Toward a new online journalism
Note 2010-02-28_12-45-57:
See update below re The Atlantic site’s “CMS bug.”Note 2010-02-28_14-40-08:
Context: if you’re arriving here late, the article below was a response to my pal, nostrich’s post about my own lamenting of the recent disappearance of full-content RSS feeds for The Atlantic Monthly’s online-only features. It’s not about how everything in the world has to be free to everybody all the time forever; it is, in my opinion, about trying to reconcile two incongruous trends: 1) big media properties pushing their writers to post frequently online, then, 2) cutting that great writing off at the knees by not providing its full content in free RSS feeds. ‘Nuff said. —mdm (the Kung Fu Grippe Guy)
Summary: There’s a thin line between irritating and necessary evil, and I don’t think the Atlantic has crossed it yet.
Never said it was evil. I am absolutely saying it’s patently dumb and potentially suicidal.
I wasn’t going to reblog or comment on this exchange because part of me says I shouldn’t care. Part of me says many people in various industries operate with a set of blinders and can’t see outside their world. Part of me says it won’t matter, in the end, what publishing houses do because many, many people will just accept what’s given them. Or won’t, and will instead turn to easier and easier content. Notably, television.
For some reason, though, I keep coming back to it. And I think one of the reasons I do is because a) I admire Merlin, Gruber, et al. but b) I’m tired of people claiming, “You’re doing it wrong!” without providing specific examples of doing it right.
And so, as in life, I have to tell a long anecdotal story to get at the larger point. (please know I don’t follow my own advice, contained in the ‘read more’ section, and that this is really, really long)
In 2004, few people understood what blogging would become…
In 2004, blogging was just big enough for the DNC to invite a small group of elite bloggers to attend the Democratic National Convention. Kos, Wonkette (at the time written primarily by Anna Marie Cox), Atrios (I think), and a few others were placed in a small room in the upper levels of Boston’s Fleet Center and were allowed to tippy-tap away at their keyboards. One blogger, however, refused relegation to the upper decks and instead forged an Old Media press pass using a color printer and a laminating machine. Working for a then-non-existent TPM Media, Josh Marshall took to the convention floor.
Since then, Marshall has grown the family of TPM Media sites to include the flagship Talking Points Memo, as well as number of niche sites, including TPMMuckraker and TPMCafe. Each site does one thing incredibly well, and the focus of the site has been the same for a long, long time: find a story, confirm some sources, and begin doggedly reporting it. Since 2004 Taking Points Memo has broken a number of stories. Notably, the Randall “Duke” Cunningham corruption scandal as well as the suspect firings of attorneys general under direct watch of high-level officials in the Bush administration.
The takeaway: dogged, incremental reporting that embraced the bite-sized delivery method of the blog and relied more on the sum total of frequent updates than a deluge of lengthy pieces written in haste.
Some of the hallmarks:
Transparency - “This is something we’re pursuing. It might end up being nothing, but it looks like it might be something. Please bear with us.”
Non-traditional research - It’s sad to have to say TPM used non-traditional methods like Lexus Nexus. Again, it probably has to do with time contraints placed on traditional journalists that so many rely on interviews and expert opinion. Traditional journalists’ reliance on interviews also means they are more vulnerable to threats of access restriction, which is a shame, particularly in the political arena. However, without a big-name publishing house behind him, and by being a constant burr in the side of many Republican leaders, Marhsall had limited access and he and his small staff had to rely on what they could get. Often to great results.
The site survived a long time on donations and paid access to specific content (I think the original TPMCafe had a membership fee that allowed access to more and deeper site conversations). Now they seem to rely on a more traditional advertising-supported model, including ads in their RSS feeds. Still, it’s nothing like Huffington Post, which is both an eyesore and a harbor for the most pathetic level of reporting, ever. Hey! Let’s link to a Daily Show clip. Fun!
I guess we can be thankful The Atlantic hasn’t stooped that low yet.
At the opposite end of the spectrum, I would place Syemour Hersh, a Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist whose work is often featured in The New Yorker. Hersh uses a well-established (and hard-earned, I would imagine) system of insider contacts, dogged research, and an unflinching instinct for The Story to craft long, complex pieces that highlight many facets of an issue and tend to examine it on a deeper level than many other media outlets. His work is amazing and worth a subscription to the print edition, even though his columns and stories can be found online (for example, spread over five clickable, scrollable pages).
Hersh’s articles and methods lend themselves to a print medium. It’s worth taking a couple hours on a quiet couch in good light to read and digest them. And it does take that long to digest many of the subtle nuances inherent in his favorite topics: national security, foreign policy, and war.
I don’t know what the reading experience is like on a Kindle, nor what it will be like on an iPad. It’ll be a long time before I get either, if ever. I say this so it’s clear that I’m not familiar with electronic devices built specifically around a reading experience, so for me the debate is still primarily between print and laptop.
I like being able to leave a magazine on the coffee table, open to a long article I didn’t get a chance to finish. I’m much less likely to do that with a Web site. Then again, I like being able to dip into online content for a few moments and get updates for ongoing stories I’m interested in. So I wonder if the system might be broken because, as Merlin said, everyone is racing to reach the bottom and no one seems to consider the medium in which they’re working.
I know this was originally about RSS feeds, and I’ll get around to that, I swear.
Imagine, though, if The Atlantic—or The New Yorker, or the Sun Times, or any of the hundreds of old print publications now struggling in a new market—essentially ran two offices: print and online. The online office concerns itself with brief updates to ongoing stories that slowly unfold. Essentially, a real-time reporting mechanism that enables readers to follow a breaking story to its conclusion, whether notable or not. It would mean a move away from self-contained, “bloggy” content of top-ten lists, links to other links, and all that dreck we find ourselves slogging through on a daily basis. It would mean people dedicate themselves to a very particular kind of reporting, a kind of real-time fact finding that, over time—say, with daily or weekly visits—would enhance a reader’s understanding of a subject. The print publication could dedicate itself to the things print is good for: long pieces that require some undivided attention. I suppose those with e-readers could pay an annual subscription fee and download/update the magazine’s application that provided this longer, more “print-friendly” content.
As for RSS feeds? I would suggest headline and lede, period. I understand people’s desire to read, unfettered, in an ad-free environment. I also understand a magazine’s desire to get paid, and right now they’re paid by eyeballs on their Web sites. (Didn’t someone once mock up the amount of ad space a Web site would have to dedicate to match the amount of ad-space in magazines? If not, someone should. I bet Huffington Post is right on the money.) I think, if the reporting is good and the writing is good, then having a headline and lede is enough to let most readers know whether they should click through to read the whole story. And that’s where RSS feeds excel, I think. They allow people to quickly skim aggregated content to determine whether or not they want to turn to what’s now the equivalent of page B-4.
I hope magazines can save themselves. I really do. I still like them, or the idea of them, and often will succumb to the impulse buy in line at the grocery store. Granted, I’m nearly always disappointed in some way because it seems more and more magazines (and news shows and newspapers) are going the way of the crappiest blogs: numbered lists and brief, quippy interviews surrounded by ads. But I still hope. I hope that places like The Atlantic can still serve as an outlet for solid reporting, even it takes different forms depending on the delivery system.
