correction re: cool API usage.

Addendum to my last post, where I had a little love in about twitter and APIs.

I hereby amend my answer: the New York Times opening up it's data for mash ups is infinitely cooler.

(I hate being behind the times.)

journalism and dialogue.

If you haven't heard, the modern news media is having some tough times.  Not too long ago, the refrain from communication studies classrooms was that Journalism was Dead, because of the rise of infotainment, the propagation of stories from government PR, and inherent bias in the presentation of facts, rather than a bias in editorial mandate.

Now the issue is the massive decline in advertising dollars and print readership, while no one has figured out how to make enough money to support a real newsgathering operation via the online audience.

At some point in the not-too-distant future, every story, every narrative will become collaborative, whether or not it is authorized to be.  I have a feeling the influential media outlets, and the journalists, that exit that transition in the best shape, will be the ones who can strike a balance between publishing from a position of authority and collaborating as part of a community.

I regularly debate the validity of things like transparent sourcing, and the position of authority most journalists operate from, with a good friend of mine who happens to be a journalist.  This is one of the few things we don't seem to have much common ground on, and it's confusing.  I respect journalism and journalists, not just professionally, but because I believe the type of society I want to live in requires an informed populace, and the kind of check-and-balance that investigative reporting represents.

At the same time, I think journalism is like cryptography: while some people would argue that key elements should be left in the hands of professionals, nothing is truly tested unless every interested eye can take a look, and see if they can spot the holes in it.  By this I don't mean that articles should be a wiki - but I do think it's reasonable to think that links to source documents, or other takes on the issue, will eventually become standard in the same way that comments are quickly becoming standard.

I'm not going to entertain the idea that proper reporting doesn't have a role in the future of newsmedia, because frankly, opinion pieces are only a small part of what proper news entails.  But I will say that I think the days of leading the conversation without becoming part of it as it moves on, are coming to a close.  I don't think the column or article is going to be the defining element of a story.  I think it's going to be the story.

I imagine following a journalist in more or less real time, getting the elements of a story in blog posts, in tweets, in images, all of which later come together in a more definitive story - crafted by the professional, but informed by the comments, queries and input of those who've been watching as things have developed.

I'm not claiming that I know anything special about journalism, but I am making a statement that I think it's not just the responsibility of journalists to figure out how to save the newsmedia.  I think that actual change and evolution requires looking at what elements are essential to quality journalism, and what elements exist because of the limitations and boundaries of the old media, the old production cycle, and the old technology.

information distribution: pr as arg.

Getting back to the concept that started 2009 for the blog, I've been looking at NOTCOT's recent posts related to the promotion for Coraline.

I'm convinced the future of the press kit is creating an experience that appeals to both press and the general community, and then allowing both groups to create a dialogue that further explores the related product or event.

Some people (usually not working in PR) would like to pretend that the mainstream media will stop being essential at some point in the future.  I think the value of our industry, moving forward, is creating opportunities for the community to interact with and influence the mainstream media.  For the public to relate to the story, the public has to relate to the people telling it.  Why not put them on the same team?

Looking at these Coraline 'boxes' I imagine sending something similar out, in a slightly different way.  Imagine sending 50 boxes, out of order, to media outlets - and then another 100 or 200 out to individuals who has expressed an interest in the film, whether through subscribing for updates to the website, or participating in a contest for free tickets.

The media outlets with a broad reach would act as a teaser.  They could create interest in the campaign as a whole, and a starting point for those involved.  The packages would clearly need to contain actual information about the product, and further interviews, information, etc, would need to be made available to satisfy the requirements most journalists have, information-wise.  As well, the assumption has to be made that journalists would (and should) break the fourth wall.  That said, the presentation of information informs how it is discussed (the medium is the message, etc).

The story (from a journalistic standpoint) is part of the story (from a narrative standpoint).

Individuals seeded with the similar press packages would interact with news stories on a standard level, but hopefully also as a presentation of information that would help them navigate the wider narrative of the campaign.  Similar things are happening now, mostly using websites and blogs as a means of reaching media while maintaining a narrative.

