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Original Post:
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| Firedogwhatever |
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| Pressthink |
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| Fri, March 09, 2007 |
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Jay Rosen weighs in on the Libby trial blog that everyone agrees did the best job, Firedoglake. I realize I gave short shrift to it, while actively bashing the remainder of the blogger corps -- especially on verdict day -- but there's a reason for that, beyond my immediate concern that the Media Bloggers Association team was MIA when it counted most.
Here's why I have such an attitude: It ain't journalism.
It's smart. It's fun to read. Over the long haul, it's much deeper and more detailed than daily-news stories. It's respected by those in the know. But it's for a trial junky. It's atomized, not narrative. It's argumentative, not neutral. It's for a tiny, tiny niche, not for the masses. And it expects way too much from its audience. It, in fact, couldn't care less about audience. The audience finds it, not the other way around.
I care about the other way around. We work hard to inform the masses. We try to make it understandable AND interesting. We write for the person in a hurry who needs to know about this, but doesn't know she needs to know. We invite strangers into our midst. We don't hold little coffee-klatch conversations and stare with cold contempt at the newcomer who has no idea what we're talking about. Blogs do all that, even when they are doing a good job of informing. So they're not journalism, at least not usually -- and not journalism as I care to understand it.
There's room for both. Thank goodness it's not just one or two or three reporters delivering The News anymore. But don't tell me that blogging is better than traditional journalism in covering a trial. Apples and oranges.
Back to Rosen: He's smitten, and his rapture is worth reading and appreciating (and ignoring about half of it).
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Posted at 08:13 PM
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There are 6 comments to this post:
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| MarkObbie commented: |
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| Oh, but I have read it |
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I won't repeat all the laudatory things I've written in this post and followup comments about Firedoglake's quality and legitimacy. In fact, I did read a lot of it, and was stunned at its volume -- so stunned, in fact, that I concluded on that basis alone that this kind of coverage is not for the masses, but for trial junkies. Junkies come in all flavors, including laypeople who care about the case and have it explained to them in terms they appreciate. That's great, and it's part of mass appeal. But it's not all it takes to make legal news understandable and appealing to millions. By streaming so much, in linear fashion, it takes a committed reader to follow it and to grasp the arc of the story: what the trial is about, where it's headed and why. I'll say it again: The public is better served by having quality trial-blogging like FDL's than to rely only on the national mainstream media. But I still don't believe it's possible to make this anything but a niche product. (I'll leave my paean to editors to another day, except to say that real-time peer review is a far different -- and, I submit, lower -- standard than the kind of journalism I've grown up doing and following.)
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Posted Mon, March 12, 2007 at 04:35 PM
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| emptywheel commented: |
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| It appears you haven't read what you're talking about |
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Mark
No offense, but you seem to be making the same mistake that many of the journalists covering the trial made--assuming they knew "our" content by reading one or two posts, when in fact we offered a tremendous diversity of reporting.
Now, frankly, my detailed work on this IS inaccessible to most people. But your whole concept of editing is outdated--my work is "peer reviewed" by my readers (and many of my readers are lawyers or someone else with expertise). Moreover, I put my evidence and facts right out there, like a lawyer would.
But Jane and Christy succeeded in popularizing this story. Jane did so with her grasp of drama. Someone doesn't come to blogging from Hollywood and not understand, "the masses." (And yes, I do think 200,000 counts as masses.)
And I'd invite you to read Christy's posts explaining the law. Over and over, she spent time explaining, in plain terms, what a legal issue was to readers. Now, you may assume that people don't want to read that kind of journalism. But there sure seem to be a lot of people grateful for the free education.
I met one of FDL's lurkers over the weekend. A woman who had only had high school, says she doesn't comment because she types too slow. But one of the first things she said to me was that we--all of us--write such that she could understand it all. You might consider whether our writing--in common English rather than in legalese or cold objectivese--is easier for your average American to read. But this reader sure seemed to be making that case.
Now, I for one don't really care to aspire to the term journalist. My genre is quite different, and more fruitful for its differences. But I do think your comments about reacing out to average readers are utterly misplaced, at least in the case of Jane and Christy.
