A study of “Vs. thinking” vs “win-win thinking” would be a good start.

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.

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.

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.

(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.)