Monday, April 03, 2006
The wrong way and the right wayNewspapers have struggled with internet and many seem a little unsure as to what to do with it. Do they just create an online version of their product, or do they attempt to capitalise on the opportunities afforded by the web?
While controversies about plagiarism and quality of reporting have troubled its rival the New York Times, the Washington Post was doing very nicely for itself until it managed to create a real mess with its website.
It all started with Dan Froomkin, whose Whitehouse Briefing column for the paper's website was criticised for being overly critical of the Bush administration. Then the new Post Ombudsman stepped into it by declaring some reporters on the paper thought Froomkin's column was "highly opinionated and liberal" and shouldn't carry the moniker "Whitehouse Briefing" lest anyone think he's actually a Whitehouse reporter.
That was all fair and good until online executive editor Jim Brady decided to hire a right-wing blogger, presumably to balance Froomkin. He chose Ben Domenech, a blogger at Red State, a man not known for careful arguments or reasoned opinions. He had recently drawn fire for labelling Coretta Scott King a "Communist" on the occasion of her funeral, a remark he subsequently apologised for.
Within in days that was the least of his problems, as people discovered he had plagiarised material for several articles he'd written for various publications. Domenech resigned, at first insinuating he'd been forced out by critics:
The hate mail that I have received since the launch of this blog has been overwhelmingly profane and violent. My family has been threatened; my friends have been deluged; my phone has been prank called. The most recent email that showed up while writing this post talked about how the author would like to hack off my head, and wishes my mother had aborted me. But in the course of accusing me of racism, homophobia, bigotry, and even (on one extensive Atrios thread) of having a sexual relationship with my mother, the leftists shifted their accusations to ones of plagiarism.He later appeared far more contrite.
Jim Brady said that they didn't know Domenech was a plagiarist before hiring him. But that wasn't the only problem with the decision. Jay Rosen probably puts it best:
Today I might be defending Jim Brady and company for their decision— if… If Ben Domenech were a writer with some grace, a conservative but an original, a voice, something new on the scene, a different breed of young Republican, with perspective enough on the culture war to realize that while he can’t avoid being in it, he can avoid being of it. I might even be sympathizing with Ben if he had been that kind of hire.In other words, it wasn't necessarily Domenech's politics that were the problem, just that he wasn't a particularly good writer.
The fiasco is illustrative of the current obsession with "bias" or "balance" in the American media. Sizeable chunks of people on both sides of the political divide seem to think the media cleaves towards the other side. But perhaps the terms of the debate are all wrong. The media is a business just like any other. It's market for information. People will buy the product for a number reasons. Accuracy of reporting is just one deciding factor. When it comes to opinion journalism, don't forget that people often like to be told what they want to hear. Others meanwhile want to have their opinions challenged. If you succeed in meeting the demand for one or more, you have a successful operation. The current vogue for "balance" though treats the media not as market, but more as a public service, in which the views of every potential consumer must be catered for. Go down this path and you have an unappealing fudge, which satisfies nobody.
Contrast the Washington Post's experiment with recent developments at the Guardian, which has just launched another section to its online operation: Comment is Free. It builds on the model created by the Huffington Post, albeit with the celebrity element significantly toned down. Its massive contributors list encompasses journalists, politicians, academics and bloggers. I suspect the Guardian paid little or no attention to notions of bias or balance when selecting contributors. It gets on with what its always been doing, putting itself "at the heart of the liveliest liberal-left discourse". If you don't like what they have to say, you can always slug it out in the comments section.
More than most papers, the Guardian gets the web. Its success is seen in its numbers. First look at the paper's circulation in comparison to its main UK rivals for January:
Telegraph: 917,043Now take a look at the most recent figures for page impressions on each paper's website:
Times: 685,081
Financial Times: 441,840
Guardian: 394,913
Guardian: 125,319,150 (Feb 06)In other words, on the web, the Guardian is punching well above its weight. And while most publishers will tell you they find it hard to make money online, the Guardian site made a £1 million profit last year. They've got to be doing something right.
Times: 59,450,999 (Jan 06)
Telegraph: 46,626,144 (Nov 05)
Financial Times: 41,337,365 (Sept 05)
Categories: Media, Web, Blogging
posted by Dick O'Brien at 11:02 PM | link |
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