:Journalistopia

Steve Outing has took a quick look back at the last four days of journo gossip herder Romenesko’s postings to see if any pattern emerges.  The result: 26% of the postings are about personnel changes (announcements, deaths, etc.); 13% are about the death and demise of newspapers; and 10% are ethics-related (i.e., the kind of postings one references when telling a colleague “Yeah dude, do that. Can’t wait to see it on Romenesko.”)

For the complete list, check out Steve Outing’s Romenesko indicator.

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Steve Outing’s recent column titled “Climate Change: Get Over Objectivity, Newspapers” has resulted in a firestorm of nasty e-mails and postings, according to Outing in his blog.

An idealist would say objectivity arose from a desire to have an enlightened, rational discussion. A cynic would say it was a good business decision made to sell more newspapers by catering to partisan readers of all varieties. It’s been about a century now, but I’d guess from my own studies that the truth is probably somewhere in between.

Check out Jay Rosen’s well-worded take on objectivity:

“Part of the problem is that journalists don’t realize what objectivity was in the first place,” says Rosen. “From the beginning it was a way of limiting liability, and allowing journalists to take a pass when it’s hard to figure out who’s right and what’s really going on. From the beginning it was meant to dull the knife edge of the press. It was meant to ‘de-voice’ or defang the individual journalist, so that more people would be comfortable with the product. But the costs of that system have built up over time.”

My sense is that Outing’s column comes less from a desire to save polar bears and more from a desire to see a passionate, interesting newspaper. I also sense it comes from frustration with us journalists worshiping objectivity while many in the public shamelessly hate us and call us biased anyway.

Throwing out the expectation of objectivity in reporting isn’t the answer. The answer is not being ashamed of our editorials and of the discussion we generate.

When confronted by some random person on the street with accusations of my news organization being biased, I don’t placate him or her with cries of objectivity and drone on about the newsroom/editorial board “firewall.” Instead, I spit back that newspapers are supposed to take a stand on issues and do their best to dig up the truth — even if it pisses people off some times. I say that if you have something to say, then here’s my card and come spit fire on one of our blogs or message boards; I’d love to have ya.

The standard newspaper writing style is often stale and homogeneous. Newspapers seldom publish (in print) commentary from the blogosphere and message boards. Many newspaper Web sites bury their interesting blogs at the bottom of their home pages and don’t regularly link to local blogs. And, most poignantly, killer editorials almost never appear on the front page; they’re buried in the back of the A-section.

Let’s begin with truly respecting objective news stories and subjective opinion slinging as being partners in creating a compelling newspaper. Let’s do our best to be fair to the subjects of stories while increasingly embracing our role as discussion leaders in our respective communities.

Otherwise, I foresee many news organizations literally dying of boredom.

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The L.A. Times editorial board on Saturday scoffed at the principles of free speech and open information with an editorial claiming that “Many publishers consider the Internet, and Google in particular, a greater threat to their livelihoods than Osama bin Laden.”

The Times is upset by the fact that Google will be allowing the people who are written about in stories to comment via their Google News service. It says that Google “isn’t journalism.”

Google is a search engine and content aggregator. This huffing about Google not being journalism is akin to lambasting the guy who drives the newspaper delivery truck for not having a journalism degree.

Nevertheless, the Times does not cite copyright issues in its editorial.

It does not discuss the difficulty in managing such a comment system.

It does not even ask how it will verify the contributors’ identities (never mind that Times editorials carry no bylines — a whole other issue).

But it does assert that “a seemingly heartfelt comment may carry the CEO’s name, but the words will probably have been typed by corporate flacks.” Fair enough, but what about the comments made by experts with thoughtful insights? What about the lady who was inaccurately reported dead telling the world she is, indeed, alive. What about the families of disaster victims who simply want to thank the world for their prayers?

I quote from the Times’ own editorial board mission statement:

On the editorial page, the newspaper sets aside its objective news-gathering role to join its readers in a dialogue about important issues of the day.

The Times is offended by the notion that the people who contribute comments to Google News will be making them “unedited.” This means the comments will not be altered and filtered by people like the writer of the Times editorial, who has such splendid judgment as to compare a medium we use to learn about the world in unprecedented ways as being equivalent to an extremist who murdered nearly 3,000 people.

This is exactly the kind of idiotic hubris that causes the public to hate journalists and, by extension, the journalism they produce. It is also the sort of attitude that could throttle the life out of newspapers online and make the prophecies of out-of-touch opinion mongers come true.

