Product v. Process Journalism: The Myth of Perfection v. Beta Culture

An alarm went off on some desk at the New York Times business section: Oh-oh, time to slam blogs again. But the latest assault reveals as much about The Times and the culture of classical journalism as it does about bloggers. Like the millennial clash of business models in media - the content economy v. the link economy and the inability of one to understand the other - here we see a clash over journalistic culture and methods - product journalism v. process journalism.

In The Times, Damon Darlin goes after blogs for publishing rumors and unfinished stories, calling it a "truth-be-damned approach" and likening it to yellow journalism, the highest insult of the gray class. He hauls out the worst example again - just as bloggers trying to go after MSM reporters do: the Steve Jobs heart attack rumor and Times WMD reporting (or Jayson Blair or Dan Rather), respectively.

Darlin leads with TechCrunch and Gawker sharing bogus rumors of Apple buying Twitter. He acknowledges that TechCrunch said in its post that it could not confirm the story. But still, he uses it to jump to the first of his broad-brush generalizations: "Such news judgment is not unusual among blogs covering tech. For some blogs, rumors are their stock in trade." Couldn't one say the same thing about political reporters who spread rumors and trial balloons, knowing they are just that, or business reporters feeding rumors and speculation about mergers or firings? Blogs are hardly alone in scoop mentality. Newspapers invented scoops.

When I tweeted about the story, calling it a slap to bloggers, Times Sunday business editor Tim O'Brien - who'd just issued his customary long string of tweets flogging his stories, including this one - responded: "isn't about 'product vs. process' or 'old vs. new'. it's about people publishing things they don't believe to be true. standards."

One word: standards. But which standards? Whose standards? The Times' standards, of course. They set the standard, don't they?

Well, yes, they do, sometimes. Just not all the standards all the time. At my school, we say we teach what we call the eternal verities of journalism. But I also try to make sure the students are open to new worldviews and new methods and means of journalism. Those can come from bloggers and from the public we serve.

Darlin touches on one such new view when he writes:

[TechCrunch founder] Mr. Arrington and the other bloggers see this not as rumor-mongering, but as involving the readers in the reporting process. One mission of his site, he said, is to write about the things a few people are talking about, "the scuttlebutt around Silicon Valley." His blog will often make clear that he's passing along a thinly sourced story.

To quote Gawker founder Nick Denton, when we put up "half-baked posts" we are saying to our public: Here's what we know, here's what we don't know, what do you know. I believe it is critical to clearly label that, giving caveats and context. The same is true of 24-hour cable news, where the viewer must become the editor, understanding the difference between what is known now and what what can be confirmed later (see: the West Virgina mining disaster). In short: We who publish must learn how to say what we don't know at least as well as we say what we know.

This is journalism as beta. I make a big point of that in What Would Google Do? - that every time Google releases a beta, it is saying that the product is incomplete and imperfect. That is inevitably a call to collaborate. It is - even from Google - a statement of humanity and humility: We're not perfect.

Ah, but there's the problem: journalism's myth of perfection. And it's not just journalism that holds this myth. It is the byproduct of the means and requirements of mass production: If you have just one chance to put out a product and it has to serve everyone the same, you come to believe it's perfect because it has to be, whether that product is a car (we are the experts, we took six years to tool up, it damned well better be perfect) or government (where, I'm learning, employees have a phobic fear of mistakes - because citizens and journalists will jump on them) or newspapers (we package the world each day in a box with a bow on it - you're welcome).

The posse of pros who jumped on me in Twitter this morning will say that they do make mistakes and corrections but first they always try to get it right - perfect - while bloggers instead spread rumors. But that's where the fundamental misunderstanding comes. It's a matter of timing, of the order of things, of the process of journalism. Newspaper people see their articles as finished products of their work. Bloggers see their posts as part of the process of learning.

I believe the contrast in methodology will become even more stark as we start using tools such as Google Wave to create news collaboratively in present-tense.

Online, we often publish first and edit later. We do that on blogs. One could say that 24-hour TV news does that, though I rarely see the editing. Even a division of The New York Times Company - About.com (where I used to consult) - does its work in that order. (That is why About had dozens of writers for every editor [I don't know the mix today], while The Times has three editors for every writer. That level of editing before publication is what makes The Times The Times - both from a journalistic perspective and, today, from an economic perspective; it may be what makes a newsroom like that unsustainable.)

