Sticks of Fire: a Tampa blog

Editor’s note: As you might have guessed, I find the future of journalism and media in this brave, new, online world very interesting. Tampa Tribune Executive Editor Janet Coats wrote a commentary piece about it that caught my attention. After I wrote this piece below (but before publishing), I emailed her to ask her a bunch of questions related to her commentary. I wasn’t sure if I would get an answer, but Janet was very gracious with her valuable time, and provided detailed answers to some overly detailed queries. The summary (and detail!) of that exchange will be posted here very soon. Yeah - all that is a long way to say that this is the first of two parts.

A couple of weeks ago, the Tampa Tribune’s Sunday editorial page was packed with a handful of columns about how news media is changing. Executive Editor Janet Coats wrote the main piece, which was surrounded by Trib’s Community Columnists’ essays describing how they find their news. Most of the amateur writers vigorously defended newspapers, and touted the virtues of reading news accounts on the printed page. But Janet herself realizes that those folks were given the wrong assignment: Journalism
On Brink Of New, Exciting Era

I think we’re pondering the wrong question when we obsess over the future of the printed page. The question we should consider, I think, is whether journalism will survive.

and reminds readers that

journalism is not about the package it appears in. It is about the ethical values journalists live by in their collection of the day’s news.

Janet gets to the real issue, and rightly starts with The Journalist’s Creed, specifically referring to the part about their responsiblity to the public:

I believe that the public journal is a public trust; that all connected with it are, to the full measure of their responsibility, trustees for the public; that acceptance of a lesser service than the public service is betrayal of this trust.

And then she suggests that many journalists no longer believe in this role, simply because of changing technologies.

My belief in that principle once would have been universally held by journalists — that serving the public trust is our role, and that it is a role society values.

There are many inside this industry who doubt that. Their doubts are linked to the challenges print journalism faces, their worries about what journalism looks like in an online world.

That’s a cop-out. Over the years, newspapers have tried to be all things to all people (maximize profits), thereby demanding that journalists and editors pander to the lowest common denominator. There is no other explanation for non-news content such as the crossword puzzle, comic strips, and the kids page, as well as pseudo-news like celebrity pages and Dear Abby.

Janet goes on to say the biggest change is that regular folks like you and I want to constantly question, create, edit, and correct the stories we are being told - and journalists need to embrace this new reality. But she forgets that we cannot lump everyone into a single group.

… our task is translating those values online — and keeping them relevant to an audience that will take bits and pieces of our content and meld it, shape it, comment on it to create something altogether different from what the reporter started with.

No no no. There is no “audience.” We all live in the same general geographical area, but we all have different backgrounds, ideals, neighborhoods, financial stature, ages, experiences, and situations. Because of this, the news affects us each in different ways. We are not “creating something different.” We are building upon your reporters’ initial findings, adding facts and divergent opinions in an effort to get to the real meaning of the news, and how that news is important to us both individually, and as members of some smaller group (racial minorities, women, young people, the poor, etc.). We are having a discussion, a conversation.

The key to journalism’s future, I think, lies in finding the right blends of “professionally” produced news with content that comes from non-journalists.

The key to journalism’s future is the same as the key to its past - find the ultimate truth, and explain how it affects us. The newspapers’ futures lies in how they HELP those smaller subsets (us) determine how that same truth affects each of us - and there is no single answer for 500,000 different readers.

Unfortunately, the word “conversation” is in the piece just once, and mentioned in passing in the wrapup.

By combining the watchdog reporting we’ve practiced so long in print with an online world where true conversation is possible, where the focus can be both outward and inward, we have the best chance ever to create the successful journalism Williams wrote about. It is the power of both — professional journalism practiced ethically and citizen journalism practiced responsibly — that can create a journalism that really does make a community better.

Watchdog reporting is among the best things newspapers do. And ethical journalism is a must. But if these media companies want to create successful journalism, not only should they practice their trade where conversation is possible, but they should encourage AND ENGAGE in the discussion. That will make a community better.

By the way, if you read Janet’s article online, you will notice that there is no direct way to comment on her commentary, and her email address is not easily located online. However, I did reach her through email, and asked her about some of these things.

The results of that email exchange will be posted shortly.

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