I Opine About Newspapers and Blogging
John does it. I do it too. Frank does it. Side Salad. What’s Alan Watching?
There are others. Even the Nashville Scene has Pith in the Wind and the Tennessean started it but I don’t think that counts. WKRN is doing it. The Jackson Sun is doing it on its sports page and it’s quite successful. The Knoxville News Sentinel is all over it. Jack Lail is doing his thing which I go to everyday.
The list goes on.
So, people, and I sigh as I say this because you know this if you are blogging, you are on the cutting edge of something that has journalists/newspapers paying attention.
What that cutting edge is, I don’t know. But it is happening.
And I don’t know why I’m on this, but I think you DO know. And it’s weird and groovy and all of those words. And very, very scary for mainstream media.
But people who have always bought their ink by the barrels are watching this and some of us who work in it have already somewhat figured SOME of it out.
You don’t need barrels. You don’t need ink. Don’t you think this is being debated behind closed doors? Printing costs are outrageous. The Internet, not so much in the big picture.
And so, don’t get all cocky about it. Just do your thing. If you politically blog, just do it. If you write about knitting, cool. If you are a mommy/daddy blogger, my sister the uber mom who has no inclination or desire to blog, is reading you. If you do the geek tech thing, we are all watching you with an interested set of eyes because you are the ones that will give us a new idea. If you are doing something else, that’s cool too.
And why am I writing this tonight. Because, why would papers be blogging if they didn’t think it mattered and wanted to compete with folks interested and passionate about things and writing about them. And if those same papers do it badly this year, then it might get better in a year or two because things are changing.
Some of the management and owners of newspapers still haven’t figured out how it works, but they will learn. And I hope they don’t take bloggers exuberance away from them.
Yeah, it’s a cocktail napkin, but wasn’t it always fishwrap?
Now, with that said, Krumm is right to a large degree. But on the other hand, this is all changing daily and the savvy newspapers are wondering what it all means.
And they have the money to compete. Especially the big boys because they know blogs, wrapped within the walls of the Internet, are making people cast a watchful eye.
And I realize I’m preaching to the crowd.
Believe me when I say that more people read us than I ever realised. And we DO make a splash in mainstream media. They Are Watching Us. Closely.
I was realising as I read Entertainment Weekly yesterday that I’ve read many blog columns–including Alan Sepinwall’s–that were as good or better than what is available in print media. I don’t think that volume of good, free writing is going to stay too unnoticed for very long.
When I got into the newspaper business in the late 1970s, I could not imagine that there would be a day when sane people — even people that run them — would seriously consider whether newspapers would survive. That day has already come.
Three years ago I would have dismissed as preposterous that Knight-Ridder would cease to exist and Tribune would sell itself to a real estate mogul. That day too has already come.
This is one of those rare periods for an industry when all the rules are being rewritten. Unfortunately, that includes many of the business rules that made newspapers strong and profitable businesses, and hence me a paycheck (which I find important). That’s the not so fun part and it can keep you awake at night.
On the other hand, this has got to be one of the most exciting times in the last 100 years to be a journalist. There is more interest and reaction to news, opinions and just thought, and the active participation of the once “Silent Majority” in creating that news, opinion and just what I’m thinking than at any point in my lifetime.
In addition to the venerable pen, we have the laptop, the digital camera, the camcorder, the MP3 recorder, cheap relatively easy-to-use software and near lightning fast delivery mechanisms.
it’s like somebody gave us — the people that like to create and share information — all the toys.
What’s around the curve and over the hill, I cannot say because I do not know. But I do know what’s called Media has been fundamentally changed and stubbornly adhering to the old rules will relegate one to the world that once was and will never be.
Just keep at it and have a blast.
(I’m flattered you read my blog and I love your Tweets! )
See, I do read your blog. I feel like one of these days you’re going to call me “Grasshopper” and I’m going to be the teen-age David Carradine sitting listening for the next lesson.
It is exciting. And I think some of those of use who write for a living in print news media are watching this unfold are pretty excited about it. And the blogs give new perspective on how to approach communication of all kinds.
I know when I got to conferences, one thing being discussed is the immediacy of blogs and the internet.
When someone has to wait 24 (or in my case, we come out twice a week), and news is happening at the moment, there is some pause.
When you say the rules are being rewritten, there is so much truth to that and, without saying, there is some resistance from old-school newspaper types about the value of blogging. I think the dialogue that is happening is exciting. (Mommy bloggers, cooking bloggers, etc are like a society page.Testimonials on illness, a health section. Political blogs are the new world of the editorial page.)
And yet …
Living in a small college town, I’m seeing that the new generation is just as happy getting what they need on-line. You and I like the ink smeared at the end of our fingers, but there are some folks coming up who will be the demographics buying advertising in 20 years.
Where are they going to buy their advertising? Rhetorical girl here…
I think too much.
Jack, I really love your blog. One thing that convinced me to Twitter and when you bring something up, I go to check it out.
[...] Newscoma’s talking aloud about the melding of medias going on in the news(paper) world in rega…: [W]hy would papers be blogging if they didn’t think it mattered and wanted to compete with folks interested and passionate about things and writing about them. And if those same papers do it badly this year, then it might get better in a year or two because things are changing. [...]
What I find most troubling about many papers’ approach to blogging is how afraid they are of having their employees blog in a capacity that’s unregulated by editors and can, in their minds, make the paper look bad. We’ve gone through this where I work. I have even been encouraged not to blog about controversial political stuff because it can look bad for the paper.
Obviously, the irony of a First Amendment-wielding paper telling its peons to STFU is clear, but it’s also really frustrating because it shows that papers still aren’t comfortable with “allowing” their employees to interact with readers on a basic human level where — guess what! — everyone has unsanitized opinions.
Well said, Lindsey and I should have added you to the list up there.
I probably was drunk.
My bosses would love to see that statement from me.
They call blogging … BLAWGING in this real deep weird voice like they are making fun of it.
You are so right about the irony of it all.
[...] up. But it’s worthy of revisiting. Jack Lail’s and Lindsey’s comments on this thread are worth a read, as is [...]
Lindsey’s a bit biased because she’s been at the CA instead of the Tennessean.
Lindsey’s a bit biased because she’s been at the CA instead of the Tennessean.
Ah, yes. The Tennessean. Where even a dog can blog.
Possibly another small factor in why the CA got a bunch of Green Eyeshade nominations just now and the Tennessean got squat.
Seriously, though, you’d like to think that The Powers are holding to their long-standing “flee from all appearance of bias” commitment in discouraging personal blogging, but no. It’s still the “flee from all appearance of offending an advertiser” that they’ve always had.
If they can approach it like some papers started to do years ago with the regular columns on “why this happened that we couldn’t really report then” and such, it can be extremely useful and enlightening both to readers and the paper itself. It’s a fine line that too many Powers still don’t understand how to safely straddle.
grandefille, exactly! It could be such a useful transparency and interactivity tool to help people understand how the craft of journalism is practiced, and to also keep reporters and editors on their toes because they’d HAVE to be accountable to readers who were peeking behind the so-called curtain.
But The Suits are scared by that kind of vulnerability. Says a lot about the state of journalism.