First Draft by Tim Porter

How many talented, energetic, smart people have been driven out of newspapers and journalism because of the attitudes you just mentioned? The brightest people, with vision and imagination, with the desire to explode a newsroom, those folks were driven out a long time ago.

Applause. Tim, this is your greatest post yet, because it's the culmination of so many others. I have some sense of what it took to get here.

Tell me... We know it's an accumulation of details over many years, but did the session with Craig Newmark at ASNE kinda seal it for you?

Gold star. This is profound.

I almost yelled "YES" while reading along.

It's not "them," it's us.

Somehow we've all become captives of our complaints and nothing'll change till we get over that, because as we all know from all these years in newsrooms: if you want something to happen you could wait forever before somebody else does it, or you can just get off your little fanny and get it done yourself.

It's not their job, it's ours.

Jay ... The "Craig Who?" moment at ASNE was not unexpected. Most top editors at newspapers don't spend much time online, a fact reflected by a comment an ASNE official told me before the convention when I asked if there was going to be wi-fi in the meetings rooms. No, she said, most editors don't bring laptops, but there will be an "Internet cafe."

Tim

Well, as always, Rosen beat me to it: This is your best post, the culmination of your work and thought and blogging (so far). Good work.

Yes! And I have a small addition.
What if journalists and their supporters were to raze the current advertising client/newspaper model to the ground?
What if journalists helped their organizations discover what clients really value in an advertising partner and what the media can do (ethically) to find, keep, and grow their client base?
(One of the original missions of marketing was to design the business "from" the customer "back" to the means of production rather than the other way around.)
I'll tell you what would happen. They'd find they are way off the mark in their efforts and clients would happily tell them what to do to increase revenues so they had more money.

Like books one and two of Beelezebub's Tales, you have defined the problem, destroyed the problem, and have prepared the ground for new life to flow.

Raze and rebuild indeed. Feng Shui would help. Having the staff meditate, do yoga or tai chi might help break down the ego, which is one of the main problems of many a newsroom. And even though there has been a massive brain drain from traditional media ever since the Web came and took them away, there are still some good people with good motives, but even still, the system itself suffers egoic syndra.

But even beyond that boundary, there are the societal, political and economic pressures keeping them from dancing with fluid rhythms.

Re-read "Media Monopoly", and you get a clear picture of how and why these pressures kill what might be a lively operation.

May your tour de force be given a thousand tongues! People in places like Greensboro and Green Witch Village know that newspapers can be saved, even if they wind up entirely digital. Even if they wind up freeing the voice of an entire community.

Hope to see ya in Nashville.

-Dave

Tim

I knew your First Draft was in a position to rock a few boats when I first commented on your blog back in 2003, but now that you are part of the mainstream you seem to be rocking a few rivers as well ;-)

Well deserved praise from the best in the industry!

Cheers

Tim:

I spent most of the weekend trying to sort out my response to this post, and I still don't know that I've reached clarity on it. It is clearly rife with uncomfortable truths for me.

I've run into each of the systemic flaws you detail here, and in a perfect world, maybe I would have quit in disgust years ago. I changed jobs instead, but I remain a newspaper guy. It's a love-hate relationship at best.

I can't stand the status quo in newspapers, and I'm not real happy with most of our society's other institutions right now, either. In my perfect world, every institution would have a 10-year timebomb built into its management structure. Blow everything up. Start from scratch. It's a provocative and valuable message.

I think some individual papers are capable of doing what you prescribe, but I fear that as an industry we lack the talent and vision to pull off such changes in a violent way. These days I'm hopeful that the grassroots movement will be able to sneak in through some back doors and change things in a subtle, insurgent way. Maybe our readers can help us find our way again.

But I guess at the bottom of it all I'm scared of what lessons we'll take from your message -- not that the ones you intend aren't good ones, but that the leaders who are listening with half an ear to this discussion will learn the wrong ones. I fear change that is shallow, selfish and short-sighted. Anybody who has worked in newspapers for more than a decade has seen quite a bit of it.

In any revolution, one hopes for an outcome like the one Vaclav Havel wrought in the Czech Republic, but one is at least as likely to wind up with Robespierre... not to mention the inevitable Pinochet-esque backlash. Such thoughts temper my bomb-throwing tendencies.

I know most people tend to think there's no value left in what we do -- so why worry about what gets lost in the destruction? I fully acknowledge that I'm likely a fool for believing there's much left to salvage.

