'Black Wednesday' in Tampa

I like to think I have a pretty sensitive antennae for sexist remarks and behavior (as many here can attest). I found nothing sexist in the reaction to Jessica DaSilva's blog entry or other internet activity.

This Chris Nolan is concerned that this display of sexism may one day keep DaSilva from becoming an OpEd columnist. I spit Cheerios on my screen at that notion.

First, DaSilva and her peers have no business becoming any type of columnist for an established media outlet before they have garnered the life experience from which to draw upon as they write. Second, I'm concerned that this leap in logic -- from intern blogger to OpEd writer -- represents exactly the type of line-blurring that is eroding journalistic principles in favor of giving everyone a voice.

Do newspapers and OpEd pages need diversity? Of course. They should reflect the public they represent. But to infer that one of those diverse voices may have been lost because she got negative blog feedback is absurd.

 

Come on.. she works hard too.

 

Yeah, well, newspapers have been pulling this shit long before blogs and the Internet, and long before I started working for them. They've been pretty freaked about the age thing for about the past 40 years, and every 10 years or so they pick another caricature to reach the youth market. It's the equivalent of throwing a toupee on the newspaper's bald head. So if this dipshit gets an op-ed column, it won't be the apocalypse, it'll just be the same old shit. Had a boss once who was telling me about his time on a major metro in the late 1960s when the twentysomething columnist there filed one that began, "America is a sewer." Which went over real well with the readers. Wanted: Columnist. Maturity not required.

 

Ugh, I remember hearing about the AJC going this route last year (I work at a much smaller competitor in a county just outside Atlanta). When the AJC went to that model, story goes that they made all the reporters re-apply for their jobs. The AJC's cops/courts reporter for the county I work in was telling her counterpart at my paper that the AJC's brass -- in all their infinite wisdom -- came to her and asked if she'd like to shift gears and cover home and garden... which she has never written about before.

BTW, the AJC also raised its purchase price last week. It now costs 75 cents.

 

Elliotte,

I was wondering the same thing, as were others on here, when you just look at what happened on the surface: Reporter is reassigned to FSU beat and asked to move to Tallahassee in order to cover said beat. Two years later he is laid off and told his position was being eliminated purely for geographic reasons, which the employer forced upon him to begin with. Of course, being that Florida is a right-to-work state, I'm not sure how much of a leg Scott has to stand on, but I believe should at least investigate the validity of his termination and I have mentioned to that to him in our conversations.

 

One thing I will say is that most photos on facebook are generally a lot better size and resolution than what you will find on school's official websites.

 

And whoever this guy is, I love his response to Silly Sheila:

VETERAN JOURNALIST
To Sheila:

Woodward and Bernstein didn’t have computers, cell phones, video cameras, facebook, Twitter, You Tube, etc., and they brought down a corrupt administration.

Those things and tools you mention might be useful, but I don’t see very many young reporters using them for much more than getting the lastest dirt on Britney’s latest hot tub hijinks or LiLo’s most recent table-dance at a club.

Maybe some of us don’t know how to use You Tube and Twitter and Facebook, etc. But do you know your way around the public records laws in your state? How about the government in the Sunshine Laws? Whistle-Blower Laws? Any of that stuff?

Do you have enough sources to get a cop to give you some good stuff in a murder case, or a state employee to cue you in on corruption or government waste? Do you know your newspaper’s sourcing policies? What about Shield Laws? Heck, do you even have a working knowledge of the First Amendment (and how long would it take you to find it if someone handed you a pamphlet of the Constitution and Bill of Rights)?

We know journalism is changing and we’re doing our best to adapt. But being tech-saavy doesn’t automatically make you or Jessica good reporters, nor does having a lack of tech saavy marginalize those of us who have years in the business (31 for me, starting with a full-time job at the age of 19).

What we do know about you and Jessica, based on your posts, is that you’re self-assured, self-absorbed (really now … “the lovely and talented?”) and positive you know it all. I may have felt that way at your age but I knew enough to shut up and learn from the experienced people.

PS: Loved your line: “How many journalists know how to blog?” Anyone with a computer, internet connection and cozy spot in their mother’s basement can blog.

Grow up young lady. You and Jessica really need a dose of maturity.

 

Ah, we have arrived at the true problem. Actually, it has been baking for years and I think the oven timer just sounded.

We've known for a long time that kids weren't interested in hard news as they grew up. We figured they would assimilate into the "real world" after they matured, but what we found was quite the opposite. A couple of generations now have been raised on "Entertainment Tonight" and its spawn, and that's what they recognize as news. It's pretty insidious.

