More focus, less handwringing

Spent the workday Thursday at a Poynter / Kent State media ethics workshop: Whose rules?

Jay Rosen was the keynote speaker (read his keynote here), and he was spot-on.

It was great to hear Rita Andolsen and Denise Polverine speak on a panel.

The opening and closing sessions were maddening, however.

• Professors and the editor of papers like the Plain Dealer spent the morning saying that papers need to experiment — but that these experiments had to “follow the rules” (fail)
• An academic derided the rise of TV live coverage. (What year is it?)
• All scoffed at the use of twitter to cover a funeral.
• And many current journalists — most with newspapers — argued that comments on their sites detracted from “meaningful, directed discussion.”

Twitter and funerals.

If you haven’t seen this yet, the Rocky Mountain News used twitter to live blog a funeral.

Everyone empanelled at the Media Ethics workshop thought this was beyond the pale and completely in bad taste.

It is.

But this was an ethics conference, and the reason this twittering experiment was unacceptable wasn’t really touched on.

How is a live text update from a funeral worse than a live video feed from a funeral?

While wkyc hasn’t twittered at a funeral, our experience at wkyc.com suggests that Twitter users might not be upset with us because we twittered at a funeral; they might be upset because we flooded their twitter stream with updates.

Our live twittering experiments — including twittering at an Obama rally and at the meeting to decide who should attempt to replace Stephanie Tubbs Jones — got negative feedback from three users because we were seemingly abusing twitter. Instead of telling Twitter users where we were at, or merely pointing to live coverage on our site, we deluged anyone who followed us with observations.

Some Twitter followers liked our experiments, however.

If funerals for newsworthy people can currently feature still photographers, live cameras and print reporters, saying that using Twitter to cover a newsworthy funeral is in bad taste seems a bit much.

Which is more intrusive: A satellite truck or a person typing into a cell phone?

Fix the audience, don’t fight the internet.

Participants in the conference most upset by online realities cited the necessity of newspapers (it was all about newspapers at this workshop) to keep democracy alive.

Panelists chuckled as they tried to imagine what bloggers would write about if there weren’t newspapers to harp on.

What I found lacking from any of these “we are defenders of democracy” comments was the truth about our business.

As Terry Heaton has laid out, A media company’s job is to assemble an audience and sell advertising to present to that audience.

If those at the conference who believe journalism exists to keep democracy alive really believed that, they would follow the lead of Snopes, Sharesleuth or Greg Palast and use the power of the internet revolution to expose corruption.

What I really think I heard internet naysayers express today was the desire to go back to the way it was.

One editor said he wants to be focused on getting more ads back into the print product. The print product is dying. Move on.

One newspaper employee could not imagine that conversations online that were not directed by the editors could be “meaningful.” Please read “Here Comes Everybody”

Unfortunately for many local media companies, bloggers would be just fine without your product. Why aren’t more media companies using blogger communities to improve upon their craft?

All involved, myself included, need to eat a big bowl of “get over yourself” and focus at the task at hand: Creating an audience — in any medium — so that advertising can support what you do.

This particular conference did not focus enough on the What to do or the How to do it, rather it stayed firmly in the Why(ine).