Online, the story, the reporting, the knowledge are never done and never perfect. That doesn't mean that we revel in imperfection, as is the implication of The Times' story - that we have no standards. It just means that we do journalism differently, because we can. We have our standards, too, and they include collaboration, transparency, letting readers into the process, and trying to say what we don't know when we publish - as caveats - rather than afterward - as corrections.

The problem with this tiresome, never-ending alleged war of blogs vs. MSM (Arrington attacks The Times) and MSM vs. blogs (The Times attacks Arrington) - (Mark Glaser scolded me for rising to The Times' bait - is that it blinds each tribe from learning from the other. Yes, there are standards worth saluting from classical journalism. But there are also new methods and opportunities to be learned online. No one owns journalists or its methods or standards.

Robert Picard writes that journalism

is not business model; it is not a job; it is not a company; it is not an industry; it is not a form of media; it is not a distribution platform. Instead, journalism is an activity. It is a body of practices by which information and knowledge is gathered, processed, and conveyed. The practices are influenced by the form of media and distribution platform, of course, as well as by financial arrangements that support the journalism. But one should not equate the two.

The pity is that there are Timesmen who already are using these new methods. I see bloggers there asking readers to help them with stories, admitting they don't know everything yet - which means they are publishing incomplete news. I wish one of those people had been assigned to this story (if it needed to be written at all) and that such an open-minded, curious journalist could have seen and explained these different worldviews and how they are clashing as they also merge. But that, apparently, was not the assignment.

* * *

I addressed the myth of perfection in the foreword of Craig Silverman's Regret the Error (now out in paperback):

Nobody's perfect - not even journalists . . . especially not journalists.

Reporters and editors make mistakes. Indeed, they are probably more likely than most to do so. For just as bartenders break more glass because they handle more beer, so journalists who traffic in facts are bound to drop some along the way.

Yet too often, they won't admit that. What is plainly obvious - even a matter of liturgical confession for people of many faiths - is heretical to the reporting cult: People are fallible. But journalists too often believe they are not.

I was one of them. We were trained to seek and attain nothing less lofty than truth. Accuracy. Objectivity. We were the trusted ones. Impartial experts. Fair and balanced.

Alan Rusbridger, editor of London's Guardian, said at a 2007 meeting of the Organization of News Ombudsmen at Harvard: "Since a free press first evolved, we have derived our authority from a feeling - a sense, a pretense - that journalism is, if not infallible, something close to it. We speak of ourselves as being interested in the truth, the real truth. We're truth seekers, we're truth tellers, and we tell truth to power." But then he quoted Walter Lippman saying in 1922: "If we assume that news and truth are two words for the same thing we shall, I believe, arrive nowhere."

It is time for journalists to trade in their hubris and recapture their humanity and humility. And the best way to do that is simply to admit: We make mistakes.

Craig Silverman's examination of the art of the correction in his blog and now this book could not come at a better time for journalism. For the public's trust in news organizations is falling about as fast as their revenues (and, yes, those may be related). One way to earn back that trust is to face honestly and directly the trade's faults. The more - and more quickly - that news organizations admit and correct their mistakes, prominently and forthrightly, the less their detractors will have grounds to grumble about them.

But for journalists, to admit mistakes is to expose failure; corrections, in this logic, diminish stature and authority rather than enhance them. . . .

But this discussion should be about so much more than just errors and corrections. This is about new and better ways to gather, share, and verify news. And it is about a radically different and improved relationship between journalists and the public they serve. These changes in the culture and practice of journalism will not just bolster journalism's reputation but expand its reach and impact in society.

Comments

[LCLA]

I read print media and electronic media. I like the immediacy of electronic media. I find ample reason to be skeptical of both.
Print media, especially in the small markets, are beholden to advertisers and "news" is filtered through how it will be received by the financial and political powers to whom they are beholden.
Electronic media, blogs, Huffpost, etc. have the advantage of immediate updates and corrections and the disadvantage of minimal editorial standards and managment which are generally uninforcable in any event.
The bottom line is that we consumers/readers have to maintain vigilence and a degree of skepticism to all media. We cannot always fact check, but our bullsh*t meters must remain operational for everything we read.