I guess the dream is a fully integrated promotional strategy that is part of, and an expansion on, the core narrative.  Trailers, commercials, print advertisements, release schedules, public appearances - all of these could be used to further the narrative, as well as to create audience interest.  Media relations strategy could easily be a part of the overall narrative, rather than just the promotional one, and therefore part of the community generated narrative.

Of course, this is all vague, and reads (and is written) more like a plea to consider things differently than a directive.  I'm okay with that, and I hope you are too.

pr, journalism, blogs, and going off on a tangent.

Email made it too easy.

As soon as you could build a list of contacts, reach each one of them seemingly individually, and fire everything at them instantaneously, building a tight, targeted, well maintained list fell off most PR firms radar - and, depressingly, with good reason.  If you can send out a loosely targeted blast, and then follow up with a series of tightly, carefully targeted pitches, it's possible to get more results for a minimally greater amount of work.

But it involves a lot of risk, because PR is a reputation and relationship business.  Now, though irritated, traditional media journalists have learned to tolerate this.  While reporting may be a vocation, a calling, and an integral part of identity, in the end it's a job, done to secure the means of live a comfortable life.

Blogs are different.  The majority of them don't result in rich writers, and the ones that are centered on a personality/brand rather than a brand, and then hired personalities, are as much identity as work.  If you email a blogger, there's a good chance it's at the address his friends email him at.  If you ignore his published history, you aren't ignoring the last 6 weeks of his work, you're ignoring the last 6 weeks of his ideas, conclusions, and concepts.  Blogs are more personal.  At least, based on my experience blogging and my interactions with journalists.

The long and short is, blogging is comparatively new, influential, and generally not willing to conform to the rules of the game as it is played.  There is both more (in a personal sense) and less (in a financial sense) on the line.  What amuses me is, the journalists who will get high and mighty about the importance of their industry in a proper democracy are usually half as uptight about freedoms and independence as bloggers who cover the same information.  And, those same journalists are twice as uptight about standards, sourcing, and credibility of the reportage.

I realize I wrote bitterly yesterday about the quarterly crucifixion of PR at the hands of the social media punditerati, and I don't really think I was wrong.

But if I'm going to expect new media publishers and creators to accept that there is a lot of good in my industry despite failings, I'm also going to have to ask PR to recognize that expecting anyone they interact with to behave the same, despite the differences in mandate, delivery, drives and accountability, is insane.

The right message, in the right way, to the right person.  Sounds so damn easy, but it's also more or less the only question in communication theory, asked a thousand different ways.

the newspaper i want to read.

I was talking with a friend who is just finishing her education in journalism, and about to enter the workforce. In the midst of one of those conversations that are universal among my generation, the 'I don't know where my industry / career / aspirations will fit in the everchanging landscape'. I told her, and still think, that there will always be a market for trained investigative journalists, mostly because they can do a story justice in a way most bloggers often can't.

I do, however, think that the newspaper is more or less dead in the water, and the magazine (in terms of news, not niche interests) is in a similar, though less drastic, situation.

The newspaper I would operate, on a base level, like a blog network. Individual blogs, run by trained journalists, covering one specific beat. Stories could be reported in full, or as they develop, but each beat would have a distinct voice, and the overarching narrative that can be established by having the same person covering the same issues over time.

Mix this with a solid amount of professional oversight, and it could be curated into a standard daily paper, and more than that, into tailored subscription papers, online or in print, that would only include selected beats, or writers, or even tags. Obviously, this would be available online as it happened, because speed is the other major advantage that blogging has over traditional outlets.

Depressingly, the idea of a voice, or author narrative coming through for current newspapers is more likely to mean a columnist that completely ignores the concept of critical distance from the story (paging Rosie DiManno) than it is to give each beat a character.

This isn't a well defined concept. But I think the current approach taken by newspapers to maintain an online presence that mixes the failings of blogs, with incompleteness when compared to the print edition, is doomed.

If someone would print me a one section version of the Globe and Mail, written by only people I respect, and containing only stuff I care about, I'd be willing to subscribe just for convenience. This is, of course, related to my obsession with print on demand.