The media needs to do a better job of reporting on itself

In an article in Adbusters about the state of journalism, titled "State of Emergency," Sean Condon writes:

"If the media wants to find a solution, it's going to have to start doing a better job of reporting on the problem."

I couldn't agree more.

One of the things that has baffled me the most is how traditional reporters who can provide the most incisive analyses of other industries often seem fundamentally incapable of viewing their own clearly.

If they were able to view the newspaper industry clearly, we wouldn't be having a lot of the debates that are currently going on in journalism circles. Instead, we'd all be able to see--and agree on--the following things:

• Slashing jobs without revising your product strategy has always been a direct path toward collapse.


• Continuing to produce the same product when your customer base (ie: the demand for your product) is shrinking is similarly a direct path toward obsolescence.


• Declaring you are a public good entitles you to nothing. (If it did, we'd have fully funded health care, education, and job training programs.)

So why doesn't the traditional media take as cold-eyed approach to the shortcomings and challenges within their own industry as they do with, say, the current crisis in the automotive industry?

It's not malfeasance or misdirection. Instead, it's simply human nature not to be able to regard something clearly in which you are personally vested. Some journalists so deeply believe certain "truths" about the newspaper world, that they can't see that those truths are more mythology than reality. For others, the problem is that their identities are too wrapped up in a very specific idea of what it means to be a journalist. To have to look that idea in the face, and accept that some of it is (irrevocably) broken, means having to let go of that thing that has defined them and their place in the world.

These are perfectly human responses. But from a pragmatic point of view, they are hampering traditional journalists' ability to clearly understand what's happening to their industry, and thus, armed with that clear understanding, to help it move forward.

So what can traditional reporters working at newspapers do to develop the ability to see--and report on--their industry clearly?

• Put the fear on the shelf.
  Seeing the industry for what it is is scary for someone living inside it. You'll feel fear just looking at it. Maybe even panic. Accept it, but don't let it get in your way. Feel the fear. Put it in a box. Put the box on a shelf in the back of a very deep closet. And leave it there. It's a natural feeling. But it's not going to do you any good right now.
  


• Ask yourself: If this were a different industry, what questions would I be asking?
  If this were the health care industry, the automotive industry, the industry that produces incandescent light bulbs, what questions would I be asking to determine whether the industry had legs, whether it could survive, and what other industries were emerging to challenge it? And then ask those questions.
  


• Ask yourself: If this were a different industry, who would I be talking to?
  Who would I be interviewing to get their reading on the state of that industry? Then get their reading. And give that reading as much credence as you would give to their reading on any other industry.
  


• And then write the story as if you were writing about another industry.
  If it helps you quell the fear, and get through the first draft, substitute "the automotive industry" for "the journalism industry" and write what you've learned. You might be surprised by what you produce. And you more than likely end up doing a huge service to everyone--your colleagues and those on the outside--who are trying to figure out how to enable journalism to survive, even if newspapers themselves are dying.

Photo courtesy of Gabriela Camerotti. Creative Commons license.

Jarvis agrees: Zell is not the problem

This is quite exciting.

Sometimes I feel like the lone cranky voice out here, the party pooper at the journalism party, because I refuse to blame "rapacious" businessmen or cultural superficiality for the demise of the news business but instead lay the blame at the feet of reporters themselves. But now, it turns out I'm not alone.

Respected media commentator and Internet strategist Jeff Jarvis, he of BuzzMachine (#520 on Technorati's list of the top blogs -- not too shabby, given that there's only, like, a jillion blogs out there), declared last week that "Zell is not your problem. You are."

The post was written in response to a suit filed by a group of current and former LA Times staffers against Sam Zell, accusing him of "recklessness in the takeover and management" of the paper.

The Times veterans should not be suing Zell, Jarvis declared. They should be suing themselves.

The rap sheet included the following crimes:

"When the paper was the most overwritten, under-edited consumer of wasted ink and paper in the United States of America, boring its audience with jump after jump of self-indulgent text and forcing readers to flee for TV, did you get out your pencils and start trimming and tightening? No."

"When the internet came, did you all - every one of you as responsible, smart journalists, on your own - leap to get training in audio and video? Did you immediately hatch new ways to work collaboratively with the vast public of bloggers able and willing to join in local journalism? Not that I saw."

Not to toot my own horn, but what the hey, this is exactly what I wrote about last month in "Who, in fact, is the problem?"

At the time, I quoted Newark's mayor paraphrasing MLK in saying that, "The problems of today are not the vitriolic words and the evil actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people."

My point was that, in challenging times, the average person can't sit around and point fingers. The average person has to get off their duff and be part of the solution.

And, as someone who's felt like that lone cranky voice, it's enormously exciting to hear others making this point. I genuinely believe that the only way we'll be able to find the way forward is if every single person working in this business accepts that the old days are gone, faces the reality of our new environment, and dedicates themselves to exploring new--and effective--ways of doing what has always been the so very important mission of the news business: informing our communities about what's going on in them.

Who, in fact, is the problem?

In a recent Esquire article, Newark mayor Cory Booker paraphrases Martin Luther King:

"The problems of today are not the vitriolic words and the evil actions of the bad people, but the appalling silence and inaction of the good people."

These words could apply to the news business as well.

The problems that the news business faces today are not solely the responsibility of the Sam Zells and others who are slashing and burning journalism staffs. The Sam Zells are not the only villains in our current drama. The problems are the responsibility of every person in the industry, from the top muckety mucks to the lowly scribes. And so, as the old saying goes, if you're not working on the solution, you're part of the problem.

The past does not exist anymore. The future has to be created. This is a scary reality to face. It means we're all bobbing out at sea, with no map to guide us. We all have to help the business find its way.

If you're a reporter, and all you want to do is to do the same old job you always did--get up in the morning, pound out a story or two, and go home--you're part of the problem. Every person needs to devote some portion of their waking hours to teasing out the answer to the question: "How, going forward, can we attract and retain readers?"

I know this is not a comfortable thought. I know it's not what most journalists want to do. But it is the reality. If you're not comfortable with it, for whatever reason, consider leaving the business. If you need job security, you need to find another job. If you have no interest in experimentation, find a job where you can do whatever part of this job it is that you love to do. There are many jobs out there where you can exercise your writing skills, your reporting skills, your love of art, sports, politics, or business. But the bottom line is this: If you're not willing to pick up an oar and help row, you're just dead weight and you need to get out.

On the other hand, if you love the business, then you need to strap on some courage and take some risks. The business is in a crisis. And crises require good men and women to extend themselves, to take risks, to try things they never thought they could do. It's going to be a rocky period, one full of uncertainty, and you might not survive it. For all you do, you still might get the ax. But that is a risk one takes to save something one loves. And it's the responsiblity of every single one of us. It would be nice if this were a simple problem that the higher ups could fix with a little spread-sheet rejiggering. But it's not. It requires a complete re-invention of the business. The ideas on how to do that will not come from the boardroom. They will come from this odd corner or that. From this experiment that succeeded, and even from that one that failed.

The problems that the news business faces today are not solely the responsibility of the "evil business people" tearing newsrooms to shreds. They are the responsibility of every person working in the business. And so are the solutions.

Photo courtesy of Bombardier. Creative Commons license.