Blogging, journalism and credibility: The comment thread
There’s a, shall we say, lively discussion going on over at the blog for the Berkman conference on blogs, journalism and credibility. It’s an invitation-only conference and that’s stirred a lot of questions about whether appropriately representative sets of people have been invited. Are there enough bloggers? Are they the right sort of bloggers? Some are saying that not enough big-readership bloggers are there; others say not enough “struggling” bloggers are there. I suspect there is an age skew, with an under-representation of the people under 30 who collectively are doing something remarkable with blogs to which the question of credibility makes as much sense as the question of punctuality. But a conference is allowed to frame the question it’s interested in, and this one is about the interesting intersection of blogging and journalism, not about everything that can and should ever be said out loud about blogging.
If you’re in an only a slightly more sober mood, there’s a discussion of the intersection of blogging and ethics.
By the way, the event will be webcast.
Categories: Uncategorized dw
So bloggers have convened in an invitation-only session to discuss “blogs, journalism, and credibility.” And this is different from the mainstream media….how?
I am a listener, a consumer of information, whether it be from mainstream media or from blogs. I am not a contributor. (In the old days of internet newsgroups, THAT was the definition of a “troll.”) Who is interested in my viewpoint?
Bloggers getting together to discuss the hows and whys of blogging is so similar to newspaper editors getting together to discuss the newspaper business that the difference is indistinguishable to me.
Perhaps a group of blog readers (who do not have blogs themselves) should be on a forum panel so that bloggers can ask them (me, us) what is important to them?
Plus, there weren’t enough biblical theologians invited.
Please, let us not go down the path of pseudoparadox, i.e.
“Many criticisms were made – since they all cannot be valid, then it must be that absolutely none were valid. Because if any criticism were to be valid, obviously all others must be valid. So either all were correct, which is absurd, or none were correct, which is comforting.”
Ok, Seth, let’s not go down that path.
I think the conf organizers did a reasonable job putting together a collection of people to discuss the relationship of blogging and journalism. By “reasonable” I mean that generally, for the people I know of on the list, I can tell you why I think it makes sense for them to be there. It is not the only reasonable collection in terms of the specific people or the constituencies they represent. Sure, it’d be useful to have more bloggers representing the more social end of the curve, and more from the million-reader end of the curve,and more hard-core journalistic bloggers, and more international bloggers, and more journalists who blog, and more journalists who are incredible assholes on the topic. It’d also be useful to balance the attendees by gender, age, race and economics. It’s completely reasonable to worry that the conversation will go awry unless some of those constituencies are included, which in turn depends on one’s own ideas about how journalism and blogging intersect. I personally would be less interested in hearing from Big Readership bloggers, less interested in hearing from bloggers who don’t have any interest in journalism, more interested in hearing international bloggers, and less interested in hearing from lots of asshole journalists (a couple are enough). So, the conference doesn’t represent perfectly all of my interests. Is that a criticism? I don’t think so. I still think that set of attendees is a reasonable one to have a conversation.
It’s just a conversation. It’s not intended to be the last one anyone has on this topic. Nothing will be settled and no decisions will be made.
It’s just a conversation. … Nothing will be settled and no decisions will be made.
I suppose one issue is whether that is regarded as a virtue or a vice :-).
There must be a framework to criticize anything. So if the framework is not the one used by the conference organizers, if that invalidates the criticism BY DEFINITION, there’s not much which can be said. This is simply another form of stating the above pseudoparadox. That is, the conference is configured in one way. All other ways are not that way. Hence since there are an infinite number of other ways which could be chosen by the conference creators, then (leap here), nothing can be said.
If you want to counter the various criticisms on their merits, that’s one thing. But dismissing them simply on the basis that there can always be criticisms, strikes me as more a validation of some of the points than refutation.
The two threads which struck me most strongly were (my paraphrases):
1) Non-“club-members” saying they were worried that the conference was part of an institutional effort at intellectual marginalization of outsiders.
2) In-the-trenches types expressing disdain from a belief that likely nothing useful would result, that the conference was more of a mutual backscratching than producing anything of value to anyone not in the cuddle-pile.
These views can certainly be disputed. They should not (IMHO) be trivialized on the level of not enough left-handed physically-challenged Jewish black lesbians.
