September 3, 2010

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bad for journalism, terrible for pr

June 5, 2009 By Jonathan Nguyen View Comments

Abu-Ghraibit is sometimes joked about in public relations (pr) circles, that the slashing of journalism budgets will be a boon for pr professionals. the truth is the decline in good journalism starts us down a path that neuters one of the most powerful checks and balances in a democratic society.

keeping the bastards honest

if this is the only thing that you remember about the australian democrats, etch it fast.

a democratic society exists in a state of fluid contention. one side can never have too much power, because what we do know about power is that it corrupts. to this end, most of our power structures are such that there is always a counterpoint, hence:

  • a bicameral system of parliament
  • separation of powers between the executive, legislative and judicial branches
  • government and opposition
  • prosecution and defence
  • mcdonalds and kfc (i might be joking here)

if we didn’t have this system, power shifts to one group and then we have a problem.

public opinion

public opinion, and consequently consent, is where all our human institutions derive their power. much of that opinion is informed by the media (old or new). the media is where we tell our stories, and stories are told of us. these stories over time form reputation, credibility and ultimately for a basis for power. be that market power, social power or governmental power. power influences consent.

the hacks

we rely on the hacks to watch our institutions and ensure that the public are informed on what they are doing, so that we, the people, can give our consent. we rely on them to be honest, accurate and fair. as humans though, their stories will be coloured from their experiences and biases. this is often not a problem because often an experienced journalist with have insights that add value and interest to a story.

unfortunately, this is not always the case. bad news sells better than good news and a scandal is always titillating. coming at a story from a negative angle is always juicier.

the flacks

as flacks, we are the advocates for our clients. we tell our client’s stories from a positive angle and always with our best foot forward. this is neither a secret nor is it an earth shattering revelation. for us good news is always better than bad news, and a scandal is a nightmare. besides telling everyone anytime we have good news, we try to limit the damage of bad news.

this hack/flack contention, hopefully draws us somewhere to the middle of the road, and as close to the perception of truth as humanly possible. this system of story telling gives us as a society a balance of power.

the decline of good journalism

advertising revenues are drying up and media houses flounder trying to find an online model monetisation model. money is not being spent on good journalism and funding longer well researched pieces, rather journalists are being asked to churn out x number of stories per day.

this skews the power balances and this is not a good thing. In the long term, this means that the power starts to shifts to one group, the flacks.

i’m sure we’re a wonderful bunch but we are we are human and definitely not the untouchables. we are part of a symbiotic system that ultimately only works when there is equal representation on both sides.

i’m not sure what the strategy to monetise will be. there are ideas floating around. i do believe that with every media downsizing the checks stop balancing.

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citizen journalism is not: melbourne airport example

January 23, 2009 By Jonathan Nguyen View Comments

timing could not have been more opportune, there was some debate after my posting on citizen journalism.

so here’s the problem with selling twitter as a mainstream news source: without fact checking it’s just one big rumour mill.

see what happens when jonoh tells the world that there is a fire on a plane today in melbourne. the “news” spreads like wildfire and the twemes go crazy when in fact jonoh was not even on the flight!

twitter is a brilliant medium, but we need to still apply some rules to make it credible as a news source.

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citizen journalism is not journalism

January 18, 2009 By Jonathan Nguyen View Comments

every time there is some horrible disaster the twitterati / blogosphere lights up with almost jubilant vindication. it’s starting to grate.

i was not conscious of this until i saw a Tweet by blogger @longzheng:

it’s a shame it takes an accident to “show off” the power of Twitter and community journalism. let’s just accept it works already.

first and foremost, let’s stop using disasters to sell and justify social media – it’s verging on ambulance chasing now: denver plane crash, mumbai terror attacks and most recently usair crash in the hudson to name a few.

furthermore, having had some time to watch all of these events unfold and evaluate what’s being said, i don’t think that citizen journalism is really journalism. i think at best they’re eyewitness accounts at worst they’re complete fabrications. the fact that someone captures something on their camera phone or tweets something doesn’t make it journalism.

