A troubled newspaper industry is beset with a raging journalistic debate around using the Internet to bolster the bottom line for the nation's broadsheets.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. - Faced with declining circulation, many U.S.
newspapers are trying to engage readers by allowing them to respond to
news stories online. But the anonymity of the Internet lets readers
post obscenities and racist hate speech that would never be allowed in
the printed paper.
LaShawn Barber lays out her thoughts in an April 26 post to her eponymous blog, suggesting that newspapers are misguided to attempt to co-opt the blog format. Rather than allowing anonymous comments that can encourage trolls that cheapen honest debate and discussion, Barber suggests another strength of the blogosphere that is easily adaptable to newspapers' online versions.:
If newspapers want to conform to the blogosphere, they should stop
wasting time worrying about comments and learn how to hyperlink to
sources the way blogs do. Who cares about reader feedback? Being able
to go to the source and see what’s going on for ourselves is much more
important.
I'd have to agree with Barber. There are some legitimate concerns with some source materials that reporters would rather not scan and disseminate electronically. But for the vast majority of stories, links to primary source materials would help keep newspapers transparent and honest in their operations. An added benefit for bloggers is it can reduce the time it takes to hunt down those primary sources ourselves, although I suspect we'd still do a fair bit of that all the same.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments field. In particular, if you know of a newspaper that already does this, please let us know.
—Ken Shepherd is Managing Editor of NewsBusters
Editor at Large
Comments Policy
If the MSM linked to their so
April 26, 2007 - 16:24 ET by ThisnThatIf the MSM linked to their sources, they would have to clean up their act, and I can't see that happening at all.
Case in point -- they love to bash people like Rush Limbaugh, and claim that Rush makes up things and tell lies. Yet, Rush bases all of his comments on source material -- that he links to on his web page. The MSM completely ignores that. If they were to link to their sources in the future, then they would lose their credibility instantly.
How do you link to "A hi
April 26, 2007 - 16:56 ET by CaringwhiteguyHow do you link to "A high placed State Department source" or a "Pentagon insider speaking on condition of anonymity"?
Those ones you can't link t
April 26, 2007 - 17:12 ET by Ken ShepherdThose ones you can't link to. But for example, 120-page State Department reports that are already public record or things of that nature. Or documents that newspapers have that are not otherwise publicly available but can be scanned into an electronic format for review.
Think The Smoking Gun.
Being able to go the source a
April 26, 2007 - 18:19 ET by HadEnoughBeing able to go the source and see what's going on for ourselves is much more important.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious. The reason they are losing customers is the fact that what they have to offer is defective, the customers are going elsewhere for a better product.
I agree. Research is one of
April 26, 2007 - 18:38 ET by Terry TrippanyI agree. Research is one of the most time consuming tasks involved in writing opinion and news pieces. One of the most prominent digs that the MSM has put forth about bloggers is that they are not credible. Pajama journalists was the early term. Yet that attitude overlooked a good number of bloggers that went beyond the simple opinion piece. Perhaps they were up at night doing research!
I believe that linking to research actually gives the most credible bloggers their stake in credibility. It is one thing to blather on about an opinion but it is an entirely different thing to back it up with references to well informed research. This is something the best bloggers and research organizations do as a matter of fact approach to presenting their articles.
The mainstream media has a knack for obfuscating such research; most notably in opinion polls that get cherry picked to make a one sided argument. This has put the msm at a disadvantage because many bloggers are waiting to get down to the facts behind the premise presnted to them. If the MSM doesn't back it up then they have already lost.
A lot of MSM types will fight
April 27, 2007 - 08:32 ET by pbanks7A lot of MSM types will fight tooth and nail to keep themselves out of a medium that will easily allow them to be exposed as marxist moonbats. They can't handle the scrutiny. I just love how Neal Boortz tears them apart.
Just the facts, Ma'am.
The newspaper’s imminent de
April 26, 2007 - 18:38 ET by KC MulvilleThe newspaper’s imminent death by blogosphere shows that the technology opens a dimension that newspapers need to accept. Technology transforms news from being a product to a service. You no longer sell newspapers; instead, you consult the public and charge a fee for the service. You don’t sell information. You inform the public for a fee.
Get used to it. That’s what the internet has done to every other industry. Products become services. News is no different. Everything changes.
How’s this for a possibility? I can easily imagine an ongoing conversation among citizens in which journalists act as referees (not judges) and use their news skills and sources to keep the conversation honest and informed. Suppose we all have a collective, ongoing dialogue about global warming, and one participant claims the water temperature in the Antarctic has risen three degrees in the last thirty years. Why can’t a journalist/referee/host research the claim and report what he finds? The journalist keeps the dialogue honest and informed. And if a few bloggers take advantage of it, let the editors kick them out. That way, we can have a civil conversation, where the journalists and editors referee, but don’t dictate the conversation.
As for including links … hey, we all learned to use footnotes. Learn to disbelieve any assertions of facts unless you see documentation. I see nothing wrong with that.
Newspapers and the Blogosphere
April 26, 2007 - 19:49 ET by pocomocoEveryone is missing one itsi-bitsi point. Newspapers will have great difficulties in emulating the blogosphere, because the basic reason for a newspaper's existence is it’s ability to editorialize. Take that away from them, and they become nothing more than a bargain basement green sheet. And just source linking, such as Drudge does, will not do it for them.
It has been their out-of-touch editorializing and commentary performed by their staffs that has gotten them in the situation they are in today, as their readers, advertisers, and investors leave in groves.
And, if they tried their same editorial approach in the blogosphere, they would be laughed right out of their URLs.
(I pre-apologize for the leng
April 26, 2007 - 23:14 ET by KC Mulville(I pre-apologize for the length here.) I think your analysis is correct about where newspapers went wrong, but even if they got back on the right track ... the game has changed in the meantime. The internet has fundamentally changed a lot of industries, and the news is no different. The internet would have killed old-fashioned news operations anyway.
The traditional business model was that consumers had a want or need. Companies would sell a product that the consumer used to satisfy the need. If it was an ongoing need, the company would sell a stream of products to the consumer. In that model, the "product" was simply a vehicle to get the company's solution to the customer. In the new internet model, companies bypass the vehicle and address the need directly. Instead of paying for a product, you pay for a solution.
That's why whole industries no longer dwell on products ... now they're all "consultants." All the brokerage businesses have transitioned away from one-at-a-time transactions into ongoing "consulting" relationships. (I speak from career experience here.) Suppliers no longer deal in individual transactions; instead, they deal in relationships. Not every business falls into this new model, but a heck of a lot of them do.
The news business is still a business. So we ask: what is the consumer need that the business is trying to address? In this case, the need is that consumers want to be informed. How do news businesses address that need? In the old model, businesses sold products (newspapers and magazines). But the internet allows a news operation to bypass the product and to address the need directly --- and constantly. News operations can't ask themselves what products they can sell. Now they have to ask how they can directly address the consumer's need: how do we keep our customers informed?
And the answer to your last s
April 26, 2007 - 23:21 ET by BlondeAnd the answer to your last sentence....how do we keep our customers informed?
As far as the old media....not very well.
Hence the big sucking sound concerning their revenues. Too bad, so sad.
P.S. The length of your post was just fine!
So the MSM is worried about o
April 27, 2007 - 08:45 ET by HypocriteHaterSo the MSM is worried about obscene or racists posts, therefore they're not interested in getting on board the blogosphere. That is such a cop out. There are plenty of blogs that monitor comments and can delete the offensive ones. They just don't want to allow themselves to be commented on for fear that the majority of readers might actually call them on their shoddy reporting.