I can only pray that today’s newspaper leaders do not have the same lowly opinion of the Internet and public forums as do the Times‘ editorial board. If so, we journalists are in worst trouble than I thought.

***

More responses from Robert Niles at Online Journalism Review, Jeff Jarvis at BuzzMachine and Amy Webb at MyDigiMedia.

And a reminder of exactly to what the editorial board has compared Google:

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The world of journalism ethics can be a complicated, scary place. The New York Times’ code of ethics [PDF] is almost thick enough at 57 pages to qualify as a textbook. Even some of the shorter ones, such as that of The Washington Post, serve more as references as opposed to simple guidelines one can follow in a heartbeat.

That’s why I liked the list presented at a workshop yesterday by Orlando Sentinel public editor Manning Pynn. Manning, in an act that might make George Carlin proud, has drilled down on ethics codes in an attempt to capture the essence of them into something more understandable — especially for folks new to journalism who haven’t sat through semester-long ethics classes in college. So here’s Manning’s list, which any cub reporter can easily keep in his pocket and use to stay out of trouble:

* Don’t accept free stuff.
* Don’t cover family, friends — or enemies.
* Don’t use your position for personal benefit.
* Don’t make stuff up.
* Don’t steal other people’s work.
* Don’t alter photographs.

Now clearly, journalism ethics can become more complex than this small list. The Poynter Institute has a Geek Squad of experts ready at a moment’s notice to help you solve tough ethical conundrums, and they produce plenty of excellent, valuable content to hammer out these issues.

But when I’m spotted at a venue by a friendly press agent who wants to slip me some tempting tickets for a hot concert next week, the first thing I’m going to fall back on is simply “don’t accept free stuff.”

***

More Ethical Links:

Society of Professional Journalists Code of Ethics

American Society of Newspaper Editors list of newspapers’ codes of ethics

Poynter Institute Ethics section

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The Daily Telegraph in Sydney, Australia is taking heat from U.S. readers for publishing the photo of one of the victims of the Virginia Tech massacre and characterizing her as having “sparked” the killings.

The Telegraph published a note inside the online article in question, indicating the strong reaction to the piece. Firstly, let me commend the Telegraph for continuing the discussion openly online.

That aside, I found the tone of their article revolting. This line is particularly offensive: “THIS is the face of the girl who may have sparked the worst school shooting in US history.” [Bolded in original story.] Then, to make the matter worse, an editor at the Daily Telegraph then attempted to explain away the criticism as perhaps being “cultural confusion between the US and Australia.”

This is not the same situation as when a Daily Telegraph columnist derided a black athlete as being a “baboon.” Distateful as that column’s implications are, I just maybe, possibly might swallow that there is a difference in racial tensions and language between Australia and the United States.

This may have been a case of sloppy editing, or of not having enough sensitivity to an event because it happened in a faraway place. But plastering an innocent dead girl’s face on the Web and implying that she is somehow partially responsible for the massacre of more than 30 of her peers is no cultural confusion.

It is grossly irresponsible.

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The Online Journalism Review has an excellent article with some practical legal advice for bloggers. The article discusses the case of videoblogger Josh Wolf, as well as some of the legal implications of a blogger code of conduct.

But here’s what may be the best tidbit: “Bottom line: choosing to publish online is an enormous responsibility, and it carries risks. But a professional attitude, self-education and a few proactive steps can go a long way.” Right on.

[Thanks Angela]

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Columbia Journalism Review’s Gal Beckerman has a thorough write-up on how the media’s prediction of John Edwards  closing down his campaign turned out to be astronomically wrong yesterday.

The culprit, as it so often is, was a reporter relying on a single source. The secondary culprits were nearly every other major news outlet who cited that report. Elizabeth Edwards even took a small jab at the media with her comment, “You haven’t turned out to be so reliable in the last 24 hours.”

Of course, it was all made possible thanks to the speed of Internet reporting. From CJR’s assessment of the debacle:

The problem, as we see it, is twofold. In spite of claiming to realize the power of the Internet - that’s why, presumably, Politico was able to lure big time political reporters like Smith away from newspapers - the reporters and editors who run the site still don’t realize how far their voice carries. We imagine Smith probably thought that a blog post couldn’t possibly make it farther than his own beltway readership. He should know better, and be just as careful about announcing such news as he would be in any other medium.But the bigger problem has to do with the Internet itself. By giving the impression that everything is immediately correctible, it lowers accountability, making it seem okay to take risks - like basing a story on one source. If a Web site like Politico wants to be taken seriously, it has to live be the same rigorous standards that most news organizations live and die by.

