I got involved in a discussion at buzzmachine.com. Seems there is a tiff going on between the folks at Baristanet (a nationally known hyper-local news blog out of Montclair, NJ) and those in The Star Ledger newsroom. The fight is being played out, in part, via the new video venture underway at the SL.
Jeff Jarvis apparently asked Debbi Galant, one of the principles as Baristanet, to do a video for the SL.
“I thought the journalists there would benefit from hearing from someone who found life after print and so I suggested to the Ledger’s digiczar, John Hassell, that they get hyperlocal postergirl Debbie Galant to make a video for an upcoming episode of LedgerLive. It didn’t turn out exactly as I’d predicted but it did turn out the start of an entertaining discussion that captures the life-and-death questions journalists across the country are facing now,” Jarvis wrote.
Galant delivered a rather biting piece in which she took credit from some of the woes at the newspaper. Seems the paper needs major concessions from its union and a 20-25 percent staff reduction just to stay open. The paper’s response — also in video and viewable at the Jarvis site, Baristanet, and at NJ.Com (the newspaper’s web partner) — attempts to laugh off “journalists” like Galant. Unfortunately, it mostly serves to demonstrate just how clueless newspaper people are about this whole interweb thing. As a bonus, it may also serve to alienate the very audience the Star Ledger needs in order to survive.
Here is what I posted there:
What do the professionals at the SL say: pooh-pooh on you, Debbie Galant. You don’t know what it means to be a “real” journalist. Being a real journalist means calling important people on the phone. Being a real journalist means going to meetings. Being a real journalist means “getting out on the street.”
Here is another: being a real journalist probably means looking for a another job.
Are the real journalists at the SL totally clueless or do they only appear that way? Debbie Galant has a successful site that turns a profit and obviously serves it’s audience. The SL has a confused and confusing internet presence that probably does more for Debbie Galant than it does for itself and its readers. Debbie Galant is talking about expanding her operation. The SL is close to shuttering theirs. If there is to be a snark shoot-out, then the SL is standing in the middle of the street with an empty gun.
The real pity is that the SL should probably be trying to figure out how to clone what Galant is doing. At the very least, SL employees should be studying her operation so they know how to start their own versions in their own towns come Oct. 2008. Maybe it isn’t journalism, but it might be a job. Perhaps Baristanet isn’t all that journalists should aspire to, but if it serves an audience, a community, and turns a profit, then its worthy of praise. Based on the public statements from the SL publisher, the newspaper can’t claim to be doing both of those things anymore.
The new newsroom may turn out to be a back porch or a back bedroom. But that is due as much to the failures of those in the old newsrooms as it is to the successes of those working in the new ones. To blame those who are succeeding only compounds the failure.
I, too, am concerned about how investigative reporting will get done from these new newsrooms. I am afraid that much of what is good and necessary from old-style journalism will largely disappear during the next few years. It’s hard to do a lot of this stuff without the clout, organization and support of a newspaper. Still, I’ve worked for newspapers that couldn’t really do it with those things, anyway.
The us vs them stuff doesn’t just make me tired anymore, it pisses me off. We in the newspaper world have no more time for this stupid argument. Besides, if we have to, we should be blaming our bosses for their failure to innovate rather than those rivals who figured out the future.
Tags: Exploding_TV, ledger, live, networkedjournalism, newbiznews, newsinnovation, newspapers, ledger live, star ledger, baristanet, buzzmachine
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