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Posted Mon, March 12, 2007 at 02:29 PM
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| MarkObbie commented: |
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| Editors |
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Thank you for your thoughtful comments, which in fact make me rethink my words. I agree that work needn't appeal to the lowest common denominator to be journalism. I came close to saying that, and that's wrong. What I'm objecting to isn't whether Firedoglake is considered journalism -- I would LOVE to welcome newcomers to the "fraternity," such as it is -- but whether the writers care whether their work is appealing to an audience of more than just their compatriots. And whether they follow the standards that have given my professional life purpose for decades: caring about facts, regardless of whose cause they serve; finding out those facts first-hand, rather than just chewing over others' handiwork (FDL certainly met this test when it put boots on the ground at the trial); and checking and challenging their own work to hold themselves to a higher standard than mere conversation. That means editing and fact-checking, which isn't a quaint artifact. It's the only way the self-indulgent, impulsive, and incautious writer can be brought back to earth. I've been an editor for the past 20 years. You won't convince me that's worthless. But I think I agree with about 90 percent of what you say, and I hope that independents like FDL keep doing enterprising, original work -- and remember to make it appeal to more than just the person sitting next to them.
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Posted Sat, March 10, 2007 at 07:55 PM
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| paul_lukasiak commented: |
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| re: expertise vs mass appeal |
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my primary complaint is the manner in which you disparage FDL and what it accomplished ("it ain't journalism").
The simple fact that "expertise" is required to understand something that appears on the blog doesn't mean it "ain't journalism".... anymore than the fact that a publication of the Carnegie Legal Reporting Program might includes articles that only an "expert" would appreciate means the CLRP article "ain't journalism."
As previously noted, in addition to the "live blogging" that did require expertise to follow, FDL provided summaries of the days events that told the non-obsessives what had happened that day. Granted, those summaries were probably still too involved for the person who thinks USA Today tells them everything they need to know.
But I don't think that assuming your audience is better informed than the average USA Today reader means what you write "ain't journalism".
It appears to me that the journalistic establishment wants to find a way to deny the "journalism" label to bloggers who provide "news coverage" because they lack "editors" -- unfortunately, the role of "editor" stopped being a necessary part of journalism with the first radio broadcast--and insofar as its been 3/4 of a century since that occurred, its time for "journalism" to either say that unedited broadcast news "ain't journalism", or accept bloggers into the journalism fraternity.
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Posted Sat, March 10, 2007 at 07:23 PM
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| MarkObbie commented: |
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| Expertise vs. mass appeal |
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You'll get no argument from me about Anna Nicole, or about FDL's depth and expertise. All I'm trying to say is that this writing requires so much knowledge of the substance and background -- or so much dedication to following the story -- that it excludes the vast majority of readers. It's the job of the journalist serving a mass audience to avoid taking that elitist path. So one isn't better than the other. We're served by having both. We can't pretend that the public would be served only by FDL-style coverage.
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Posted Sat, March 10, 2007 at 02:53 PM
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| paul_lukasiak commented: |
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| fdl "ain't journalism"..but fox/msnbc coverage of Anna Nicole is the work of "professional journalists"?!?! |
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It ain't journalism.
....
There's room for both. Thank goodness it's not just one or two or three reporters delivering The News anymore. But don't tell me that blogging is better than traditional journalism in covering a trial. Apples and oranges.
Blogs are better for one simple reason -- expertise. There is simply no question that FDL provided the best "coverage" of the Libby Trial -- during the hours that court was "in session", the live blogging done by Marcy (and Parachutec) provided a "real time" look at events in the courtroom that was not provided by "traditional journalism" (which was obsessed with court proceedings about Anna Nicole Smith remains), and the expertise of the readers/commenters made sure that the significance of each (significant) detail was explained.
And each day, the FDL bloggers provided written and (through Politics TV) video summaries of the days events -- again supplemented by the expertise of FDL's readership -- that anyone could understand and benefit from.
While the "liveblogging" was so detailed that one needed to bring significant prior knowledge for it to be of any value, the exact same thing can be said of any court proceding -- people who didn't have a clue about Anna Nicole Smith had no understanding of what was going on in the "wall to wall" coverage of those hearings.
Simply put, FDL wiped the floor with "traditional" journalists on the Libby story --- and what they were doing WAS journalism. This is especially true considering the fact that the live coverage and commentary of the hearings concerning Anna Nicole on the cable networks is allegedly the work of "professional journalists".
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Posted Sat, March 10, 2007 at 12:55 PM
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