Lesson hopefully learned by all of us. Here’s the original post from the Politico blog, and here’s his apology.

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The Financial Times has published an interesting interactive map outlining growing censorship of the Internet in the world. Belarus, Turkey, Thailand and Iran (in that order) have the highest Internet penetration of all the countries described.

Also, check out GreatFirewallofChina.org, which purports to test whether your domain is blocked in China. Yes my friends, this esteemed online publication appears to be blocked, right alongside ChinaIsEvil.com. I suppose China doesn’t need MY insights. However, WormBase, a guide to “the Biology and Genome of C. Elagans” seems good to go.

Frightening what one’s mind puts forth when randomly thinking of something to search…

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It’s like a horrific scene out of EPIC 2014.

E-Media Tidbits’ Amy Gahran highlights the story of Nino Ceritano, a restaurateur whose top Google search was a Roanoke Times story about a murder suspect who worked in his restaurant.

“What do you think when you put in a restaurant [into Google] and a killer comes up?” he asked the Times. [UPDATE: Roanoke Times online editor John Jackson dropped in with a comment today.]

Nino, I think you’re the victim of editing by machine. It’s something I’ve been thinking a lot about lately while crunching through Database Nation by Simpson Garfinkel (per the recommendation of Adrian Holovaty). One of the basic premises of the book is that much of your personal information is being held largely by third parties over which you have little to no control.

While a news story about a murder is double-plus public information, is it something that a human editor would choose to highlight as the most relevant thing about this particular establishment? Perhaps. Or perhaps not. Is it fair to Ceritano? Is it more important than the amazing Pizza al Pollo? More importantly, if he were to contact Google, would they do anything about it?

It’s possible that they did. The official Web site of the restaurant is now the number one Google search result. Did someone at Google have mercy on Ceritano?

Let’s also take a look at when Wikipedia founder Jimmy Wales tried to exercise some control over the information about himself when he altered his own Wikipedia entry. The crowds were incensed. You can read about the controversy on …well… his own Wikipedia entry!

Whether it’s an algorithm run by a computer or crowds of faceless contributors doing the editing, we must acknowledge that there are some dangers associated with becoming too automated. Crowdsourcing can be a beautiful thing, but we must make sure as journalists that we retain the ability to present information with care and humanity.

And on that note, Nino, here’s some keyworded link love for Ceritano’s restaurant.

[CORRECTION: I previously misstated the nature of the incident at Ceritano’s. Thanks Amy.]

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Microsoft got its hand slapped by Wikipedia after it was revealed that Microsoft attempted to pay writer Rick Jelliffe for altering Microsoft’s Wikipedia entry, according to an Associated Press report.

From the report:

Microsoft acknowledged it had approached the writer and offered to pay him for the time it would take to correct what the company was sure were inaccuracies in Wikipedia articles on an open-source document standard and a rival format put forward by Microsoft.

Call me a conspiracy theorist, but perhaps it’s only a matter of time until some media organization gets caught paying off a prominent Digg or Newsvine user. Maybe they’ll even call that person an “Outreach Editor.” Of course, some organizations are already buying search ads on Google for news articles…

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Do I hear $10 for “Saddam Hussein hanging?” $15?

PaidContent highlights a Wall Street Journal report on the growing trend in the U.K. toward newspapers bidding on sponsored links on Google for news events. Some American newspapers have gotten in on the act too, including the New York Times, Washington Post and USAToday, according to the article.

I have no qualms about training journalists to write search-engine friendly headlines. Those headlines tend to work better on the Web anyway, and Google is the biggest driver of traffic just about anywhere.

Nevertheless, the question is: If this trend explodes here in the United States, will even mid-size and small news sites have any other choice but to join the auction?

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A couple of Digg’s most loyal users have been banned because they’ve apparently taken money for posting articles. Along with instances of phony articles appearing, it seems as if Digg has had its hands full containing some of the mayhem that comes along with having a substantial effect on a site’s ad revenue.

While many users are well-intentioned, one must always be on the lookout for people taking advantage of an open social network, especially if the reputation of your publication is involved.
Here are links to Digg’s top users and to their terms of service.

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