Seth, I’m not dismissing the criticism. I’m defending the conference’s selection by saying it is one reasonable set, while also acknowledging other sets might be reasonable. I have been specific about my own preferences. I’ll say again: for this conference, I don’t see the relevance of bloggers who don’t care about journalism. I do see the relevance of blogging journalists and journalistic bloggers. I do not think there is one and only one possible right group and I think a different conference could be put together with different constituencies represented. It might be fascinating, for example, to put blog-hostile journalists together with bloggers aged 13-18 who are not writing about current events.
BTW, I didn’t trivialize the types of groups that might usefully be represented; your paraphrase is wrong and unfair since you picked parameters that are trivial and I did not. Why did you do that?
David, I think the difficulty is that you’re defending “reasonable” in a kind of self-referential way. That is, as reasonable because it achieves the goal that conference-makers want out of it. The criticisms are more along the lines that the effort possibly would be harmful to outsiders, or that it’s deserving of mockery (it’s not clear if these can both be true, there’s obviously some tension between them).
The reason I used such a list of personal characteristics, was because I was trying to make the point that the criticisms aren’t really about “appropriately representative sets of people”, in the sense of a list like “not enough big-readership … not enough “struggling” … under-representation of the people under 30 …” (which approaches the standard “diversity” argument, hence my list).
Think of the criticisms more deeply, as a recursive take on the topic of the conference itself. Why should *this* group in particular be trusted as meaningful by anyone else?
But a conference is allowed to frame the question it’s interested in, and this one is about the interesting intersection of blogging and journalism, not about everything that can and should ever be said out loud about blogging.
This misses some of the point here, at least you’re missing the point I personally was triyng to interject into the discussion on the conference blog.
My point was that the conference isn’t even living up to the question as they’ve framed it. They are pitching themselves as a conference about blogging, journalism, and credibility.
The conference seeks to discuss the issues of blogging, journalism, and credibility but only seems to think that having professional journalists or ex-journalists who blog will give them enough insight into the issue — ignoring the non-professionals who are in fact practicigin journalism-via-blog, the very group whose activities are creating many of the new questions surrounding ethics and credibility.
I, at least, have never argued that this conference should be talking about all blogging. I’ve said that the conference is somewhat conspicuously omitting a subset of the very blogging they say they want to examine.
Ultimately, my point is fairly well defined by the “news article analogy” I posted to the conference blog, and which everyone ignored. Perhaps because it made the point so clear and wasn’t easily refuted.
For those who might not want to dig through nearly 80 comments on the conference participants thread, here’s the analogy to which I was referring:
If this conference were a news article, I think it would be fair game to point out that it’s full of sources and quotes talking about a third party, without including any quotes from that third party.
In that situation, I think we’d be within our rights to question that news article’s credibility. Given that this conference is about blogging, journalism, and (yes) credibility, I’d like to think the organizers might find that troubling.
I’ll say again: for this conference, I don’t see the relevance of bloggers who don’t care about journalism. I do see the relevance of blogging journalists and journalistic bloggers.
I missed this one somehow, which is too bad because it should have gone into one of my earlier responses (and I’m only weighing in again now because I’m killing time until the latest Huygens press conference on NASA TV). I suppose I have a question in response to this: Could you please list the “journalistic bloggers” who are present in the list of participants?
b!X, I read the statement of intent differently than you do, perhaps because I read it after being told by some of the organizers what the conference is about. You think (I believe) it’s about credibility, and that it’s therefore a mistake to only invite journalists and j-concerned bloggers. I think it’s about the intersection of j and blogging, with the question of credibility as a way of focusing the conversation, since it’s the issue that seems to most worry journalists looking at blogging.
And, yes, as I’ve said, it’d be good to have more hard-core journalistic bloggers, e.g., TalkingPoints. But I’d count Ethan, Rebecca, Dan, Chris, Dave, Jeff, Brooks and Ed as representing some swath of bloggers whose work overlaps with that of journalists. (I don’t know everyone on the list, so sorry if I left people out.) Jay is a meta-journalist, so I get he doesn’t count in this regard, although I’m awfully glad he’s attending.
So, b!X, can you tell me why the fact that a small conference’s attendee list may not have the right list of participants to discuss its topic is generating so much passion? Is it the perceived elitism? Yet some of the msgs criticize the conference for not having enough big name journalistic bloggers. I’m just trying to understand since there seems to be a strong subtext here.
