Splitting HairsLet's get sentimental; the readers deserve it |
Or the wheels will come off in print and online.
This is why I love the web. A truly fascinating debate has been raging on the internet recently between Peter Bruce, Business Day's editor, and Matthew Buckland, head of Media24's innovation unit, 20FourLabs. Let's just call them old media guy - OMG - and new media dude, NMD.
It was all started by OMG when, in his editor's column, he castigated the head of FNB for sending out an e-mail saying there was no point in the bank subscribing to the paper as the staff could get it all online for free. OMG pointed out that you could be indifferent to newspapers but not to journalism and that all those free online stories were written and edited by journalists who were paid salaries by newspapers.
This was followed by an interview with former Financial Mail journalist Duncan McLeod on his new website, TechCentral.
Then NMD shaked OMG down on his blog, charging that he was just being sentimental about newspapers. There is good journalism happening on the web, said NMD, and, further more, OMG was part of the problem. Because newspapers' websites brought in meagre revenue, they were the domain of junior staff, he said. Recalling his time at the Mail & Guardian Online, NMD said: "The defining moment came when the head of online stopped reporting to a print editor, but directly to the CEO. The online strategy was afforded priority and authority - ambivalence was replaced by an uncompromising focus and determination".
Prof Anton Harber, the head of Wits University's journalism school and Weekly Mail co-founder, entered the fray on his blog in his usually astute manner, calling OMG "struthious". Off we all scurried to dictionary.com to discover that this means behaving like an ostrich, i.e., sticking your head in the sand.
There followed two delightful weeks of comments and argument - all good natured as everybody, including myself, likes both OMG and NMD a lot. Most of it was on NMD's blog. To OMG's credit, he wasn't shy to wade in and comment amid all the new-media upstarts. Not many newspaper editors have the balls to do that.
It's painfully ironic that you could never have this kind of lively interaction on the letters page of a newspaper but then it's not often you get such sustained intelligent debate in comments on websites and blogs.
Now, here's why I love newspapers. Most of this excellent debate came from people schooled in the rigours of newsrooms. I, as a blogger for instance, may delight in thumbing my nose to traditional media but I can only do so because I was knocked into shape and learned how to be fair, accurate and (sometimes) thoughtful because I worked at newspapers, including at OMG's.
I was taught that newspapers were the conscience of the community and that we were there to serve the readers, whether that be stopping a council's nefarious plan to sell a kiddies' park to developers or challenging politicians to speak the truth or even undermining readers' assumptions about the other half. If that sounds sentimental, that's because it is.
Few stand-alone journalism websites or bloggers have the resources to do the sentimental stuff or to school young staff members on this score - most can't even afford staff. Which is why there so much opinion flying around on the web - it's the cheapest original content you can get.
When Barack Obama says (as he did two weeks ago in a meeting with a couple of US newspapers): "I am concerned that if the direction of the news is all blogosphere, all opinions, with no serious fact-checking, no serious attempts to put stories in context, that what you will end up getting is people shouting at each other across the void but not a lot of mutual understanding", you've got to get a tad tearful. This is from a guy who has a lot to gain from the media getting lax on fact-checking and context.
For me, the problem with many newspapers' websites is that they are not in fact controlled by the editor, including OMG's. Usually, content is put up by separate divisions of sub-editors slaving away over hot terminals and when an editor says he wants something done on the site, he's rebuffed by the IT department that says it needs a project-requisition form signed.
Of course, many editors are also guilty of not taking any interest in their websites, thinking that it's the domain of the tecchies. The problem is that the tecchies tend not to be interested in editorial content. And this is how the wheels come off the newspaper's future in both the print and digital domain.
Obama's pronouncements to the Toledo Blade and Pittsburgh Post-Gazette newspapers two weeks ago has got the American press hopeful of a bail-out. There has also been a proposal to a senate subcommittee chaired by John Kerry to allow newspapers to become nonprofit organisations and for tax breaks. In fact, Washington state has already implemented tax breaks for newspapers.
And maybe that is the future. Once upon a time, most of South Africa's papers were owned by trusts, editors took interest in editorial content - and not in revenue - and the journalists did it for love as the pay was so crummy. Now our papers are owned by big corporate, editors are distracted by corporate politics and pressure to meet budget targets while the journalists are paid OK. Slowly the conscience is leaving the building - and that's okay with the board, which must think of the shareholders.
But even shareholders will buy fewer newspapers and cancel subscriptions if the paper doesn't serve their community. OMG started this all when he said: "Integrity and courage and accuracy in journalism are all oxygen to a democracy and I know of no other way of sustaining it today, other than in a healthy newspaper industry". Oh my God, it's that simple.
*Gill Moodie spent 14 years as a salaried hack in print media in South Africa and the UK before escaping to the blogosphere and freelance journalism. She is the publisher of Grubstreet http://grubstreet.co.za/ in between unpacking and packing the infernal dishwasher and bringing up a four-year-old with attitude.
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