Tag Archives: Jeff Jarvis

Bloggertariat vs Commentariat – who’s winning? (does it matter?)

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Last night Journalism.co.uk picked up its laptop and notepad, and sat on the fence. Sitting in the audience of the Editorial Intelligence/Edelman/Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism ‘Commentariat vs Bloggertariat, Who is winning?’ event typing away definitely had me branded as a ‘blogger’ by some of the established comment writers in the row in front, who seemed to throw a glance every time liveblogging was mentioned.

Blogger/reporter/observer – it was a night of arbitrary definitions – some of which were fortunately challenged by the panel of:

Martin Bright, New Deal of the Mind founder and Spectator blogger

Mick Fealty, political blogger at Slugger O’Toole and the Telegraph’s Brassneck blog

Iain Dale, Iain Dale’s diary

David Aaronovitch, comment writer for The Times

Anne Spackman, comment editor for The Times

‘versus’
Before attending the event I had some reservations about setting up bloggers/blogs vs comment writers/comment – so it was good to see this artificial opposition challenged by both panel and audience.

“They are part of the same thing – it is part of the same continuum. I think it’s an artificial distinction,” said Bright.

But there are new rules and etiquette that blogging, and the technology which powers it, have introduced, which are shaping the future of comment.

“Bloggers have been able to hold traditional commentariat to account. That gets an instant reaction from the commentariat because they’re not used to be held to accountable in this way,” explained Dale.

“When you do comment quickly you do make mistakes and you have to hold your hands up.”

And if the future of journalism and the business of publishing is online, bloggers are the pathfinders, added Fealty:

“We’ve changed the behaviour of a commentariat. It isn’t bloggers that have ripped the revenue out of the big newsgatherers – it’s Google,” he said.

“Online bloggers have started a party that is irresistible to the commentariat. Spreadability is the new currency. To do that you need a personal audience as a blogger.

“They [the commentariat] are better writers, but there are many more of us than there are of them (…) We’re getting stories from the little people, not the big people that the commentariat are. The people we talk to aren’t always the best behaved witnesses.

“We’re not obliged to fit in with someone else’s brand. Bloggers are brand builders, the new brand online (…) is us speaking directly from the gut.”

Anonymity and NightJack
Last night’s event was timely given the debate over the Times decision to out anonymous policeman blogger NightJack – despite a punchy start from Iain Dale, neither Spackman nor Aaronovitch would be drawn on the issue.

However, Spackman did say she agreed with Jeff Jarvis that social media sites were breaking down anonymity.

Aaronovitch went further saying he could see previously ‘anonymous’ political sources in comment writing being unmasked and suggested that this was a necessary development.

Bright agreed and said he hoped this would happen ‘organically’: “It is changing, but at the moment it isn’t changing fast enough.”

For journalists using social and new media sources, transparency is needed, added Aaronovitch: “There are synergies there (…) I use bloggers as sources of information I wouldn’t otherwise get. There’s a form of democratisation there. It’s unreliable democratisation – I don’t really know what I’m getting or who I’m getting it from.”

Twitter challenge and shaping the future
The commentariat has been with us for 25 years, but how the shape of the ‘bloggertariat’ will shift in the same time is almost unpredictable, he added.

“I absolutely love what the new media has created (…) the possibilities it has created for me and everyone else.

“We couldn’t even imagine two years ago that there’d be a form of 140 characters and we had no idea how it would apply itself to situations like Iran.

“‘Commentariat vs bloggertariat’ suggests a settled contention that we know where everybody is and everybody’s going.”

Indeed the rise of Twitter was agreed to be a somewhat unforeseen challenge to the dominance of blogging over traditional comment.

“I’ve yet to read a great classic blog post. I think it’s getting close with Twitter. Every now and then you do read a fantastic tweet,” said Bright.

But, commenting on yesterday’s launch of the UK Investigations Fund, Bright said he was concerned that developments and the future of neither the bloggertariat or commentariat would accommodate investigative journalism.

UPDATE – you can now download Editorial Intelligence’s podcast of the event.

Charles Arthur: There’s room for both the Davids and the Goliaths

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The Guardian’s technology editor shares his thoughts on the current process vs product; blogger vs MSM discussions, sparked by a critical NYTimes’ piece about technology blogs.

