Point: counterpoint – the pro's and con's of mass media, bloggers and 'citizen journalism'
There are two fascinating and and sharply contrasting posts today that illustrate both the pro’s and con’s of mass media, bloggers and so-called ‘citizen journalism’.
First, from ‘The Secret Diary of Steve Jobs‘ entitled ‘Why the mainstream media is dying’:
Every once in a while you get to see a mainstream outlet cover a story right alongside a blog, so you can put them up against each other and see why one was so much better than the other. This week TechCrunch and the New York Times (photo) provided just such a lesson.
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On Oct. 31 TechCrunch broke a big story called “Scamville: The Social Gaming Ecosystem of Hell” about how Zynga was making money by selling scam ads.
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After all this, we woke up Saturday to find a story in the New York Times, also about Zynga (and other Facebook game companies) with the headline, “Virtual Goods Start Bringing Real Paydays.” The Times put two reporters on the knob-polisher, and somehow they managed to interview Pincus, and to quote him — and yet theyincluded not a single word about the scammy ads.
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Meanwhile, Arrington, still digging, blasted again on Saturday night, reporting that sleazy ads had popped up again on Zynga, despite promises that they would be taken down.
Um, New York Times? If you guys are still wondering why people are dropping their subscriptions and getting their news from blogs instead of you — this is why.
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And to all those people who go around wringing their hands and saying what are we going to do when the “real newspapers” all die and we have to get our news from Gawker and HuffPo and TechCrunch? Friends, I think we’re going to be just fine.
The videos that illustrate this are fascinating; it’s hard to imagine how print would ever do this justice (note: the first one begins with audio only).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2PhKRCkbX9A&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
The second video shows Mark Pincus of Zynga fessing up to these tactics, illustrating ‘mutually assured embarrassment‘ (a phrase Paul Saffo was using at least a couple of years ago, and which I came across in a recent Pew Internet Project on the Future of the Internet, not to be confused with Jonathan Zittrain’s skeptical and dystopian vision).
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S7YaVVpK1G4&color1=0xb1b1b1&color2=0xcfcfcf&hl=en&feature=player_embedded&fs=1]
Second, on TechCrunch, Paul Carr lambasted one of the ‘citizen journalists’ for their prurient reporting on the Fort Hood tragedy:
I’d probably feel slightly smug, if I didn’t feel so sick.
Smug that after two weeks of me suggesting that social media might not be an unequivocally Good Thing in terms of privacy and human decency, the news has delivered the perfect example to support my view.
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And yet, the first news and analysis out of the base didn’t come from the experts. Nor did it come from the 24-hour news media, or even from dedicated military blogs – but rather from the Twitter account of one Tearah Moore
, a soldier from Linden, Michigan who is based at Fort Hood, having recently returned from Iraq.
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That last twitpic link was particularly amazing: it showed a cameraphone image – of a wounded soldier arriving at the hospital on a gurney – taken by Moore from inside the hospital. Unsurprisingly, Moore’s coverage was quickly picked up by bloggers and mainstream media outlets
There was just one problem: Moore’s information was bullshit too.
While I laud Paul Carr’s ethical concerns in this particular case, I think that Fake Steve’s point about the power of new media explains one of the reasons why mass media’s business model is doomed. Restraint is not enough in the face of failing to do your core job as well as competing alternatives. And the core job is reporting (at least as much as it’s advertising).