I don’t think it’s necessarily elitism, I think it’s just poor thinking. As is your apparent dismissal, “You think (I believe) it’s about credibility.” Well, it is about credibility:
Of course, at the same time, one of the conference organizers themsevles tried to weasel out of the criticisms by suddenly asserting the conference was only about “credibility on the web” — skipping right over the conference’s own “blogging, journalism, and credibility” name and description — an attempted sidestepping which suggests that the organizers are now, if they weren’t before, well aware that they have a gaping hole in their planning and are trying to spin their way out of it.
“But I’d count Ethan, Rebecca, Dan, Chris, Dave, Jeff, Brooks and Ed as representing some swath of bloggers whose work overlaps with that of journalists.”
Perhaps so, but the key for me here is the word representing. Why do academics get to present their views, journalists get to present their views, and technologists get to present their views, but then amateur-journalists-via-weblog only get to be represented rather than being able to speak for themselves?
And I, at least, am very decidedly not referring to “big name journalistc bloggers” when I make these criticisms (although obviously they would have something to contribute as well).
I come back to one of my original points: Many of the biggest and mot interesting questions regarding “blogging, journalism, and credibility” — the title of the conference, in case people are forgetting — are being raised by the activities of the small amateurs and hobbyists who have no official journalism background whatsoever but are nonetheless practicing journalism.
It truly baffles me that people are circling the wagons of apologia here, almost reflexively defending this conference when it’s so clear to so many people that they’ve messed up. It’s funny, in some sense, because these very same apologists are the ones who cry foul when the media runs with a story without including some rather critical piece of context. Yet here they are defending the same practice in conference form.
Let me turn all the questions of me around on everyone else: Why are the views of people who merely comment on amateur-journalism-via-weblog more important to this discussion than the views of people who practice amateur-journalism-via-weblog?
b!X, it’s actually quite possible that there is no One True Interpretation of what the conf is about — diff organizers, changes over time, esp. as the invitee list developed, etc. (I personally believe, based on my reading of my informal initial talk with the organizers, that “credibility” is a hook more than the topic. But I ain’t no stinking mind-reader.)
I put it badly when I used the word “representing.” “Being” would have been a less ambiguous word. The bloggers on the list I cited have all done stuff in their blogs that IMO counts as bloggy journalism. That’s why I didn’t put Jay Rosen on the list; I think of him as being exclusively meta-j.
As for your last question: The people on the panel who comment on bloggy-j are also (by and large) people who practice bloggy-j. They are, IMO, reasonable people to invite to a conf on the intersection of blogs and j…not the only reasonable invitees, of course. You now say that the people left out of the conversation are amateur j-bloggers “who have no official journalism background.” We have some of those, but they also do some metablogging about j and blogs. Should there be some people who, for example, write for the Greensboro site? That would have been cool. But I don’t think the conf is fatally flawed because it doesn’t. And I think Ed Cone‘s going to do a good job representing — yes, representing — those bloggers as well as giving a considered assessment of how it’s going and what it means.
Also, b!X, I think you’re confusing dismissal with disagreement.
The people on the panel who comment on bloggy-j are also (by and large) people who practice bloggy-j.
I think that statement can only, potentially, be made of two, maybe (maybe) three people on that list. Given the overwhelming presence of academics and professional journalists on the list, I continue to see that as a serious imbalance.
You now say that the people left out of the conversation are amateur j-bloggers “who have no official journalism background.” We have some of those….
People keep saying this, but they never identify who they are. I have my hunches who is being referred to, but I wish someone would just state who it is they refer to when they say this.
But I’d count Ethan, Rebecca, Dan, Chris, Dave, Jeff, Brooks and Ed as representing some swath of bloggers whose work overlaps with that of journalists.
I missed this list earlier, but I may as well look at it now, even though it may not necessarily be the same as a list of alleged amateur j-bloggers that no one ever produces. Where possible, I’m using information from their own websites, or from other sources writing about who they are.
Rebecca doesn’t qualify under the amateur j-blogger tag, since she “held positions ranging from ‘production assistant’ to ‘producer’ to ‘correspondent’ to ‘bureau chief and correspondent” for CNN. That’s professional, not amateur.
