ARE YOU THE FUTURE OF JOURNALISM?

I went to journalism school way back when, when we still used manual typewriters and carbon paper (I swear!). Newsrooms were defined by three things: the sound of the typewriters, the smell of cigarettes and really bad coffee. The journalistic holy trinity. By then, journalism, as a discipline and profession had not really changed much for a very long time. It went kind of like this: Editor would say, “Go to 9th and Elm and cover the fire.” Reporter would grab a tablet and a pencil and rush downtown, talk to people/cops/bystanders/witnesses/victims at the scene, hurry back to his manual typewriter with carbon paper, light up and write up the story. Sometime that night or even the next day the story would appear in the newspaper and the public would gasp and then wait another 24 hours for updates.

Unbelievable, right? Today, if there’s a fire at 9th and Elm, we see it happening live, and not necessarily through the eyes of a professional journalist. Today, your average man/woman on the street might be the conveyer of critical information. It’s called Citizen Journalism, and I may be one of the few professional journalists who truly like it. A lot of my colleagues are very bummed out about Citizen Journalism, tossing about words like “amateur,” “untrained,” and even “dangerous.” I disagree. Technology has made it possible for anybody to communicate anything at any time. What irks the pros in this field is the idea that a guy who never went to journalism school can scoop the professional journalists. Think about it: If you are a Twitterer or a Facebooker and you just happen to be at 9th and Elm when the fire breaks out, you can show and tell the whole world about it way before any editor can dispatch a reporter to the scene. And the reason journalists find this “dangerous” is that they believe you will put too much of a spin on the event, or inject too much perspective, rather than straight, objective reporting.

Newsflash: Every story you have ever read in a newspaper or seen on a broadcast news report has perspective/opinion/spin – call it what you will – already. It is next to impossible for a human being to report anything to anybody without conveying some perspective on the event. So, to the pros, I say, “Chill.” Citizen journalism is a democratic alteration in the social structure of information conveyance that enables all people to contribute to the mix of ideas.

Enter Jason Linkins, a Huffington Post political and media reporter who has been put in charge of a new project called the “Media Monitoring Project.” In a nutshell, the project encourages readers – like you – to monitor television news and information shows that you typically watch, and then report to the Post anything noteworthy. This could include gaffes, highly incendiary content, great in-depth reporting that you would like more people to see, or whatever you think is relevant to spread to the masses. This is citizen journalism at work. And you are invited to participate. I like it. A lot. I want to hear more voices from the crowd out there, and some of you have been itching to get in on the national conversation. Maybe you just didn’t know how.

Right now, this project is innovative. I predict that in short order solicitation of content from viewers/users/listeners/consumers will be the norm, rather than the exception. To date, most of those opportunities have been limited to feedback and comments at the end of a story. Going forward, I have a feeling many of you will be generating ideas for the stories, and ultimately contributing your own stories. It is, in my opinion, the biggest paradigm shift in the journalism business that has ever happened. Naysayers will use the same argument that researchers use when they badmouth Wikipedia, the online “encyclopedia” that allows anybody to contribute anything about anyone or anything. They will say the information may be flawed or inaccurate. Agreed. So, smart consumers will cross reference and check information for accuracy. Consumers will have to do what reporters have been doing since…well, since we used manual typewriters and carbon paper. Oh wait, I forgot…you have already learned that. After all, who among you does not know that news you get from Foxnews.com, for example, will be skewed conservative? Or, that news you get from Huffington Post may lean heavily to the left. You have to get your information from more than once source. That’s a given.

So, the moral to this story? Speak up. And do it to a large audience that is increasingly hungry for information. Why should your perspective on current events carry any less weight than the ladies on “The View,” or Oprah or Diane Sawyer or Bill O’Reiley or Geraldo or Brian Williams? It’s like I have always said – everybody has a story. It may just be time for you to tell yours.

This Week: Two Major Innovations in the Evolution of Online Journalism

Online journalism is advancing at breakneck speed, and this week brought news of two new ventures with huge potential.

The Huffington Post announced its new investigative journalism division, which is particularly good news since the one area of reporting that has been roundly dethroned since media went digital is deep investigation. Find me an online publication that would support a long, slow investigation like Watergate, and I’ll buy you the best fried shrimp po-boy to be had in the entire city of New Orleans. So, hearing that the digital queen of innovative reportage, Arianna Huffington, had clicked her heels together and raised almost $2 million to fund the new venture, is truly exciting. The ten reporters who will staff the new unit have a golden opportunity to take online reporting to the next level. In its claw and scratch climb toward full credibility, online journalism needs to skillfully cross the investigative hurdle and break something big wide open. Not only that, but the Huffington Post pledges to make the work these reporters produce available to any other site at the same time it is published on their site. You can take it to the bank that Greenberg Rants will be posting some of this work on the site at the first opportunity. I can’t wait.

