May
9
Saving Journalism: from Obama to Pincus
President Barack Obama, at the end of his funny, barbed and self-mocking White House Correspondents speech, graciously thanked the assembled press corps for doing their jobs --even when he disagreed with them--and recognized that their profession was under duress. He wished them well as they reinvent journalism.
BusinessWeek writer Sarah Lacy, at the behest of Tech Crunch's Michael Arrington, has written a modest proposal for how the business weeklies can save themselves. While she obviously gets the reality of the situation, I am not sure the powers that be at these organizations will be willing to see it her way. I agree that her solution would work. And the same basic principles could apply to many other mags.At lunch last week, one studio marketing exec and I were puzzling over Time, Newsweek and EW. And as I ponder my own future, I am aware that writing for print gave me not only an editor and a deadline that forced me to focus serious time on a column, but gravitas as well. The blog just isn't the same. When it's in print, it means more. To everyone. Said studio marketer doesn't mind Patrick Goldstein's daily rantings online. It's when they wind up in print in the LAT that she gets upset. Is this attitude? Habit? The fact that holding something tangible in your hand makes it more important? Print still does have an advantage (along with serious advertising dollars), if folks can only figure out how to make it dovetail economically with the faster online world.
People take many blogs and online publications seriously, from The Daily Beast (where editors and deadlines still apply) to WSJ.com, where you can find Kara Swisher's All Things Digital blog. She recently interviewed Sharon Waxman, whose online pub The Wrap is trying to compete inside the trade space. Waxman asserted at a recent Fest of Books panel that the trades "never break a story" and "there's no place to go for the essential information you need if you are in the business of TV and movies." Really? She waxes on:
Meanwhile The Washington Post's Walter Pincus, writing in the Columbia Journalism Review, suggests that newspaper reporters and editors have been chasing the wrong goals, fame and glory, instead of serving their readers.
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I could hear Kara Swisher's questions and commentary quite well. However, I had to strain to hear Sharon Waxman. As a trained journalist, I am curious about why you didn't notice this when you edited the piece. They way it "plays" makes the oversight seem at least intentional, as Waxman is dwarfed by Swisher. The competition is evident.
Posted by: Rebecca Frank | May 10, 2009 at 04:20 AM
There's no external mike, so the trick is to do what I did with the Orci/Kurtzman interview--pull back to the widest angle and mount the cam on a tripod (with two people it's tough to keep them both in frame, but I will get better). That way the flip cam mike is closer to the subjects than the interviewer. I used to hold the camera next to my head and that made me too loud.
Posted by: anne Thompson | May 10, 2009 at 12:57 PM
Save Journalism ? One thing is to have some standards. Why do they use In Touch, Life and Style, Star etc in their stories. Please don't tell me about the one or two stories than got right in a 10 year period. If you can't find the information on your own or by a respected source than don't do the story.
Posted by: lac | May 11, 2009 at 06:40 AM