And some days I despair of it entirely. The press in general is in retreat, consumed by infotainment media, by our own confusion, by decertification, by profit, by brain-drain. And perhaps blowing us up will clear the ground for something better. What frightens me today is that a press corps that once covered wars and battles has now become the battleground on which a different kind of war is being fought. I don't know that enough people appreciate the implications of that statement.

So, as someone who has been fighting this fight from the inside, I have just two requests: 1. Before you light the fuse, please do your best to acquire enough explosive to finish the job; and 2. When the counter-revolution starts, please stand with us. I don't want to be defensive, but I'm in no mood to be martyred, either.

Kudos to a great post, but just to provide a slight counterweight to the discussion about how "we all" are responsible for this dismal state (an argument I'm sure the corporate media conglomerate owners would like to encourage)... a thought experiment.

I wonder what it felt like for journalists working at Pravda and other Soviet bloc papers and stations as the Iron Curtain descended. I wonder if they felt a slowly encroaching anger and frustration and negativity. I bet some of them left the field for good, the idealists, the ones committed to telling truths, those who saw the lies through the party line daily.

Could you imagine today's newsroom consultants coming in to Soviet bloc media outlets? What would they say? There's just too much negativity in this newsroom. You have to embrace change. Change is not a bad thing. These are the rules, the new economy, and we have to play by them. Let's have a team retreat and play trust games and climb ropes!

An interesting thought experiment, no?

I am someone who is unhappy with the status quo and is embracing change, desires change. I don't long for some non-existent nostalgic past just because it is a nostalgic past.

Rather, my negativity, my complaints, go beyond the standard consultant conflict-resolution schtick that glosses over the deeper philosophical issues, the betrayal of mission, the schtick that in some ways becomes an apologist for a management that wants us not to see those deeper philosophical and ethical shifts, wants us not to see our own uniquely Western version of Pravda, that elephant of lies, censorship and glib gloss there in the living room.

Miasma

Tim,

A profound piece. It goes to the point that every business, and every profession, must evlove to survive. The MSM has been too reliant on outdated formulas and a lack of competition. These are serious drivers for change in all other endeavors, and equally so in journalism. The boo-hooing needs to be replaced with effort, commitment, and innovation, but first of all with balance. They have gotten away with serving up slanted drivel since the late sixties, and the result is waning viewership, lower circulations, and little respect. Nature abhors a vacuum...cable TV and bloggers are simply filling the vacuum that the MSM singularly created with balance, information, and relevance. Great, great piece. MM

This is not unique to the newspaper business, and the story does lead to a grisly end.

It reminds me so strongly of my first exposure to a consulting clients in declining industries 20 years ago. Wandering the corridors at Firestone Tire looking in office after office where people moaned endlessly about problems and thinking to myself "OMG, all the really good people headed for the exits years ago" (RIP Firestone, bought by the Japanese and others).

Also at Frontier Airlines, where confronting their own data about customer preferences produced just vapid wailing about how, if this was right, they "weren't sure they wanted to be in the airline business anymore" (this from the Strategy VP, and yes, they went down the tubes also).

Having your best people walk away (and, worse, ending up in the hands of downsizing-inclined management consultants) is a bad place to be. So many 'big name' corporations and their staffs thought it could not happen to them, but it did and a whole generation of managers and office workers in 'maturing' or declining industries who had 'lost the plot' were in the end just dumped.

It's a shame for the people involved if this is where many newspaper publishers are headed, but pretending it's not happening isn't going to help.

I work in local television and we have all of the same problems as mentioned in the post. I've sent it to all of our employees and many of my colleagues.

Hi Tim --

For some reason your comment system is failing me for including "questionable content" ;) ... but I wanted to pass this along:

Wonderful post, Tim. So many thoughts that I feel like I need to give some of them some time to coalesce. For now, we are posting this in our newsroom, and I sincerely hope some internal dialogue emerges from it.

I have to admit, it's awfully easy to get sucked into nostalgia for the fat days, when it seemed like we had more of everything to work with. This even happens to me, and I feel like I'm a journalist who's actually looking forward to all the new things happening. So the struggle is, how do we get people who see these changes as troublesome to see your post as the newsroom mirror that it is?

Cheers,
Ryan
http://www.deadparrots.net

Bravo for an excellent post.
And bravo for saying what so many fear to say.

The bitch-and-moan culture of newspaper newsrooms took me by surprise when I entered the business in the late 80s. It did nothing but get worse -- more tiresome and depressing -- over the years till I finally just left the newsroom side of the business a decade later.

