Tag Archives: Roy Greenslade

How exactly are blogs adding to speculation in newspapers?

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Whilst pondering the email from the Telegraph employee that was published this week by Roy Greenslade (give me another day and I might have a respond to it!), a few questions came up.

I haven’t built on them, but I thought I’d list them here to get them temporarily out of the way whilst the other blog post is percolating in my head.

At any newspaper I’ve ever had experience at, one of the daily chores is to read through all the other newspapers published that day to check for good stories to follow up on. If you are a regional paper this means looking out for stories in your region and if you are on a national it’s looking for good follow-ups broken by the regionals.

If someone finds a good story they’ll put in a few calls and see if they can confirm or develop it for their publication the next day.

Isn’t this the aggregation we talk about – putting the best of what’s out there onto our own site? How does this differ from scouring blogs for stories? Is it because they are not consider “official” publications and, therefore, more likely to contain false leads or misinformation? If so how are the skewed stories that turn up in the national red-tops better than the skewed stories on a blog?

Also if we fear the media is going to turn into simple speculation and opinion, how do we justify the speculation and opinion that already exists in newspapers? Is it at a satisfactory level now, whereas the inclusion of a few extra blogs on a website might tumble it over the edge? How do we justify the stories that come out of the football transfer season, or the swathes of business and stock market speculation that seem to be produced at the weekend when the markets are closed?

Also, if newspapers are using blogs to try and host some of the conversation about their stories on their site, why is that affecting the original content? Is it the time factor it takes to write a blog? Does it really detract that much time from the act of story-writing?

Sorry, lots of questions, not many answers. That seems to be how things are at the moment.

Lucky blogger

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It has been said that I am a lucky little blogger to get the comments that I do.

When I started blogging (a little over two months ago) I was fearful of trolls and comments akin to those on YouTube.

Yes, I have been lucky. No more so than this week with the explosion of fantastic responses about The Post website. Taking the opportunity to both paraphrase and name drop, the thing has taken on a life of it’s own.

Yesterday, the blog was even hijacked by my editor, who was sourcing revenue-generating ideas for the new site.

It was quite an odd moment reviewing and approving his comment and, at the same time, realising just how unusual this whole thing is. I will, of course, encourage him to set up his own blog!

NUJ is wrong

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I’m still ferverish and grumpy so if this turns into a rant you’ll know why!

The Guardian columnist and former Daily Mirror editor Roy Greenslade is leaving the National Union of Journalists because he disagrees with its stance on Web 2.0*.

His reasons for doing so, outlined in his blog, are interesting and I have to say that, on the whole, I agree with him.

Greenslade basically takes the NUJ to task for trying to protect traditional newspaper jobs in a world that is rapidly moving online.

I cannot, in conscience, go on supporting this crucial plank of NUJ policy when it is so obvious that online media outlets will require fewer staff. We are surely moving towards a situation in which relatively small “core” staffs will process material from freelances and/or citizen journalists, bloggers, whatever (and there are many who think this business of “processing” will itself gradually disappear too in an era of what we might call an unmediated media).

But that’s only part of the problem. It is also clear that media outlets will never generate the kind of income enjoyed by printed newspapers: circulation revenue will vanish and advertising revenue will be much smaller than today. There just won’t be the money to afford a large staff.

The NUJ argues that it sees Web 2.0 as an opportunity, but that it does not want large corporate media groups to use this as a cost-saving opportunity to cut jobs, thereby lowering journalistic standards.

But frankly most large corporations in any industry will seize upon an opportunity to save money.

If you’re a chief executive it’s all about the shareholder value: look at Heinz, Peugeot and Lil-lets moving out of the West Midlands. Protests by unions made little difference to their decisions to close factories in the region and cut jobs.

Until journalistic standards start to directly effect revenue (which comes mainly from advertising), then what economic reason is there to retain journalists? Especially if you are finding it increasingly hard to attract advertising.

So yes, I imagine Web 2.0 will  change the face of journalism within large media organisations. I think small teams aggregating and checking the facts of blog posts and forums may well be something we see in the future.

But does that signal the death of a trade?

I don’t think so. I suspect that journalism will diversify and take on new forms, rather than follow the old structures of the past.

The established brands will remain in this cut down form, but advertising is a devious and capricious bedfellow. Some of it will follow its target audience online to specialist news sites run by smaller, leaner, news teams. Some journalism will probably move into the third-sector and operate not-for-profit.

I think there will be an increase in mercenary journalism, where interested parties pay to have a story written and published. I also imagine we will lose some of our best talent to the comfort and security of PR – but this was already happening prior to Web 2.0.

As for other possible models for journalism of the future, I do not have the foresight nor the intelligence to dream them up. This is where I think the NUJ should really be picking up the mantle.

I have had only one exprience of an NUJ debate on new media, at a breakfast meeting during the annual conference in Birmingham. The general theme was regressive and fearful – a lot of old hacks worried about how it may effect their jobs.

I do sympathise to some extent, but only, I think, as far as any person with no prospect of a final salary pension can. Mostly I found it alienating.

For me Web 2.0 is an exciting prospect for journalists to intermingle with readers in a way never seen before. It’s an opportunity to use our collective knowledge to produce more in-depth and searching articles.

All this blabbing on about current journalism being a skill that must be preserved and pickled in aspic is annoying and a waste of time.

I want to be excited by the future of my industry, not fearful and I want my union to help shape it, not bury its head in the sand and hope it never comes.

*thanks bounder