Sat
Jul
4
How much is it worth?
In this recent Anderson - Gladwell debate (which is hardly serious debate at all. This is no Dewey/Lippman conversation) they both, in their attempts to be the ”smartest guy in the room,” overshoot the mark. The question is not whether it’s free or not, it’s how much is it really worth? And worth is measured in two ways: money (our favorite) and social respect. For reasons i’ll go into later, reporters of my generation (1970 onwards) swam in oceans of respect until the last decade or so… Even as the public lost respect, we certainly maintained it for ourselves. But the money continued until the current crisis. Now the money is gone and in America, when the money goes, any illusion of social respect is lost forever. This is part of the problem with non-profit journalism. It’s a last ditch attempt by that generation to say ‘we are valuable! we are smart! we are indispensible! Of course we well still be professionally paid in the new world, but we won’t have to attract, or keep an audience.
What’s so discomforting is that as the profession looks to establish the value of their work they are forced (if honest) to see that so much of the success of golden age journalism was due to factors other than their intelligent reporting. The habit of it, the affordability of it, the classified, sports, comics, stock listings… What Adrian Monck calls ‘distraction.’
I have to think that Anderson will be more right in the end, some kind of amalgam of professional and avocational. It will be a much smaller profession and one wonders if it makes sense to have thousands and thousands of college students majoring in it. O right, ‘journalism’ is good all around training for many careers!
Fri
Jul
3
THE CHALLENGE TO A JOURNALISM SCHOOL IS DAUNTING:
In the past the method was simple: create a wind up toy that could perform a certain function in a particular way. An industry awaited. This has to have been the easiest enterprise in higher education. Wow! Pretend you’re a reporter. Listen to what they did, what they wrote. This is how you tell this story, or that story. This is how they do it in radio. This is what theyre looking for in a minute 20 television news story. This is what Dateline wants. This is how Frontline works. This is what I did, and it worked for me. Here are the numbers. Here are the paints. Get to work!
It’s not just teaching digital media. There is a wholesale need for deep creative thinking. And who ever claimed that reporters were creative?
Why don’t journalists consider other socially relevant professions that actually deliver a clear service? For example, why don’t investigative reporters consider careers as Federal prosecutors? One can argue quite easily that a much ‘greater good’ could be achieved. It wasn’t reporting that put Bernie Madoff in jail. One reason may be that these other professions: law, medicine, nursing, police and fire service don’t give as many awards as journalism does! What’s my point? We have to come way down off our horse to fix the problem everyone obsesses about.
Why do filmmakers insist on telling you that they’ve ‘just returned from Bangladesh,’ or ‘prepping for a trip to Eqypt to scout locations for my doc.’??
Mon
Apr
6
I think this is, at the very least a boring road, and potentially a dangerous one. Non-profit journalism means that instead of working for
customers, you are working for
patrons. I’m not talking about NPR or PBS, but the idea that elite forms of journalism—the type usually least interesting to regular people—would be supported and consumed by elites, squaring the circle and making the echo chamber all the more insulated
Wed
Mar
11
The Talbot Players
Promo for PBS pilot I’m working on with Steve Talbot and a talented group of colleagues. Stay tuned
Wed
Sep
10
I think the Dems would have done better with a Jerry Springer/Sharon Osbourne ticket….
Fri
Jul
11
Arianna Huffington: a candidate masquerading as a journalist.
Thu
Jun
26
“Journalists used to question the reasons for war and expose abuse of power. Now, like toothless babies, they suckle on the sugary teat of misinformation and poop it into the diaper we call the six o’clock news.” —
Kent Brockman, TV newsreader, The Simpsons