Traditional media assumed the obsession with Justin Timberlake, et al, was a fad that would go away in time, or at least stay confined to the pre-teen set. It didn't. So kids like our maligned blogger here have grown up assuming the only "news" that matters is fluff. The rest of it is complicated (read: boring).

While that was going on, there was a continual dumbing down of kids. They've grown up with spell-check and text abbreviations, so they never had to learn to spell. Accuracy isn't important, either, since their entertainment heroes care only that their name (spelled correctly) is in the "news." They couldn't care less if what's being said about them is accurate.

With so many outlets available to cater to that, it's little wonder that the only people watching the nightly network news are those the advertisers of Cialis, bone-density medication, and constipation remedies covet.

Reporting is hard work. It is tedious, exasperating, and increasingly seen as unnecessary by our news leaders because it is no longer profitable. For every sanctimonious pronouncement that watchdog journalism will continue to be valued, six new blogs devoted to the fad of the moment spring up and draw all the traffic.

Watchdog journalism informs the masses, but news products are increasingly marginalized in a culture that values only web hits. It seems to be a lot more important in web world to get 3,000 hits on a story about poodle training (and please click on the video, too) than to devote appropriate resources to a story about government corruption - unless, of course, sex is involved (and you can post photos).

To wrap this up, the Jessicas of this world have long since gone to flicker, twitter, and hither-ditter (I made that last one up) and they aren't coming back. The game is over. They see real news as stodgy, old-fashioned, and hopeless out of step with their vapid little worlds.

They honestly don't understand the fuss because that's how they've been raised, and I'm sure no amount of explaining will help.

 

buh...buh...buh... they're lovely and talented. Doesn't that count?

 

Hondo and playthough,

To Sheila's credit, although it took her three posts to show it, she made an honorable attempt to explain herself better in her third post and revealed a little more common sense and willingness to listen. And as it turns out, she is a member of the old guard, not the 20-something crowd:

Sheila Scarborough

The nugget, the lede, the important issue that is rapidly being buried here is that when I walk out to my driveway in the morning and pick up my nicely rubber-banded and bagged print newspaper, there is no one else out there in bathrobes to join me.

No one.

I am the only house for BLOCKS that gets the daily newspaper.

Where are people getting their news, then? If they’re getting it online, my question is, do journalists have mastery of those multifaceted online publishing and communications tools, so that they can continue a proud profession in a medium other than print, should it come to that?

Here in her blog posts, Jessica seems to be saying that the industry better figure out another way to operate, because the current one doesn’t seem to be long for this world.

Paige, you wrote, “My argument is that we can’t risk losing credibility, accuracy or lower our standards in the process.”

I absolutely agree with you, and never said that I didn’t. What I did say is that bedrock journalism principles and print-based skills in and of themselves are no longer enough to ensure one’s success as a journalist.

You should be able to go where your audience is and converse using the tools and lingua franca of the day, and I don’t have confidence that enough journalists can do that. This isn’t a binary, either/or problem. As Matt Neistein said, it’s “simply another tool,” but it’s also a mindset, and dismissing blogging and other Web 2.0 tools as somehow the province of only pajama-clad nutcases in Mama’s basement is short-sighted and inaccurate.

Many of these online tools/apps might save the profession, because they help to make your audience care about you and connect with you. Right now, many don’t seem to care or connect, so what’s your plan to grapple with the problem?

You can be a rock-solid, Watergate-worthy journo and still be quite tech-savvy, and in my opinion, you should be and must be both to survive.

Veteran Journalist - you are very sweet to hector me with the term “young lady,” since I’m 47. My day is made! I’m afraid your lecture has fallen on deaf ears; it must be my advanced age.

Andy Kent - sure, I have strong opinions about these issues - I would hope that anyone who cares would feel strongly. I’ve worked very hard as a writer to acquire a skill set that is applicable and relevant to the 21st century, because I think it’s that important.

I’ve seen this movie before in a former life, when I worked very hard to understand the implications of network-centric warfare and Cooperative Engagement Capability missile defense when I was a Naval officer in the seagoing Fleet. I could either get with the program, try to look ahead and figure it out, or be consigned to the Buggy Whip Brigade and hope for the return of “glory days” battleships, long-range naval gunnery and other ideas that were much beloved but past their time.

If you aren’t the lead dog, the view never changes.