The same day the new investigative unit was unveiled, Fox News debuted its new opinion and commentary site, Fox Nation. All of you committed liberals out there who were breathless just one paragraph ago should stop turning up your noses right now at Fox’s new venture. This is good news, all of it. This is the way to pump up the volume on the public discourse about issues that matter. Let’s hear all voices – liberals, conservatives, libertarians, evangelists, fringe extremists – it shows the media consumers are fully engaged for the first time in a long time. Fox Nation will necessarily lean right. That doesn’t faze me. But there are two elements of the new site that do concern me: First, will the communicators allow their message to get lost inside of their volatile expression? Really, does anyone truly listen to what Glen Beck has to say, as much as they hang on the novelty of his tearful, histrionic delivery? I want Fox Nation to make its point journalistically, not theatrically. Second, the aesthetics of the site are pedestrian and unimaginative. That I do not get. With the stunning graphics available now, it baffles me that they would opt for such a milk toast façade.

Further, it will be incumbent upon the site to truly understand the importance of immediacy. On April 1, one of its front page 10 top “Justice” stories was “Police Detain NFL Player While Mother-in-law Dies.” That was a March 26 story. In online journalism time, that story was a senior citizen by April 1. In fact, by the 1st, the player and his wife had already appeared on GMA and forgiven the offending cop, who had, incidentally, quit on April 1. None of this was mentioned on Fox Nation. To truly garner the ongoing, loyal audience they will need, a greater sense of urgency and a better journalistic follow up will have to develop – fast.

Fasten your media consumer seat belt – you’re in for the ride of your lifetime if you just pay attention to what’s happening online right now. Has there really ever been a more dynamic moment in the history of the fifth estate?

THE WOW FACTOR

From left, Liz Smith, Lesley Stahl, Mary Wells and Joni Evans, four founders of wowowow.com. (Photo by Joe Fornabaio)

Anybody who has known me for more than 10 minutes probably knows I am always impressed by people who do what they do better than anybody else. Since I came of age in the 1970s, many of the humans who have most impressed me are women. Those were the years when the culture was struggling to adapt to a new balance between the sexes. Author Betty Friedan’s The Feminine Mystique dared to suggest women could find fulfillment in ways other than cooking, cleaning and child bearing. The umbrella term “Women’s Liberation” caught on. There were awkward behavioral moments, like mass bra burnings among newly minted feminists. It was quite a moment.

It had to happen so that the best and the brightest among American women could truly stand up. In my lifetime, the parade of fascinating women has been colorful and intriguing. Check out this list: Oprah Winfrey, Barbra Streisand, Barbara Walters, Lily Tomlin, Toni Morrison, Gloria Steinem, Meryl Streep, Mathilde Krim, Diane Sawyer, Maya Angelou, Sandra Day O’Connor, Jane Fonda, Betty Ford, Katherine Graham, Tina Brown --- and those are just some of the women you have heard of. There are countless others who have mightily influenced us 20th century kids.

But it was the moment that feminism met new technology that enabled wowowow.com to exist. This is a free web site for and about women, operated and written by the likes of Lesley Stahl, Peggy Noonan, Joni Evans, Mary Wells, Sheila Nevins, Joan Juliet Buck, Whoopi Goldberg (left), Julia Reed, Joan Ganz Cooney, Judith Martin, Candice Bergen, Lily Tomlin, Jane Wagner, and Marlo Thomas. And get this: just this week the New York Post announced that it will not renew the contract of legendary gossip columnist Liz Smith. Talk about your dumb decisions, right? Guess where Liz is moving her chatty franchise? Wowowow.com. Whoa. Now that’s news. (I love Liz Smith….you know she’s the one who once said, “Gossip is just news running ahead of itself in a red satin dress.")

What I like about wowowow.com is that it is not a place dedicated to convincing you or me how powerful or underrated or influential or trod upon or superior women are to men. That’s so 1975, right? Instead, wowowow.com is just a collection of smart, well-presented contemporary content. Candice Bergen (right) was dispatched to do live blogging from the Oscars. Lesley Stahl dishes on MSNBC commentator Mika Brzezinski’s controversial and “ugly” departure from the network. Brainy New Orleans wordsmith Julia Reed gives readers her take on New York’s fashion week. Wowowow is diverse, compelling and for my money, it seems to truly “get” how to use the web. Interestingly, from a journalistic standpoint, the growing list of web content entrepreneurs seems increasingly populated by women. As I have suggested to my readers before, check out Arianna Huffington’s Huffington Post, and Tina Brown’s The Daily Beast.

Hey, I like it. Go figure. I mean am I the only middle-aged white guy in America who even knows wowowow.com exists? Well, listen, I’m the guy who TIVOs Oprah and The View every single day. I’m some kind of mutant, huh? Just check out wowowow.com. You can thank me later.