This post is a great example of a blog with interplay among participants..So with open contribution of other bloggers individual voices/ideas move forward into action by a group. This dynamic is powerful for two reasons: 1) the interaction produces great output (media) and 2) individuals unite and develop communities. This is the basis for my BlogPubs.com site. Blogging is boring by itself but exciting when part of a community.
Dave Weinberger writes a post about quiting MSNBC. What interesting is the individual post by David is good but what's better is the contribution by others that collectively make great media. This is the big story of the power of blogs (and podcasts) - individuals have ideas/opinions but those ideas/opinions take action and power through the group input.
Daves post and comments goes as follows:
| The spit fight that ended my career at MSNBC |
It's an interesting experience: You get to hone a topic to 90 seconds, memorize it, and talk into a camera in an isolated room. Plus, they send a limo for you. (It's possible they pay, but I forgot to ask.) They're nice people and were happy with the two pieces I did for them. But...
They want reports on what moderate left and right wing bloggers — "Nothing out of the mainstream," the producer told me yesterday — say about a "major" topic. What the hell does that have to do with blogging? And when two of the producers yesterday independently suggested that I report on the blogosphere's reaction to a Vietnam veteran spitting on Jane Fonda, I blurted out — because the flu had lowered my normal Walls of Timidity — that this wasn't a job I'm comfortable with.
What makes the blogosphere interesting to me is not that there are moderate left and right voices talking about mainstream topics. Mainstream major stories are about issues such as freakish celebrity pedophiles, a spit match over a fight from 30 years ago that the press is hoping to revive, and whatever unfortunate child has been reported missing and presumed (better for the story) murdered. I'm in the blogosphere to escape from this degradation of values.
In the ninety seconds MSNBC gives over to blogging, they want to pair A-Listers into a he-said/she-said report on a Major Topic. Yippee for the A-Team! You do two of those and the last of the three segments should be something "fun," i.e., humorous and trivial because the news no longer knows how to operate without a closing joke. It's downright pathological.
I have mixed feelings. I'm genuinely glad Jeff Jarvis, Ed Cone, and others are doing it. It's better that they get to squeeze a few new voices into the MSM, even if those voices aren't always as diverse as we'd like. It's good for the MSM to acknowledge their viewers aren't passive. And people who follow the URLs may find other voices worth listening to. The odd thing is that the two I did for them (1 2) didn't follow the pattern they want, but they were happy with them nonetheless, so I probably could have kept on if I hadn't raised the issue. But I just couldn't face implicitly confirming the idea that the blogosphere consists of big voices arguing with one another — spit fights! — instead of 10 million real voices engaged in every variety of human conversation and delight.
So, fuck it. I quit. [Technorati tags: msnbc msm media]
Posted by D. Weinberger at April 22, 2005 02:18 PM | TrackBack
Dave: Yes, to all of it. I have had these thoughts many times in different TV situations. But I wanted you to finish the thought. I mean top it off.
I quit because...
Posted by: Jay Rosen on April 22, 2005 02:30 PM...the mainstream media is irredeemably corrupt?
Posted by: David Weinberger on April 22, 2005 02:42 PMYou asking me? I wanted to know what the ultimate grounds for judgment were in your decision so eloquently put: "fuck it, I quit."
Posted by: Jay Rosen on April 22, 2005 03:29 PMDave - Fan here. YOU GO GIRL! Is that the right expression? Anyways. F-MSNBC I would do the exact same thing. Anytime I am asked to remove my opinion, creativity or overall ability to be fair from my work I scrap it. Glad you made the same decision.
Posted by: Colin D. Devroe on April 22, 2005 03:36 PMFrom now on when I ponder the meaning of integrity, I will think of the example you set for all of us here. Thank you David.
Posted by: fp on April 22, 2005 03:57 PMIt's been really interesting to watch television latch onto blogging in the last couple of months... and miss the point entirely. Presented with literally millions of issues, stories and perspectives to choose from, they've largely featured inane arguments over the subjects they've already chosen to focus on. I turned on CNN for the first time in a few months and discovered they were supplementing their 24/7 coverage of Terry Schaivo, with bloggers' perspectives on Terry Schaivo. Ah, diversity. "Enough about me. Now, what do you think of me?"
While I think you made the right decision, I wonder what would have happened if you'd started featuring more of the non-mainstream voices you pay attention to in your real life as a blogger. Would they have "steered you" more and more aggresively, before letting you go? Or would they have discovered that their viewers enjoyed some of these different perspectives? I'm reading Tom Fenton's new book, "Bad News", and find his contention that there's no evidence that viewers turn away from foreign news to be pretty interesting and compelling.
Is it possible for an individual to make a difference in the face of an entity like MSNBC? Or are organizations like this one so irredeemably resistant to change that you would have been more and more frustrated and not accomplished anything?
Posted by: EthanZ on April 22, 2005 04:01 PMEthan: I think it's sound policy to read all statements about the audience as attempts to capture control within the organization that is trying to capture that audience. If you can establish your generalizations about the audience as "proven," then this puts you more in charge. Anyone who has a better idea is met with: "interesting, but not what viewers want."
