.
Update: I embedded some tweets since originally posting this.
Walking to the Online News Association Friday morning in San Francisco, I tuned in using Twitter to the Associated Press Media Editors conference in Nashville. The contrast was striking.
At ONA, I attended an enlightening presentation Thursday night on best practices for journalists, based on hard data analysis. Friday morning I read a tweet from an Associated Press executive that reflected ignorance and generational stereotypes.
I’m sure the tweet that sucked me in wasn’t representative of APME, but it did highlight a disturbing divide that persists in journalism today.
My friend Joe Hight of The Oklahoman and NewsOK.com tweeted:
AP’s Liz Sidoti: Social media is a “time suck” and threatening young journalists’ understanding of reporting basics. #apme2012
— Joe Hight (@JoeHight) September 21, 2012
I was pleased to read in other tweets that some at APME and other editors disagreed with Sidoti, AP’s political editor (political editor!):
@joehight Hmmmm … I know good reporters @tulsaworld and @theoklahoman who know how to report AND use social media!
— Susan Ellerbach (@SusanEll77) September 21, 2012
Sidoti, AP’s pol editor, says journos are not learning basics of shoe-leather reporting. But blaming on Twitter? (Comment here.) #apme2012
— Carole Tarrant (@caroletarrant) September 21, 2012
Not why. MT @tiffanyg89 AP’s Liz Sidoti: social media isn’t good for journalism. Young journos aren’t learning reporting basics. #apme2012
— Matt DeRienzo (@mattderienzo) September 21, 2012
@tiffanyg89 Smaller newsrooms combined with very little focus on training. Social media is actually a GREAT “shoe leather” tool.
— Matt DeRienzo (@mattderienzo) September 21, 2012
Before commenting, I need to note that I wasn’t in the room and didn’t hear the statement or the context. But tweets from other APME members reported the same point from Sidoti, including a lament that these young slacker journalists were using social media in favor of “shoe-leather” reporting.
My response from San Francisco: What valuable journalism tool isn’t a time suck? Cellphones, data, documents, interviews, writing, thinking, verification of facts, shoe-leather reporting. Every damn one of them is a time suck. And good journalists manage their time well to do those things because they are essential to good journalism.
The reporting basics now include effective use of social media, especially in politics.
And I have to call out that sort of generational broad brush as deeply offensive to use in any context, especially in the context of advocating reporting basics. Basic reporting is based on facts, not stereotypes. And the fact is that lots and lots of young journalists are doing outstanding reporting because they understand when and how to use social media and when and how to use shoe leather. And they are better journalists than those who use only shoe leather. Characterizing good and bad journalism by generation or age is not only offensive, it’s inaccurate.
I’ll email Sidoti inviting response and elaboration, but I couldn’t let this statement in such an important context pass without comment.
Note: I changed the original headline (which is still the URL). Carole Tarrant suggested it wasn’t fair to APME and I decided that was a valid criticism. I’ve written before about how slow APME and ASNE leaders have been at using social media. But that research is all more than a year old. I was careful in the post to note that the comment I was criticizing didn’t represent the group. I should have been similarly careful in the headline.
I should also add that at least four of my Digital First colleagues are at APME and I know their eyes had to roll at that comment.
Update: Thanks to @APME for calling my attention to the video clips of the APME panel:
@stevebuttry Here is the entire session of #apme2012 political session Friday. See what you think in context. fb.me/1AzrtyNgQ
— APME (@APME) September 23, 2012
In context, I think I handled this fairly. The negative tone of the panel about Twitter, especially from Sidoti, was really strong. I don’t have anything else to say about it, but I now know I was fair and accurate in my characterization of her remarks. The “time-suck” remark was just a small part of a rant (starting at about the 2:40 mark of the second video) that dismissed social media, especially Twitter, as bad for journalism. Other panelists made similarly negative comments. And no one called BS on those comments in the Q&A. I’m not going to change the headline back, but I will now stand by the original headline: This was a start contrast to ONA, where we had a wide variety of opinions, but no panel that I attended showed the ignorance I heard in this APME panel. I attended APME last year, and I know lots of smart editors were there this year, but this panel was more appalling in context than in the snippet I saw on Twitter Friday.
One more thing: I wondered whether Sidoti had responded on Twitter to anyone (she has not responded to my email). I found out that she has no Twitter avatar and has tweeted only once, more than a year ago.:
Former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney looking & sounding every bit the Republican Party presidential front-runner during N.H. #GOP #debate.
— Liz Sidoti (@lsidoti) June 14, 2011
Steve, I’m sitting at the Nashville airport after having just participated this morning in panel discussions at APME on exactly this topic. So I can assure you that the opinion you saw expressed by one person did not reflect either the tone or content of our panel or the level of interest or engagement in the room.
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Thanks, Jay. I was sure the response would be mixed.
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[…] Bookmarked apme2012 and #ONA12: Sharp contrast in social media view […]
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Why the hostility toward people who think you get more from a face to face interview, or physical perusal of documents than from sitting by yourself, receiving carefully parsed electronic response, and viewing only documents and data that you specifically search?
It’s not about “content.” It’s about news.
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No hostility, Chip. Just calling BS on the “time-suck” excuse. Any and every useful journalism tool can become a time-suck. That’s not a valid reason for not using any of them. Good journalists learn to use good tools and learn to manage their time.
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Journos do struggle to effectively manage the increasing range of skills that are needed nowadays, but I wonder how much of this actually comes down to newsroom culture and priorities.
My sense is that many newsrooms haven’t yet internalized what it really means to be digital, the level of transformation this requires and how a digital newsroom is supposed to look and behave. Multimedia and social media aren’t just something you add to the fringes and tinker with occasionally when you have time. They need to be seen as essential, and many newsrooms don’t seem to fully understand this or incorporate it in how they make decisions and how they communicate what’s important and valuable.
Worst of all are the newsrooms in which leaders profess to be “digital first” but the subtle (and sometimes not so subtle) message that continues to be sent to the troops every single day is that time spent on Twitter, blogging, multimedia, etc., isn’t contributing to the cause. They may say the right things but they don’t really *mean* it.
We need to rethink how we define productivity. Some metrics or benchmarks would be useful here, but I digress. Who contributes more to the newsroom – the person who cranks out two print stories a day and shoots 2-3 photos a week, or the person who writes 2-3 print stories a week, blogs a couple times a week, tweets almost every day, shoots photos and is actively learning new skills? How do you evaluate their performance? How do you begin to make it rewarding for those who are leading the charge?
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[…] Buttry (who I finally got to meet), Digital Transformation Editor for Digital First Media, used Storify to admit that “social media is a time suck, like lots of useful journalism […]
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[…] American Society of News Editors and Online News Association) and even one I didn’t attend (Associated Press Managing Editors). My tweets from the ASNE panel with Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein on the 40th anniversary of […]
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[…] Yes, social media is a ‘time suck,’ like lots of useful journalism tools […]
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