New Media Doesn't Kill and Aggregation Isn't Personal

The debate over news and new media is too often tribal. And though it may make for lively debate, tribalism impairs judgment. Yesterday, Jeff Bercovici blamed a 21-year-old stringer for the violent deaths of 24 people, including seven United Nations workers in riots in Afghanistan, after AFP published his account of a Koran-burning in Florida by Terry Jones, the unhinged pastor. The context, according to Bercovici: the report went against an informal media consensus to ignore Jones's antics. This has been rebutted elsewhere, so I won't go into detail on it. But there is a basic problem in arguing that journalism -- communicating information about something that happened -- is by definition a provocation, or that people looking to provoke, and people susceptible to provocation, won't find some instrument to express themselves no matter what AFP does. In addition, old media is not a cartel; media outlets cannot collectively agree to "disappear" an event any more than investment banks can all agree buy stocks in order to make the market go up. And if they could, what standards are they supposed to use?

But there's another issue here. This post -- which took shots at Jay Rosen and Jeff Jarvis -- was also reminiscent of Bill Keller's attack on Arianna Huffington and the Huffington Post. As Bercovici's subject was citizen journalism -- or journalism outside the old media cartel and its values and standards -- Keller's subject was aggregation. The problem here is that "aggregation" wasn't Arianna's idea. It is a technological and economic feature of the web as it currently exists. It's very easy to set up a website or an app and pull in content from many sources. This is a useful service. Sometimes this occurs illegally, and/or without permission, and the HuffPost has done some things with NYT content that the NYT doesn't appreciate. But if that's really the problem, a magazine column isn't the place to deal with it.

By personalizing the issue, Keller trivialized it. Aggregation is a force that that legacy media must grapple with. (Indeed, the NYT does some aggregating of its own.) Markets, technology, clicks and eyeballs aren't personal. Attacking individuals instead of acknowledging this reality is unserious. The problem here is oversimplifying and anthropomorphizing complex forces, putting a human face on uncontrollable trends the writer disdains. This a common feature of politics -- which should tell you something. It's a terrible way to do journalism. For journalists, anecdotes can carry great power, but in each of these instances the anecdote collapses under the weight of the subject it's supposed to exemplify.

The broader problem here is viewing new media from a position that is simultaneously both defensive and dismissive. That is not a good frame of mind to bring to bear on a rapidly emerging global economic and social phenomenon. The forces being unleashed by new media and social media are formidable. And for journalists, worthy of respect and a sincere effort to understand them. Even if they piss you off.

 

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Comments

[Patrick Hatcher]

10:02 PM on 04/10/2011

I watched a report on 60 Minutes tonight in which they again, as they are famous for, video taped someone without their knowledge. The same thing former president of NPR was so hypocritically complaining about in a recent interview because her organization was on the receiving end of that scrutiny. Many years ago before the internet I remember seeing an ABC news undercover investigation about some supermarket chain. And I recall wondering at the time what might be uncovered if those hidden cameras and microphones were let loose in the halls and offices of the big media entities. This of course is something they would never do to their own. Although the media was and is one of the most powerful industries in the country it got next to no critical self examination -there certainly were no sing operations on them only on other powerful industries. So thank goodness that the technology is to the point that people like James O’Keef can hold the press accountable as well as bringing out truths such as corruption in organizations like ACORN. These were low hanging fruit that went unpicked by the MSM. Why? Because they fear what they might find in an ACORN office and the don’t like the response that it might engender in the American people were it brought to their knowledge. Just as they know the people would not like the average NPR executive says over lunch after a couple of glasses of Madeira.

[getoffmedz]

05:54 PM on 04/09/2011

Dear John - your points are well made, however. The real problem with the media is relevance or lack thereof.

Day in and day out news topics are slowly but surely moved any from substance and any true meaning.

The "media" has replaced learned knowledge since every little is being taught by schools in our time. Whether by design or need to make shareholders "comfortable" a very real disservice is being made to our country by current trends in media in general.

Trying to watch news programming is similar to having the inside of your brain vacuumed. You actually know less as a result.

[Steve Myers]

05:32 PM on 04/09/2011

Well said, John.

[noquarterasked]

06:57 PM on 04/08/2011

People forget that the established news organizations liberally borrow from each other. And almost all the news is handed to all of them. They are not always terribly clear on where things come from. Having a few big, august newspapers that pay high salaries is convenient for the news makers -- the pols who try to guide the news, but this is not necessarily for the public good. I'm amused in reading material on the web from ordinary people. They don't seem to care who reported what. You'll find credit for "scoops" being given to the wrong people, all the time. One writes X paper reported something and another that Y tv station said it -- when in fact both X and Y are quoting from the same Reuters story, which began life as a news release.

[Desiree Martello]

03:42 PM on 04/11/2011

Most people don't like to read newspapers period.. Let alone do their homework to check facts.

[echegoyen0728]

08:30 PM on 05/17/2011

Well, you are right. Nowadays people do not read newspaper...or people simply don't read that much anymore. I go to the Internet to check on the news and that's it. The media is just sometimes becoming too personal with their approach that they forget that they should not be biased.

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