[GorBud]

One of the first process stories I recall was the on going saga of Watergate. Everyone following the story day to day knew it was not complete at the end of the days story and that the story itself was was filled with "floating facts" to be sorted out as the story unwound. If bloggers existed they probably would have advanced the saga more quickly rather then waiting on editors, endless source checking and the ongoing timid input of lawyers protecting the corporate bottom line. The pressures from the political class as well as the influence peddlers don't effect the bloggers to any great extent. Corporate concerns are ignored for the most part. The in crowd is excluded and their views discounted. Seems to be a little like the wild West. Also after this election MSM has lost all creditability. what with thrills up their legs and an actual statement that Obama is "Godlike" and above the world. Where are the editors? MSM spouts as much nonsense if not more then many blogs.

[blood1]

I don't know if I am in the middle or at the extreme...I read both print and blogs. Some of both have made errors. The biggest difference is that Blogs are more likely to correct their mistakes rather quickly, while print media takes its time...and allows the incorrect information to flourish.

How long did it take the NYT to correct it's story about Recidivism...and where was the correction vs the original story. Each time that print media fails to retract a story with the same veracity in which it prints a story, their reputation takes a hit (and it should).

When print media stops with the Accuse in Public and Apologize in Private mentality, only then will it start to rebuild its reputation as a responsible media outlet that can be trusted.

[thesocialistidealist]

I think what the MSM does is bigger than hubris. It's a form of control, to tell us that not only do they give us the truth, and do so objectively, but that they are the only ones that give objective truth. My problem is not that the media fails to be objective. Rather, I think they are biased towards the wrong side, the elite instead of the people.

I believe that there is such a thing as truth. I cannot say the same about objectivity. To be completely neutral is a state of thought that simply does not exist. It is much better to be right than it is to be "objective."

[writerroz]

I think real news has been lost in the reporting since Reagan & Bush. That was when I first sensed that we were getting fake news that fit just what Reagan & Bush wanted us to know along with the opinions of pundits and analysts who were favorable to the Republicans.

As for most media news, I wonder how any story that is sensationalized and repeated on every network & every print media, each increasing the hype, can be called news. Actually there is little real news, and it consists of accidents, disasters and weather. No wonder we sit through, if we actually do, the news and don't remember it afterward, because it can put us to sleep or in a sleep like trance.We can hope that news as it has become will die out and the real stuff will rise out of its ruin online,

[mjwca]

Americans, in general, have a hell of a time admitting error. And and even worse time learning from it. It is the ultimate weakness of both intellect and character. Many journalists and pundits make the foolish mistake of thinking they are smarter than everyone else when, in fact, it is just the current echo chamber they seem to operate in sending them confirmation of their own words. Then they rail at dissonant voices, such a bloggers or the great unwashed, for spoiling their smug elitism. the result is shabby or "too little too late" reportage (Iraq, healthcare, torture, etc). They blame the "24 hour news cycle" but who invented it and who sustains it? As for bloggers, they are quickly treading a very similar path in their defense of rumor mongering and "citizen" journalism that has no discerable fact checking either. Perhaps both camps could quit leaving "the fact checked truth" to others and start doing it themselves. Otherwise, why should any of us readers care?

[TTigerX2]

Journalists today are more concerned about marketing their brand than going back to their roots and actually getting the news. Their puppet masters, who have for decades controlled the narrative on all things toadyism, are acting like shills for these journalists making them into much more than they were meant to be.

Traditional Journalism began to die during the invasion of Iraq. It's been hemorrhaging ever since.

Enter a bunch of savage swine with remedial skills and nothing better to do than rave while wearing their jogging clothes because they are out of work. These guys and gals are giving the pundit-journalists nightmares.

What Chris Matthews and his pals in Washington miss is the fact that some of them are published authors, former journalists and essayists who got a little tired of being hand-maidens to the publishers and their toadies moving words like pawns to keep the charade alive for one more edition.

Journalism has always been flawed but was sole proprietor of a myth for decades that it alone has a license to control news flow.

Now these high-hats have true competition and are struggling because the myth is fraying. Naturally, they'd attack the competition. Even though they own the medium and the culture, they still can't get it right. News is anybody's business.