do we call it cctv journalism when cctv footage is captured of a robbery by cctv?

it becomes journalistic when:

  • someone takes that footage;
  • interviews witnesses;
  • interviews police;
  • interviews the victim(s);
  • writes / records a meaningful story and
  • someone verifies the facts quoted.

i don’t dispute the value of social media tools in recording an eyewitness account but let’s not engage in social media jihadism about it. twitter and twitpic are certainly useful for feeding information back in real time about an event. a journalist or blogger can then go back over this information and use it as part of the steps above to write a piece of journalism.

the intelligent consumption of media means that you constantly evaluate what you are reading and not merely accepting it as fact. this is less likely to happen if you are reading an established publication that you already trust because of their reputation. Calling a hashtag news does not fall into the “intelligent consumption” category, in fact I would call it indiscriminate gluttony of the social media variety.

finally, just from a purely consumer perspective i don’t want to consume my news in a fragmented piecemeal fashion over 50 different social media sites. i want a cohesive account – a story. i may read several stories to get differing viewpoints but i don’t want to read my news in 1000 140 character chunks.

eye witness accounts will always have a place – as will “citizen journalism”. will it replace the millions of talented individuals who pore over the information and tell us a story? not in the next hundred years.

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digital credibility: the divide between journos and bloggers

January 18, 2009 By Jonathan Nguyen View Comments

there are possibly thousands of articles online on how to increase your credibility online. many of them are written by search engine optimisation types, others are by social media “experts”. i want to approach this from a journalism / blogger perspective.

journos as i have discovered come from all walks of life. some of them went to school, some of them did not (like my father). starting life out as a journo is hard work, if you’re good enough and lucky enough to land a cadetship for a major publication you get put through the rigours of the newsroom and start writing your first pieces. along the way you are mentored, fact checked and edited. eventually, you automatically do all those things yourself (and still get mentored, fact checked and edited).

when readers read your work they trust that the publication you are working for, by their reputation – the reputation they have worked hard to earn and maintain – means that your work is as factual as possible. when that journo has established a body of work that is credible, their reputation stands on its own.

what about a blogger?

putting aside the well worn path of tips and tricks, a search for “blogger credibility” will yield an enormous amount of results. Darren has a great series on this topic over at his blog.

the long and the short of is it has to be built up over time from a body of work. in the end, if your output is good (could mean interesting, factual or offer insight) you build a reputation. the difference is, unless you are already have an established reputation elsewhere, you have to work much harder. you don’t have the implied reputation of a major masthead earlier on.

of course, if you’ve made a name for yourself elsewhere because you’re already an established expert in another field and you blog about that field, you also bypass the extra time at the beginning.

once this reputation is established though, whether you are a blogger or a journalist is purely semantics.

it was this train of thought that led me to agreeing with @renailemay in the end.

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what’s the difference between a blogger and a journo?

January 16, 2009 By Jonathan Nguyen View Comments

at the cbs interactive christmas party in 2008 i had a conversation with sydney journalist @renailemay regarding whether or not there was a difference between journos and bloggers. renai was firmly of the opinion that both were one and the same. at the time i tended to disagree.

the debate has happened before and has even made it to court. my reason for disagreeing with renai was that there was a difference in the standard of credibility. journos are required to fact check and research or some editor somewhere unload an ugly red pen, whereas bloggers could be anyone churning out any kind of rubbish.

i’ve been mulling it over and examining my position a little closer and i now agree with renai. the heart of the issue for me was credibility. if credibility was not an issue are both not the same? i.e, is the function the same and only the medium different? both are writers breaking news or discussing current affairs, one writes for a newspaper and one writes online. journalists can be bloggers also. at the end of the day they’re still both writers.

it’s like saying a driver of a car is a driver, but a driver of a van is not.

the difference between a journo and blogger is therefore just the medium.

next post: what about the credibility issue?

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