Charles Arthur describes his own epiphany, made when he stepped back to ask himself why he disagreed with Jeff Jarvis’ view. While it offends him ‘in some visceral fashion to think of publishing stuff that I really believe isn’t correct,’ there’s room for different players to make different rules for themselves and live alongside each other, he says.

Full post at this link…

Fallout from Jarvis’ ‘perfection vs beta culture’ post

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Jay Rosen, said that yesterday’s New York Times’ piece on the ‘truth-be-damned approach’ of Tech blogging ‘did not bother’ him.

Not so for fellow NY journalism professor, Jeff Jarvis. His Buzzmachine post on ‘Product v. process journalism: The myth of perfection v. beta culture’ is currently doing the link rounds and has sparked a number of debates. For example:

  • A Twitter row between Jarvis and the editor of the Sunday Business section of New York Times, Tim O’Brien: Blogger here; MSM here.
  • A response from the Guardian’s Tech editor Charles Arthur, in regards to a criticism of UK tech reporting. One commenter, Wessell van Rensberg, remarked underneath Jarvis’ post: “I live in the UK and the Guardian’s weekly tech edition is paltry in terms of its tech coverage. Both in terms of scope and quality.”

Arthur responds:

“Flattered, I’m sure. Haven’t noticed your name in the letters pointing out what you think we should be covering; don’t know if you’ve commented on our many blogs (Tech, Games, PDA) that cover tech. We do have lots of insightful commenters (which I think is what you mean instead of ‘commentators’.)

“Hard to know quite what you want. For instance: TCrunch says Apple is going to buy Twitter. As soon as possible I point out, on the Guardian blog, why that’s absolutely not happening. It turns out it isn’t happening. Which is more useful?

“And I’ll also point out that when TCrunch does get it wrong, such as on Last.fm ‘passing data to the RIAA’ – a story denied by all sides, where it would be illegal for Last to pass the data (UK data protection act forbids) – TC deletes comments pointing that out. Do you really trust it?”

Now, might there be room for a response on that point? Come on, TechCrunch fight your corner!

Journalism.co.uk is quite enjoying its ringside view, but – on a side point – is there a neater way of viewing Twitter debates, than the links suggested by Jay Rosen?

Buzzmachine: Could Google’s Wave be new reporting tool?

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Jeff Jarvis ponders the potential of Wave – Google’s next generation email product announced last week (see video below) – as a tool for journalists:

“In Wave, I see more than a new generation of email cum wikis cum Twitter cum groupware. Because it can feed blog and web pages and Twitter, I see a new way to create content, collaborative and live. I see a new way to make news,” he writes.

“Imagine a team of reporters – together with witnesses on the scene – able to contribute photos and news to the same Wave (formerly known as a story or a page). One can write up what is known; a witness can add facts from the scene and photos; an editor or reader can ask questions. And it is all contained under a single address – a permalink for the story – that is constantly updated from a collaborative team.”

Full post at this link…

Nieman Journalism Lab: Matthew Ingram on the WSJ’s social media policy

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The Wall Street Journal’s rules of conduct were zipping around yesterday, inspiring comments from Jeff Jarvis, and others. Matthew Ingram, over at the Nieman Journalism Lab, agrees with Jarvis that the restrictions are too tight.

“Obviously, a newspaper doesn’t want to give away the store and tell everyone what stories it is working on, or tip its hand in a variety of other ways, and probably doesn’t want to go into detail about how certain stories emerged (especially if it was a fortuitous accident). But Jarvis is right that talking about stories that are under way can also have tremendous benefits,” Ingram writes.

Full post at this link…

Rusbridger on the future of journalism: “I don’t think we would ever go back to having a little pool of elite commentators”

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Guardian editor-in-chief Alan Rusbridger’s (@arusbridger) thoughts shared with the web this week:

  • And a video of Alan Rusbridger at the Institut für Medienpolitik in Berlin on April 22, speaking on the future of journalism and explaining how the Guardian opened up its site to a wider pool of contributors. Some extracts:

“I don’t think we would ever go back to having a little pool of elite commentators, who help appeal to themselves.”

“(…)Bad things are going to happen where newspapers are going to die. There are going to be fewer journalists and the really pricey business of quality journalism is going to require subsidy from somewhere. It’s a broken model.”