I hope your post gets the conversation moving in the right direction...

p.s. Your "questionable content" checker for this comment engine is flagging some of the most absurd words. You might want to look into that.

Bravo. I got my first job as a reporter in 1974; eventually moved to the news desk; started plotting to replace Atex with Macs in 1990; got involved in the startup of a primitive online edition in 1993; and left journalism in 1996 to work at a large software company. Today, I design user interfaces for a living, and wild horses couldn't drag me back to a print newsroom, for all the reasons you describe.

I read two papers a day in print and more online, but my college-age kids don't, and probably never will. Mass media are fragmenting into something else. The creative destruction is only beginning.

At the place I work now...

-- All organizational structures are temporary, and are replaced the moment they outlive their usefulness. All org charts are instantly out of date. Most people don't care what their job title du jour is. The only thing that's permanent is change.

-- The power of a good idea, supported by data, is greater than the power of hierarchy or tradition. If your idea is powerful enough, you can launch a virtual startup within the company.

-- The culture is studiously egaliatarian. Except during growing pains, everyone has a private office. Everyone's office is the same size. Everyone has the same furniture. Almost no doors lock. There are no reserved parking spaces.

-- There is no time clock. There is no dress code. No one cares how you work, as long as you get the job done and do it well. If you're working on a complicated project and need quiet, you can telecommute for the day.

-- Meetings are for making hard decisions. If you're making an easy decision, or just reporting status, use email.

-- Hiring is a science. Every job is analyzed for the technical and interpersonal skills it requires, and candidates undergo a grueling day of interviews designed to test them for each of those skills. Managers are expected to hire people who are better and smarter than they are. No one is indispensable. People are encouraged to move around within the company, so that they learn more about everything it does. There is a career path for individual contributors who aren't interested in managing people. There are no sinecures and no pigeonholes. Poor performers are given opportunities to improve. If they don't, they are gone.

-- Every employee is responsible for contributing to the bottom line -- and for knowing how their work contributes to it, and for not doing work that doesn't contribute to it.

If the newspaper industry had been like this, I wouldn't have left.

What prevents the newspaper industry from being like this, except the dead hand of tradition? People made it. People can change it.

I have some comments on this over at J-Log. Great piece. Keep up the good work.

Wonderful post, now the only thing you face is a footrace to the technological edge. What race? The race already seen in the consolidation of the media source, the web.

Just like the consolidation of the conventional media, so there is a source race today - a race for ownership, a race for control, and a rush to cork the escaping genie from the proverbial bottle. Yes, move in the right direction, but you must move swiftly. Beware the signs of the times, if you do not think the powers that be covet and want to control this venue than the race is already a loss.

I don't have it in front of me, but Jim Kelly once wrote in AJR that in the newsroom, "things have always 'never been worse.'" There's high turnover in the industry, and some of that is due to the fact that for the most part, individualism is gone. A diverse newsroom does not necessarily lead to diversity of content, particularly when over 80% of management is middle class, white and male.

Tim, while you've got some great suggestions here, the problem is that it will take more forward thinking than just about everyone with enough power has the stomach for to implement the right strategies. Of course, everyone thought Al Neuharth had lost his mind when he launched USA Today, and now it's the cookie cutter of choice for content and design across the country. Maybe someone will step up with an absolutely crazy idea that will pan out and change journalism for the better. I am, however, skeptical.

All absolutely true.

Ah, more navel-gazing and self-flagellation _ two things this profession has become so good at. What institutions should we stop writing about? Congress? Schools? The courts? State legislatures perhaps? I've had a bellyful of this stuff. Do you suppose people are going to pick up the newspaper to read about the man down the street? We get complaints EVERY DAY from readers who say our newspaper no longer has enough NEWS. That we have too much feel-good journalism, too much emoting, too much stuff that isn't necessary to their understanding of the world, the state, their communities. Yes, folks, people like that still exist in this good country. Some of the others have just gotten out of the habit. Our challenge is not to stop writing about institutions, not to join the general worship at the altar of celebrity, not to fill up our pages with useless eye-candy and the same kind of consumer crap they can get out of Redbook. Our job is to dig hard and find the stories people won't find on their own that tell them what's going on that's important, interesting, funny, sad and do it in a way that's fresh, relevant and interesting. The Internet, cable, television, radio, etc. are all just DEVICES. They don't change the essential job. Sheesh. We denigrate what we do, then celebrate blogs. Have you READ blogs? They go on and on and on. No pictures. No cute little graphics. No subheads. No EDITING. Yet people are reading them. WHAT DOES THIS TELL US? It's not about format. IT'S ABOUT CONTENT. There. I feel better now.

ohmygod, someone in the media understands:

Pat writes: "Our challenge is not to stop writing about institutions, not to join the general worship at the altar of celebrity, not to fill up our pages with useless eye-candy and the same kind of consumer crap they can get out of Redbook. Our job is to dig hard and find the stories people won't find on their own that tell them what's going on that's important, interesting, funny, sad and do it in a way that's fresh, relevant and interesting. The Internet, cable, television, radio, etc. are all just DEVICES. They don't change the essential job."

