‘Vs. Thinking’ Watch: OPA in London
Steve Safran August 28th, 2007
Jeff Jarvis points us to video from a panel he was on at the Online Publishers Association conference in London last week that presents yet another case of “vs. thinking.” I’m as tired as Jeff of the “newspapers vs. bloggers” debate, yet the hand-wringing keeps coming up in conference after conference. The newspapers (”We brought down Nixon!”) and the bloggers (”We brought down Dan Rather!”) need to stop seeing this as a vs. argument. Jarvis put it well in response to an audience member’s point that newspapers do the legwork and bloggers only comment: “All I can say is that I look forward to a conference where we don’t have this argument and we talk about the possibilities of what we can do together.”
Talkback: Amy Gahran at Poynter highlights this article and is joining the “Vs. Thinking Watch.” Let’s make this open source. Amy and I invite everyone to send us examples of Vs. Thinking or highlight them on your own blog. Vs. Thinking is lazy and counterproductive. It’s too easy for conference planners. Let’s come up with “Together Thinking” instead.
9 Comments Add your own
1. Anonymous | August 28th, 2007 at 8:26 am
Bloggers: “We brought down Alberto Gonzales!”
Remember, the rest of the press paid no attention to the mass firings of attorneys. It took months of exclusive reporting on Talking Points Memo before the rest of the media realized there was a story there.
2. Drew Robertson | August 28th, 2007 at 8:36 am
Anonymous made my first point. My second point is when was the last time network or local news could make a similar kind of “we brought down….” claim. Blogs and papers can do it but TV?
3. tdc | August 28th, 2007 at 8:42 am
bloggers are beholden to no one.
tv is beholden to its advertisers.
its advertisers are beholden to ….
you get the picture.
4. Steve Safran | August 28th, 2007 at 8:51 am
Oooh… interesting point. See, I first heard about the Gonzales thing on NPR, days before it broke elsewhere. (They interviewed one of the fired attorneys who was about to break the scandal wide open.) So I didn’t associate it with bloggers being the primary engine of the story. Do the rest of the LR Faithful see Gonzales as a “blogger bringdown?”
5. Amy Gahran | August 28th, 2007 at 12:41 pm
Great post, Steve. As I look toward my grueling upcoming travel schedule of the next few months, which includes speaking gigs at several journalism conferences, I too am weary of the “vs thinking,” especially regarding online media.
I just let our fellow journalists know of your “Vs. thinking watch” over at Poynter’s E-Media Tidbits.
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=31&aid=129161
Keep up the good work,
- Amy Gahran
6. Z | August 28th, 2007 at 3:10 pm
Not as much as Dan Rather. I thought Gonzales was a group effort, personally.
Where did the first word on Sen. Craig’s bathroom trip come from?
7. Steve Safran | August 28th, 2007 at 3:22 pm
Roll Call broke that story. “The Official Newspaper of Capitol Hill Since 1955.”
Sounds like a shady organization to me.
8. joe | August 28th, 2007 at 9:52 pm
Wasn’t it KHOU in Houston that exposed the problem with Firestone tires on Ford Explorers? Sounds like a TV station breaking a big story to me!
9. Jon Garfunkel | August 29th, 2007 at 2:41 pm
Steve– My full research from March regarding TPM’s role in the AG story is here:
http://civilities.net/TalkingPointsMeme
They deserve tremendous credit, but at the time, some of the credit they were given was a bit over-the-top. As always, there were other “big” stories that the rest of the media– and many blogs– were focusing on: Libby trial, Walter Reed, the 2008 campaign, the Iraq surge.
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