How ‘vs.’ thinking drags everyone down
Steve Safran August 9th, 2007
Television vs. newspapers. Blogs vs. news. The web vs. print. VJs vs. photogs. You can find tons of “vs.” at every journalism conference, in every media boardroom, and indeed on every media blog. The “vs.” supposes that there are two choices, and it is the notion that we need a “vs.” that is one of the biggest reasons why traditional media and new media aren’t performing nearly as well as they could.
“Vs.” thinking is what’s often worst about TV news. We’re constantly subjected to the obligatory “the right says this, the left says this” kinds of reports that are then allegedly balanced. News and media are stuck in “vs.” thinking in our own industry.
For years, there was this snobbery that newspaper journalists looked down on TV journalists for being too shallow. TV journalists didn’t care - they got the news on faster than a newspaper could. It was “speed vs. depth.”
Now, with the web, that “vs.” goes away. And newspapers are producing their own video reports. The truth is, most of those reports aren’t of the same caliber as those you’d find on TV. At least - that’s what the TV people will say, because that’s the New Snobbery: nobody can do TV like we can. That’s fine - except the web is not TV. And some newspapers now have dozens of cameras on the streets. Their time to publication is no longer an issue. Can they go live? No. Not yet, anyway. But they now present a formidable offering: in-depth written stories, video from the scene, pictures, multimedia presentations and social features like comments and voting are all available at some newspaper sites.
(It’s at this point that we need to stop calling that a “newspaper” site at all. Newspaper vs. TV sites is another “vs.” that has to go. They’re all websites to the user.)
So many digital trees have died on the topic of videojournalists. And 99% of the debate is this: “That’s not professional video work!” “Yes it is!” Truly - this defines the debate for so many people who look at VJs. Instead, take away the professionals vs. the VJs and look at the real question at the center of this change: how to we find the people most qualified to tell a story quickly and accurately, and how do we arm them with the right tools to do so? Instead of a “vs.” you find an “and,” as in “sometimes it’s with a single camera, sometimes it’s with a crew, sometimes we need a chopper, and sometimes the video someone sent in from their cellphone gets it done.”
The more tools we keep giving journalism, the more journalists keep arguing over the tools. What they don’t see is the toolbox.
I am always amazed by how any journalism discussion can be ended with the following pronouncement: “That’s not news.” Not “I think we should devote our resources to something else” or “Our audience has been favoring a different story.” The people who say “That’s not news” are the editorial “vs.” thinkers who stop websites from gathering the great voices from the blogs in their communities. They refuse to let their own reporters blog. They hear the very word “blog” for that matter and think “That’s not news.” They believe it is “journalism vs. the mob.” And in no other business that I know of could you get away with holding your customers in such contempt.
OK, maybe the airlines.
News isn’t about our internecine squabbles over how to present it. We’re killing each other over methods. We’re backstabbing over choices of presentation style. We blame the audience for too much dislike of the media — but then we show them we can’t stand each other, too.
Lest the “vs.” bloggers think they’re off the hook in this artificial battle, they are not. The extremist mindset of “we will overthrow the shackles of the mainstream media and rise up to cover the world!” is proving to be absurdist nonsense as well. No, it turns out that those who try to run their own citizen journalism (another horrible phrase) sites run into the same trouble that every other site runs into: it’s damn hard to make money.
If you think that having the best TV or newspaper website in your market means you win, you will lose. If you want the best citizen journalism site in town, you will lose. Got the best blogs? Losers. It’s only when we join together that we win. When we build great regional portals that share revenue and give our audience choices — not just on how to consume but on how to create and distribute — we win.
6 Comments Add your own
1. anon | August 9th, 2007 at 5:57 am
And, yet, when we give the readers/viewers what they want–what gets the highest ratings and most hits–it’s inevitably Paris Hilton-type stories, which then become fodder for the “that isn’t real news/where’s the news of substance” bloggers and message-board posters.
(Of course, these are the people who, for years, told pollsters that their favorite TV shows were found on PBS, which should have made it the highest-rating network in the US.)
2. John | August 9th, 2007 at 5:57 am
Any good storyteller will tell you there needs to be a conflict in order for a story to be good, ESPN’s recent “Who’s Now?” notwithstanding.
But this is a conversation I’ve had with friends and colleagues before. Is it our cut-throat competitive culture that drove the habit of A vs. B, and the media merely followed suit in its coverage agenda? Or is the win-at-all-costs mentality an unfortunate byproduct of media overkill?
Irregardless, er, regardless, a healthy competition is indeed necessary in any marketplace, but there can be and usually is a point at which the consumer finds the slights by TV station A against stations B and C in their POP promos to be quite childish and tiresome.
I’ll never forget some of the stories my dad would tell me about the great high school football team he played on. He said his coach always made sure the guys took the field for warmups first, so they could applaud the other team as it took the field a short time later. You can be a gentleman and STILL win city championships. My dad did.
Working together with other media outlets, not just local partners, but maybe direct competitors, is something I hope becomes a regular staple. It won’t remove the competitive factor, it will certainly inspire better work and if you think it will have an adverse effect on your bottom line, then you must not be confident in your product/personnel/resources/news judgment, etc., in the first place.
And btw, print people didn’t look down on TV journalists ONLY for being shallow. Old-school newspaper folks were/are by and large simply better at the language. Want proof? Listen to the words coming out of your favorite anchor’s mouth tonight. More than likely a hearty portion of it will be bad English. But at least she’ll look pretty.
3. Jeremiah | August 9th, 2007 at 8:34 am
John speaketh: “Any good storyteller will tell you there needs to be a conflict in order for a story to be good…”
John, THIS IS THE PROBLEM. News folks are not “storytellers”, and the fact they continue to insist this is their role only reinforces my conviction that “newspeople” (yes, in quotes now) are almost homogeneously untrustworthy.
A thing happens. You tell us about it. You’re not Mark Twain - get the facts straight, and keep narrative OUT OF IT.
re: the “vs.” tendencies: a “versus” story almost always creates a false dilemma (aka “false dichotomy”) by first creating factions, and secondly creating a relationship between them that may not exist. I see this all the time with reporting on Universal Health Care (an unquestionably good thing) that’s inevitably boiled down to Repubs vs. Dems. This false dichotomy….no, LIE…. is foisted upon unsuspecting consumers as “news” or “analysis” when in fact it’s neither: it’s fiction.
So please, for the love of god, stop.
4. Anonymous | August 9th, 2007 at 8:37 am
vs. vs. no vs. …
5. David Johnson | August 10th, 2007 at 7:34 am
can’t we all just get along?
seriously, great points, saf (as usual). we were just talking about this earlier this week. the traditional mindset in print and broadcast is competition, anyone who circulates our broadcasts in our territory is a competitor.
the successful online model, proven time and time over, is one of partnering, collaboration and cooperation. that is at the heart of social networking and web 2.0, and why it is taking off so fast and so well.
traditional media has tried to force the Internet into a broadcast one-to-many model since they entered the game more than a decade ago. only now are people waking up to the original vision of the WWW as a giant communciations PLATFORM where information is shared by all.
6. peter | August 10th, 2007 at 9:26 am
I dont think complaining about “vs” thinking dragging us down is helpful without considering the alternatives
A study of “Vs. thinking” vs “win-win thinking” would be a good start.
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