Hey, Pat. I like a good, "the message is the message" rant as much as the next fellow; and it never hurts to be reminded that celebrity news, eye candy and consumption guides aren't journalism.

But let me get something clear: in the "they're just DEVICES" approach, is interactvity--you know, the two way, read-write, many-to-many platform of the Net--considered just part of format, and thus it doesn't change the job because the job is content and format is format? Do I have that right?

I almost wept. I felt like I was carrying the same burden, alone. Thank God for Tim Porter and for the others who have arisen. This is a flag that needs to be waved, vigorously: empowerment of the journalist by the journalist. I read it this way: We have to take responsibility - personally, us, not someone else, not the money - for what we want journalism to be.

For inspiration, read excerpts of Craig Newmark's appearance at the University of California on March 22. Newmark is the founder of Craig's List. It's exciting that a tech entrepreneur sees the pain in the news industry, understands that a fundamental purpose of journalism is to "fight scams", and is prepared to put some money and effort into helping with the fight.
http://newshare.typepad.com/mediagiraffe/files/newmark_knight_USC-berkley-03-22-05.pdf

I videoblog for The Detroit News for free. That's me and my little dog Schmoopsie who use my green screen to visit various places. Think of me as an old and wrinkly Lewis Black on my good days. This link http://www.neckpurse.com/detnewsblog/0504detnewsgranholm.html
takes you to my latest -- where I attended the Democratic public hearings at 5 pm on Tuesday and had my stuff ready the next day. A few years ago, it would have taken $50,000, more time and more expertise for anyone to do this. Newspapers like The Detroit News get it -- it's about inclusion and letting people like me in. If we begin to draw enough of an audience, then give us a few bucks. But newspapers can no longer be a closed club. There are too many people out there who want to push the technology envelope to see where the web is going.

Having worked as a journalist for some 20 plus years, I would sy most journalists' passion gradually dimishes with the realisation that the work environs serve those best who play balls with Editors, who also play balls with higher-ups (management or political masyters controlling the press)and the corporate fratenity which brings in the a dollars. I had oversighted reporters who cried because the chief editor spiked their "good" stories because of favours done by the news subjects.

So the news scene has degenerated to such low levels in my country (Msia) that the 4th estate does not enjoy much regard; people are turning to the Internet, including Bloggers' sites, for alternative news.

... jumped over here on a link from Hugh Hewitt.

I find the in newsroom complaints terrifyingly similar to those in the teacher's lunch room.

New ways are neede to approach my profession too. Gov. Arnold, GWB, and Bill Gates think they have them. AT least they're trying which is more than I can say for the Democrats.

For truly profound reform (not revolution) keep an eye on my websites www.TeacherJoeInLA.blogspot.com and www.Joe2LAUSDTeachers.blogspot.com

Pat -- Thank you. Geez, thanks a million times over. I was beginning to think I was the only person who used the term "self-flagellation" to describe the dreary culture in which we find ourselves.

Fact is, we've always had the hairshirt on. People have always thought they could run a newspaper better than the next guy. Journalists have always been a little cranky. When we institutionalize our crankiness, that'll be the end.

Pat -- Thank you. Geez, thanks a million times over. I was beginning to think I was the only person who used the term "self-flagellation" to describe the dreary culture in which we find ourselves.

Fact is, we've always had the hairshirt on. People have always thought they could run a newspaper better than the next guy. Journalists have always been a little cranky. When we institutionalize our crankiness, that'll be the end.

Mike who used to work in journalism
and now works for a sofware company:

Sounds like the company you work for is Microsoft.

I remember after being there for my first week
back in 1987 realizing that they'd win all the
marbles. Because of the very cultural strains
you describe.

Cheers ...

Stan Krute

Tim,

This is a superb analysis. May I say I find paradoxically conforting the fact that what I feel in Italian newsrooms is exactly the same mood you are describing? I am pushing 54, I have worked for 20 years as a reporter and an editor in news agencies and newspapers, and since 1997 I've been editing news sites.