Dan doesn’t qualify because (has everyone forgotten already?) he was writing for a newspaper until very recently. That’s professional, not amateur.
Chris obviously does, for example, some original interview stuff in addition to commentary. He also “has been a distinctive voice in print, television and radio journalism for more than 30 years”. That’s professional, not amateur.
Dave, I don’t recall seeing any j-blogging out of him, just lots of links and an occassional comment.
Jeff is “former TV critic for TV Guide and People, creator of Entertainment Weekly, Sunday Editor of the NY Daily News, and a columnist on the San Francisco Examiner” — and also head of Advance. That’s professional, not amateur.
Ed is “a senior writer at Ziff Davis Media and write an opinion column for the News & Record” and “worked as a contributing editor at Wired, a staff writer at Forbes, and a freelancer for a wide variety of magazines and papers”. That’s professional, not amateur.
Note: My specification on who these people are is not meant to suggest that I somehow think they shouldn’t be part of this conference. It’s not that I think there are people who shoouldn’t be in the list, it’s that I think there’s clearly a population who is not on the list at all.
b!x, I didn’t intend that to be a list of amateur j-bloggers, but as I said (“bloggers whose work overlaps with that of journalists”), a list of people who intersect j and b. The list of j-bloggers who are not now and never have been professional journalists attending the conf is, as you say, short. Ethan, Zephyr and Dave I think are the clearest cases, although for all I know, they may have j in their background). Trippi I guess counts as a j now that he’s a talking head on CNN. There are people on the list I’m not familiar enough with to know where they fall in the spectrum, and you and I may disagree over what constitutes j-blogging; I don’t have a good definition to offer.
Do they not count? If not, is it because it’s too cozy a crowd? Too much the same olds? Is it because they’re each at least relatively well-known in the blogosphere? Or they’re fine but it’s too small a percentage of the conference? Or something else? (If they do not count as amateur j-bloggers, then this paragraph is obviously moot.)
I don’t believe they do not count. As I said in my previous comment: “My specification on who these people are is not meant to suggest that I somehow think they shouldn’t be part of this conference. It’s not that I think there are people who shoouldn’t be in the list, it’s that I think there’s clearly a population who is not on the list at all.”
And, looking at the conference site today, I notice a selection of email snippets from a conversation amongst some of the participants, and much of it carries a tone of “look at all these people weighing in, see this is why we have the right to be gatekeepers”.
Not speaking to you directly, since you’re engaging in the discussion in a far more useful manner than most other people connected to the conference, but the attitude represented in those emails suggests rather mightily to me that I’m wasting my breath.
But I look, for example, at this growing list of locally-oriented blogs, and I wonder if there aren’t amongst them any number (although it’s obviously not all of them) of true amateurs doing the actual gruntwork of original reporting which raises many critical issues about “blogging, journalism, and credibility” who are simply never brought into the discussion, despite the fact that in many ways it is they who are the real players when it comes the the practice of amateur j-blogging rather than the discussion of amateur j-blogging.
Altneratively, maybe the conference organizers don’t actually care about hearing from practioners unless they have a “background”.
Not so incidentally, the exasperating nature of the nearly impossible task of trying to have an actual conversation with the conference organizers is a prime example of what made me abandon blogging about blogging and go off to just do something interesting instead.
I think that the organizers (not just the Berkman, btw) probably do have a bias toward people who study as well as practice. That’s pretty common in academic circles. So, yes, the conference would have been stronger with both some Joshua-Marshall-types and some “amateur bloggers doing actual gruntwork,” as you say. (Actually, I removed “the” from “the actual gruntwork” since Joshua Marshall, for example, also does actual gruntwork.)
I still think it’s going to be a good conversation. I’m very interested in hearing what full-time professional journalists who have thought a lot about their profession think of blogging. And despite what I’ve read on some sites, the aim is not for the bloggers to be schooled by the journalists about what ethics and credibility mean. Hah! The bloggers with journalism background at the conf generally have left The Profession precisely because they were fed up with its smug assumption that it’s the only voice worth listening to. So, I’ll be very disappointed if the learning doesn’t go both ways. I expect to leave the conference somewhat frustrated and provoked, and understanding better why the media so often don’t “get” blogging.