On Twitter: “You harness this brilliant pool of knowledge out there. It’s a fantastic marketing tool. It’s a fantastic journalistic tool.”

He says reading Clay Shirky, Adrian Monck, Jeff Jarvis and the Niemen Foundation, via Twitter, is like receiving a personalised wire feed on the world’s press each morning – a service you’d have paid a consultant a lot of money for, in the past.

(NB: We’re glad to note that he’s following @journalismnews too…)


Alan Rusbridger on the Future of Journalism from Carta on Vimeo.

Buzzmachine: Jeff Jarvis on the future of magazines

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Jarvis turns his attention to magazines (in particular the consumer mag industry) in this post, asking if magazines are doomed.

“I’m not saying that magazines are going to start dropping like flies and newspapers. When the economy comes back, many will still be able to sell their targeted, engaged audiences to advertisers for a premium … at least for awhile,” he says.

Full post at this link…

The new news subscription system from Journalism Online: what the web says

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So here’s the story, from a range of open-to-all sources:

[as told by the AFP]: “Three veteran US media executives teamed up and launched a company designed to help ailing US newspapers and other publications make money on the web by charging readers for news.”

[as told by the AP]: “Three media veterans plan to bundle the internet content of newspaper and magazine publishers into a subscription package that will test web surfers’ willingness to pay for material that has been given away for years.”

[as told by Jeff Jarvis]: “…[F]ormer online publisher Steven Brill, former Wall Street Journal online exec Gordon Crovitz, and former cable exec Leo Hindery had teamed up to to create a company to enable news companies to huddle behind a wall and charge for their content.”

[as told by its founders]: “Citing ‘the urgent need’ for a comprehensive, immediate plan to address the downward spiral in the business of publishing original, quality journalism, experienced journalism and media industry executives Steven Brill, Gordon Crovitz, and Leo Hindery today announced the formation of Journalism Online, a company that will quickly facilitate the ability of newspaper, magazine and online publishers to realize revenue from the digital distribution of the original journalism they produce.”

[as told by Gawker]: “Now he’s [Steven Brill] launched Journalism Online Inc, whose goal is to make it easy for technologically-challenged newspaper companies to sell online subscriptions and individual stories.”

A sample of what else is available outside the wall on the launch:

  • The first part of an interview with paidContent – Staci D. Kramer reports: “The biggest surprise so far? Brill says that every publisher they’ve met with has asked about picking up an equity stake.”
  • Mark Potts’ blog post titled ‘Herding Cats’: “I think the whole online subscription idea is harebrained and doomed to failure, and I’ve ranted about that more than enough,” he writes.

Audio additions at Guardian.co.uk – The Business / video features for football podcast

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More audio content is planned for Guardian.co.uk: this week saw the launch of The Business, a weekly finance and economics podcast. Next to follow will be regular video features off the back of the weekly football podcast, the Guardian’s head of audio, Matt Wells, told Journalism.co.uk.

Jeff Jarvis’ monthly Media Talk USA launched last week: “The idea was this: all the major developments in global media, from digital innovations like Google and YouTube, to the crisis in print journalism, started in the US before spreading here. It makes sense to chronicle those developments in the same fashion as we follow the UK media scene with Media Talk,” Matt Wells told Journalism.co.uk.

Media Talk has recently been nominated for best internet programme in the Sony radio awards, he added.

Huff TV: AP meets Arianna on Charlie Rose show

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Watch last night’s Charlie Rose show at this link: Associated Press CEO, Tom Curley, and HuffPo co-founder, Arianna Huffington, discuss ‘how journalism will be distributed in the digital age and what new models might emerge’.

Tom Curley may be ‘pleased to have’ HuffPo as an AP subscriber, but he’s adamant that’s it’s time to get a ‘fair deal’ from the people who don’t have licences.

Huffington talks about Jeff Jarvis’ ‘link economy’ theory and focuses on how you monetise journalism today. “Of course you have to monetise your content, as Tom has been saying: but how do you do it?” she asks. “But are you going to do it by creating walled gardens, which is not going to work?”

“It’s not going to work because consumer habits have changed,” she says.

“Any model which creates walls is not going to work,” says Huffington. If you try ‘to just put your finger in the dike and stop happening what’s happening from happening you’re going to lose precious time,’ she adds.

‘Ride the rapids’ and find new ways to reach the consumer, she advises.