Todd Gitlin in Inside Prime Time called it, "audience lore." It has only the most tenuous connection to actual knowledge about the audience. Mostly it serves strategic purposes within the firm for players trying to assert control over a domain of programming. Fenton's example is one case of it.
Posted by: Jay Rosen on April 22, 2005 04:24 PMYes!
(Resistance to dumbing down is not futile.)
Posted by: Michael Froomkin on April 22, 2005 04:32 PMFirst, as to the "kudos for integrity" issue: Keep in mind that if I hadn't involuntarily gagged at the "spit on Fonda" issue -- is there a better example of what's wrong with the MSM? -- I'd still be doing the msnbc thing. And I'd be proud of it because I agree with Ethan: There's lots of room for doing good, which is why I'm glad Ed, Jeff and others are doing it. And I give msnbc credit for having no problem with the 6 items (3 each time) I did, even though they didn't follow the formula exactly. My feelings are (as almost always) deeply mixed.
Posted by: David Weinberger on April 22, 2005 04:48 PMDavid, you done good.
Get well, soon. Let's return to semantic webness, taxonomies, RDF, and all that and have some fun.
Posted by: Shelley on April 22, 2005 04:51 PMWow. That is impressive. Takes guts. But sometimes in these big blogs there are great comments from the wee people. Mebbe, instead of focussing on what the prime poster is saying, perhaps you could cull a gem from the thread?
Say, something like, "Atrios, a left-wing blogger says [whatever. sum it up in one sentence]. But a really interesting comment from [little fishy] read, '[interesting comment]' and that really stirred the debate there."
Posted by: memer on April 22, 2005 05:46 PMHm. I guess in the end it comes down to the "news producers" trusting you to know what "sells."
Posted by: memer on April 22, 2005 05:58 PMMemer, good point about surfacing comments. Just one more reason those spots are overall a good thing, imo.
Posted by: David Weinberger on April 22, 2005 06:10 PMAs my pappy used to say, "Lie down with the dogs, get up with the fleas. Maybe not the first or second time but sooner or later, you are going to start a scratching." Good call, Dave.
Posted by: brent maverick on April 22, 2005 06:39 PMDavid, that sort of cable "news" is a puppet show. They want the conflicts they frame to come out of your mouth. Good riddens to 'em.
Posted by: Sheila Lennon on April 22, 2005 06:54 PMDavid: We missed you at the Search Champs event this time and attributed your absence to the globetrotting you've been doing. Little did we know that you would be busy taking a direly needed stand against the incessant pandering and dumbing down being perpetrated by the news channels (this is not exclusive to MSNBC).
You are my hero buddy. Your instincts are as sound as ever (even in your flu-addled state) and you set a most excellent example for the rest of us. To quote Brendan (above): Rock. On.
Posted by: Marc Orchant on April 22, 2005 07:03 PMWell done David. Regardless of the actual trigger (spit on Jane), the MSM is structured such that eventually for someone who values their integrity there will always come a time when they will make the same decision you did. So you are to be soundly congratulated for realizing that moment was at hand. :)
Posted by: Doug Alder on April 22, 2005 07:22 PM...just adding my own bit of praise to the general chorus...thank you, David, for making us all look good.
Posted by: Betsy Devine on April 22, 2005 07:29 PMI really appreciate the nice things people are saying, but it's making me uncomfortable.
First, keep in mind that the msnbc folks were perfectly reasonable. No one said "Talk about the spit fight or quit!" Rather, they raised it as a possible topic, I blurted out my discomfort with it, and we went on to find three other topics. No big deal.
Second, isn't integrity supposed to cost you something? I lost some exposure on TV and that's all.
Third, I'm glad bloggers I respect are continuing to do this gig because good comes of it.
I don't mean to be ungracious or unappreciative, and I know I have a quirk (well, we can go ahead and call it a neurosis) about accepting compliments, but I also know how mixed my feelings are and thus want to reserve the term "integrity" for people who make harder choices than this one.
Posted by: David Weinberger on April 22, 2005 07:39 PMI applaud your instinct to quit on principle and your recoil at the inanity of cable news.
But I have to say that the "blog roundup" on cable news bit is a disaster on television. It's hard enough for print journalism to make a good narrative out of what's going on in the blogs.
But when you put it on TV?
I love blogs and read more blogs than I do news outlets, but nothing makes for worse television than a computer monitor.
I'd much prefer MSNBC to be cannabalizing and following up on issues being argued about in the blogs, than trying to summarize them.
Posted by: Ryan Singel on April 22, 2005 08:21 PMRight on! I came in on a link from Dan Gillmor's page.
I think you're right to refuse to keep laying the MSM point/counterpoint game.
Posted by: tim fong on April 22, 2005 08:30 PMFrom the trenches: "I'm not gonna touch that sort of thing" usual lets them know what your beat is and isn't.
I think journalists, by temperament, are most comfortable as a fly on the wall. "Celebrity journalist" is an oxymoron.