[joebftsplk]

This sentence in your article says it all: "Online, we often publish first and edit later." Traditionally, journalists find time to verify and edit, even if it has to be done in the wee hours or on the road. (I speak from personal experience; how many late-nighters I've spent, on trains and planes and automobiles!.) Because the Times is letting down the side due to the economic crunch is no reason to trash classical journalism.

[Archie1955]

Blogs are the only way I receive my news and I have never been disappointed in the veracity of same. I, of course check my internet news sources against other news blogs to see if the information coincides or if there are other takes on the subject. I also pay a lot of attention to the comments as they often catch out a blogger if his sources are not appropriate.

[factsfirstt]

I still read the NYT first everyday and on line at 4am.
I also pay for that privledge(cheaper than the printed verson)
I would also pay much more for the great content.
NYT has the most depth of any printed or line competitor.
But without the blogs how else would I get some balance.

Clear thinking independent voter.

[CaptNemo]

I grew up in LA, reading the LA Times. Up to age 19 (37 years ago) I believed everything I read in the paper as fact. I assumed that journalists had a streak of altruistic honesty. But when I was 19 I had my first experience attending an event and reading about it the next day. To my shock, what was reported didn't even resemble what actually happened. I felt sick as I realized the reporter was just another human writing up his opinion of what happened, spinning it to his personal interpretation. I felt sicker when I realized every news story I'd read was also spun. Since then I've had more such experiences.

One must read all sources with a skeptical eye, get your information from multiple sources. On important issues I check the OC Register and SF Chronicle for the two major spins, Christian Science Monitor and NPR for more neutral interpretations. Between those I get enough to arrive at something resembling the truth.

Blogs are sources like any other and must be read assuming there is a personal spin. The big mistake is to assume that "established media", out of some sense of honor, do not spin their stories. The NYT would have you believe they are fair and unbiased but my experience is that they spin many of their stories very hard in order to please certain demographics. The same for Fox News where the spin is very intense, blatant, full of loaded adjectives, etc.

[DonnyFix]

I, too, have been to many events, then read about them in the papers and wonder if the reporter was at the same event. I have always been skeptical of what they call "journalistic objectivity", and always wondered if true objectivity can be attained when delivering a news account. I prefer journalism that admits to a bias one way or the other; at least I know where they are coming from.

Then I read Fritz, et al "All the President's Spin", and it came clear. Objectivity was attained when there was no questioning of the back story. Anyone who had "official clearance" had what they said taken at face value, no questions asked. So official objectivity happens when what the president and all his people say is presumed to be true at its face. Anyone who has watched politics for a few decades will know that just ain't so.

The other sin the media made was allowing the Bush administration to control the news by printing only official press releases,"because they were so closed mouthed that there was no other news to report", as if that were not itself newsworthy.

Times and other mainstream outlets have blood on their hands for bending too low before the rogues that were the Bush Administration.

Of course, bloggers don't take much at face value. They know that respect has to be earned, and the truth can come from anywhere, not just sanctioned "officials".

[shadwell123]

I think that it is somtimes appropriate to report rumours, as long as it is clear that further verification is needed. After all, rumours are often true!
I think of a story I was told: My brothers and sisters attended Catholic school and many of the children were going home and telling their parents that Sister Y really liked Father X. Of course, the parents hushed their children up and said, "Oh no, it couldn't be. She's a nun, he's a priest." Of course, the children were right and the nun and the priest ended up dropping their vows in favour of each other.
Consider how this story might be initially reported: "Sources say Sister Y likes Father X. Both Sister Y and Father X deny those reports."
How would the follow-up story be reported? "Sister Y and Father X were lying, they are in love!"
It's entirely possible their denial wasn't a lie; that the children were sensing something BEFORE the adults themselves did. But, it doesn't mean the rumour wasn't true -- it just took awhile to become true.
I think most journalists do strive for the "truth," but think of what journalists ask their sources, "What do you think about this? How do you feel about that?"
It's not unusual for people to have multiple opinions or feel conflicted about an issue. Reporting "the facts" and "the truth" can force black and white on to situations that are not.

[ProfessorDuh]

Publishing half-baked info. Great way to defame innocent people, panic the public and open the door to ruthless propaganda.

[Dameocrat]

I'll take them more seriously when I hear a miaculpa for Judith Miller!

[AnnfromCA]

Sorry, but I agree with the NYT on this one.

It's appalling what's passing as news in blogs.