Back in October of last year, I wrote a piece for PBS’ MediaShift arguing that econ bloggers were gaining clout and influence as a direct result of the economic crisis. Sure enough, we learned recently that 20 were invited for a personal sit-down with top officials in the treasury.
This is the most amazing Nick Denton memo I’ve seen yet. So amazing I’m reprinting here in full:
From: Nick Denton
Date: Wed, Oct 7, 2009 at 6:33 PM
Subject: We’re not running a newspaperA few cases recently where we’ve thought *way* too much before publishing. Even when we’ve had exclusive information or even documentary evidence.
There’s always a good argument for waiting. Let’s check to see whether the associated claim is true; oh, the source might be exposed.
But we should publish anyway, making clear what we know to be true and what remains up in the air. Or even just publish a headline or quicklink and fill the story in later. We can always update. We can always write a second post when we’ve established more of the facts.
We’ve brought in some of the better traditions of newspapers. We’re breaking more stories than we ever have. That’s awesome.
But there’s no way we’re going to slow our publishing schedule to that of a ponderous newspaper-style organization — where everything has to go through layers of edit and approval and checking and legal. If we did that, we’d be neither as authoritative as a newspaper nor as nimble as the smaller blogs that *do* indeed publish as soon as they get something.
At some media organizations you might get rapped for running a premature story. At Gawker Media, you’ll lose way more points for being scooped on a story you had in your hands.
Nick
Nieman Lab reports that Gawker has created a tip line that can be viewed by all. In a sense, this is a mashup of traditional and social news, with the crowd submitting the content while a array of Gawker editors are able to wade in and pluck the juiciest tidbits to promote to the front page.
This is very similar to the model of Fark, which has a Digg-like submission process but employs actual editors to go in and “greenlight” headlines to the front page. Fark’s ingenuity lies in the fact that they’ve convinced thousands of their most devoted users to purchase “Total Fark” accounts, which allow them to view the raw stream of submitted headlines, regardless of whether they’re greenlit.
Popular SF blogger John Scalzi has been receiving a flood of odd requests lately: those asking him to remove old comments of theirs from his blog posts. His answer? No.
Philosophically, I’m of the opinion that people need to own their words, and yes, that includes the words that they toss off in a comment section of a blog. I’m also of the opinion that people need to realize that barring some horrible catastrophe that will mean we all have bigger problems, the Internet is forever, and anything you display on it will be archived in one form or another, until the end of time and/or electricity.
Personally, for me it’d depend on what kind of mood I was in when the person emailed me. I’m notoriously bad about answering emails from my readers, so the chances that I’d take the two or three minutes to locate the post and delete it are slim.
After one infusion of fresh capital, Huffington was heard internally telling staff that everyone’s lives would be greatly improved “once we get the jet.”
–How Arianna Huffington, Critic of ‘Excess,’ Lusts for Private Jets [The Rich]
Andrew Sullivan has a built-in arsenal with his 100k+ readers a day on his blog, and last week he deployed it, arguing that The Atlantic had taken a risk by putting his open letter to George Bush on the cover.
“The MSM has largely moved on from this issue. The Atlantic hasn’t, because it’s one of the few magazines left that makes major editorial decisions that may not make sense commercially,” he wrote. “In this economic climate, especially with old media in crisis, a decision like that is understandably making some general interest magazines an endangered species.”
He made a plea for readers to reward the magazine by subscribing to its print edition, and the New York Times reports that it worked: “Within two days after last Monday’s post, Mr. Sullivan’s appeal pulled in 75 percent of the subscriptions that the Web site draws in a typical month, the magazine’s publisher, Jay Lauf, said. The Atlantic expects this month’s subscription orders to be double an average month’s.”
In this Atlantic piece, Mark Bowden can’t seem to make up his mind. He spends the first quarter of the piece bemoaning the death of investigative journalism, suggesting that well paid political operatives with an agenda are doing all the digging that leads to today’s scandals, and then after nicely tying up his introduction, decides to introduce us to one of these hitmen.
And who is it? An unpaid conservative blogger who receives around 30 readers a day.
Morgen Richmond, for one—the man who actually found the snippets used to attack Sotomayor. He is a partner in a computer-consulting business in Orange County, California, a father of two, and a native of Canada, who defines himself, in part, as a political conservative. He spends some of his time most nights in a second-floor bedroom/office in his home, after his children and wife have gone to bed, cruising the Internet looking for ideas and information for his blogging. “It’s more of a hobby than anything else,†he says. His primary outlet is a Web site called VerumSerum.com, which was co-founded by his friend John Sexton. Sexton is a Christian conservative who was working at the time for an organization called Reasons to Believe, which strives, in part, to reconcile scientific discovery and theory with the apparent whoppers told in the Bible. Sexton is, like Richmond, a young father, living in Huntington Beach. He is working toward a master’s degree at Biola University (formerly the Bible Institute of Los Angeles), and is a man of opinion. He says that even as a youth, long before the Internet, he would corner his friends and make them listen to his most recent essay. For both Sexton and Richmond, Verum Serum is a labor of love, a chance for them to flex their desire to report and comment, to add their two cents to the national debate.
Bowden gives backhanded compliments to Richmond, commending him on doing the investigative work to dig up the controversial comments from the Supreme Court nominee but not having the journalistic pressure to provide balanced context to it. But as Richmond Richmond’s co-blogger says in his blog:
Blogging is more like hell. Get it. Get it out. Get it right the best you can. Get it to your friends at other blogs if you want it to be seen. And check your own damn spelling (often not very well in my case). That’s just text. If you want to use video, well you’re the video editor too. Pull the clips. Find some music. Add the titles. Need a picture? Find it yourself. And it’s not just one story a day, but 2 or 3 if you want to keep your readers, much less grow your site. Finding the complete context of every story just isn’t possible at this level. We’re doing the best we can with limited time and no money.
Is it perfect. Not by a long shot. But like Morgen, I trust the openness of blogging. Sunlight is the best disinfectant but it’s also what makes things grow. Put the information out. If it’s wrong, you’ll hear about it. If it’s right, people will notice that too. As it’s passed along, friendly hands will add nuance and value. Opponents find the weak links or undercut the statements that just don’t hold up. It’s open source journalism. The first amendment is a beautiful thing.
Richmond, unlike most mainstream journalists who reported on the controversy, was actually able to link to the entire video, allowing his readers to follow those links and watch it in his entirety. In that sense, he provided a context that nobody else on cable news ever could. This, in effect, kills Bowden’s thesis and gives more credence to the blogosphere as an investigative arm of the media.
Good job, Richmond. You and I might not politically agree on your conclusions that you reached after your investigative work, but you deserve any recognition that comes your way.
Bloggasm is a blog run by Simon Owens that focuses on the media, with an emphasis on online media and journalism. It often features interviews with prominent bloggers, authors and journalists. If you want to request an interview, just drop us a line.
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