Even 25 years ago you could find the same depressed and depressive mood in our newsrooms, the difference today is that the digital revolution provided a potential way out. But my friends and collegues - many also within the "online" (aaargh!) business - don't seem to get it. Instead they read the situation as evidence that the catastrophe they envisioned did come true.

A classic case of negative self-fulfilling prophecies?

Cheers

A good place to start looking is with the people who used to share worksapce with you many moons ago: the printers and typesetters. I started out as a newspaper typesetter in 1974. The days of professional newspaper typesetters are a faded memory.

New technlogy in the 70s and 80s profoundly affected our lives and the quality of our product. The quality got worse and most of us lost our jobs. Today, everyone is a printer and everyone is a typesetter. The majority of readers don't really care what a printed piece looks like, how it feels, or whether it is pleasing to the mind as well as the eye.

And yet quality printers and typographers still exist. We support each other in our conclaves. There is still an audience for our work and a customer for our products. We are a smaller community, but we exist.

The huge shift in technology that we saw 20 or 30 years ago is now catching up with the writers and columnists. Just as we craftspeople learned to find new outlets for our work, the quality reporter will find new avenues. Who knows what it will be?

A good place to start looking is with the people who used to share worksapce with you many moons ago: the printers and typesetters. I started out as a newspaper typesetter in 1974. The days of professional newspaper typesetters are a faded memory.

New technlogy in the 70s and 80s profoundly affected our lives and the quality of our product. The quality got worse and most of us lost our jobs. Today, everyone is a printer and everyone is a typesetter. The majority of readers don't really care what a printed piece looks like, how it feels, or whether it is pleasing to the mind as well as the eye.

And yet quality printers and typographers still exist. We support each other in our conclaves. There is still an audience for our work and a customer for our products. We are a smaller community, but we exist.

The huge shift in technology that we saw 20 or 30 years ago is now catching up with the writers and columnists. Just as we craftspeople learned to find new outlets for our work, the quality reporter will find new avenues. Who knows what it will be?

All this is extremely interesting to someone from outside your business. You describe things that are hardly unique to the newspaper industry, but rather that have affected many others for many years; it's nothing more than simple competition. The auto industry suffered this in the 70's and 80's based on quality competition, many others based on simple price (Wal-Mart competitors). What's happening to newspapers is a combination of technology and the effect of bias, which I think you are hugely shortchanging in your analysis. The people that I know who have stopped reading newspapers and watching network news are tired, very tired, of that bias and of only hearing about the misdeeds of the "right", as well as the seeming head-in-the-sand attitude of the press as to what the "left" is doing. Example: why all the attention on DeLay and almost nothing on the Hillary Clinton fund raising involving Ted Kennedy's brother-in-law? It's symtomatic of an industry that simply can't or won't look at itself objectively. This is from someone who used to be an avid reader and watcher of the so-called MSM.

You hit the nail on the head in defining the problem fo corporate media, but you still aren't listening to yourself, which is essentially what you point out on those in power positions.

Blog, change, mood, local search, whatever you label the changes taking place, READERS want entertainment in the form of real provocative discussion of link verifiable info, not editor and mgt. approved "stories" on some new medium?

Disclaimers and anon replies such as you offer here are what will bring the eyeballs, and back to see their own posts w/replies. But what do I know, I'm only a reader myself. I'm sure the media department heads know better. (many don't even know what a blog is now 10 yrs. old).

I'm late to the party here, but I'll add one comment. For those of us who do not have on blinders and desperately want to change, it's downright depressing to realize that the problem isn't that newspaper company execs don't understand what's happening. I now realize that the higher-ups in my company do understand the shifting landscape, to a point, anyway. But as you said, they "persist in milking the highest possible margins from their businesses rather than investing in the technology, ideas, partnerships and people who can reinvent their business and editorial models."

This is no small point. When a company's digital media arm is doing well, and the company consciously decides not to invest the profits in helping that division grow and improve - so they can pad the books to impress Wall Street - that borders on corporate fiscal irresponsibility, in my view. And I'm watching that happen from where I sit.

Such a fiercely honest self evaluation. I'm stunned.

All this ink and hand-wringing, and no one addresses the elephant in the room:

L - I - E

What's wrong with journalism can be summed up in a three-letter word.

From fake baybee seal hunts to fake National Guard memos, journalists are liars, which renders them utterly useless, as the singular job of the journalist is to tell the truth.

(phonetic spelling used to bypass language filter)