I was in the supermarket late one night about 10 years ago, and over the PA system came, "Channel 10 news anchor Kathy Ray is in our produce department right now, looking at lettuce. Go say hello."
I would shoot myself.
Kesey, in um... Demon Box, wrote about the spotlight landing on somebody for what they happened to be doing with their life, and that behind the spotlight there's crosshairs.
It's your work that matters, just your work. imho
Posted by: Sheila on April 22, 2005 09:00 PM"I'm in the blogosphere to escape from this degradation of values."
I love that line, perhaps as much as I appreciate the way you stuck it to MSNBC...who were the reason I yanked cable from my home.
Remember, they hired Enron's Frank Luntz to pose as an impartial inquirer into average Floridian souls back during the hashing out of Bush v Gore...for which they've never apologized or explained.
If Jon Stewart asks you on...by all means...go! He would appreciate your Cantabrigian deipnosophism. Same with Franken, of course.
MSNBC is dead theatre, to borrow from Peter Brook. Maybe Cone can bring it back to life.
They were raping you financially as well, so you probably did the best thing. And you'd think GEMSNBC would be able to cough up more than a pat on the back.
Next time, charge by the years, not the hour.
Kind regards,
Dave
anonyMoses
Dave, I understand how your mixed feelings about the issue are getting in the path of our appreciation for how you handled this with (in my opinion) integrity.
Would I prefer you were still on camera? Of course. Do I think you'll be back in the hot seat? Yes. (Not even MSNBC can be so dense as to continue to think MOR opinions are the least bit interesting in a blogging world, for pity's sake.)
Please accept our appreciation as you would a gift from a friend. That's how I offer it to you, and I suspect I'm not alone.
John
Posted by: John W. LeBlanc on April 22, 2005 10:07 PMYour experience reminds me of my own little encounter with MSNBC. Years ago, when MSNBC was first starting out, I was asked to try out for one of their "Friends" slots. They were going for a younger audience and thought that having younger faces seated near the anchor who would sort of offer differing views on whatever was being discussed would make for interesting TV. Since this was live TV, we didn't get a lot of advance notice of what we'd be talking about, but that was supposed to add to the spontaneity and "difference" I guess.
During my try-out, one of the topics that came up was "Should OJ Simpson take the stand in his own defense?" I remember blurting out something about how he would have to sooner or later, but feeling distinctly annoyed that we were wasting time on speculating about something that hadn't happened and probably wouldn't. One of the other "Friends"--a conservative Republican type--squared his shoulders and said, essentially, I'm tired of the OJ trial and the amount of time TV is spending on it when we could be talking about other things of more relevance to people, and no, he wasn't going to venture an opinion on that stupid question.
Damn, I wish I had said that, I thought to myself.
Minutes later, after we went back to the "Friends" holding area, an MSNBC producer came storming in to berate this poor guy. His words, more or less, were: "MSNBC's viewers care about the OJ trial, and under no circumstances are you allowed to say that a topic we ask you about is beneath your opinion. You will have an opinion--I don't care what it is--but if we ask you about the OJ trial you will have an opinion."
Needless to say, I was pretty relieved when I wasn't called back from another audition.
Dave, I know there are probably well-intentioned people at MSNBC who would like to figure out how to integrate blogging and the cable chat world. But it appears they're still not there yet. Congrats on getting out while the getting is good.
Posted by: Micah Sifry on April 22, 2005 10:52 PM...I had the flu and blurted out that a Vietnam Vet hawking one on Jane Fonda was not a "story" worth covering?
I'm not sure what sort of answer you're looking for, Jay. I don't think it reduces that neatly. The principle came after the blurting. The blurting was an involuntary reaction, like rolling your eyes when you turn on the TV and a cable news program is covering a Vietnam vet hawking on Jane Fonda.
Jarvis does a terrific job explicating the complexity.
Jay, can't you at least make this question multiple choice? Please? : )
Posted by: David Weinberger on April 22, 2005 11:35 PMFrankly, I don't quite follow the sequence of events at the critical turning point.
"I blurted out — because the flu had lowered my normal Walls of Timidity — that this wasn't a job I'm comfortable with."
And they said ...?
("Do what we tell you, or there's the door"???)
("It's not working"???)
([Shocked Silence]???)
I quit because...
...the mainstream media is irredeemably corrupt?
Dave: Like I have the sentence, and I'm wondering if you can guess it? Wrong-o. My question is open ended, but seriously intended. Don't worry, I drive people crazy with these thingies all the time. You just happened to open yourself up to it by taking symbolic action when you quit.
Weren't you just complaining that you were a little uncomfortable here because it's not like it was a hard thing to do to call the limo off. And here I am giving you a proper hard time and you're like, "can you make this easier, Jay?"
In the end, you quit for a reason you wanted expressed-- after all, you quit and blogged about it, right? Rather than just quitting. And it is certainly a mark of my interest in your ideas that I would "push" for a better answer.
Why did you say "quit" and not "stop?" They are different symbolically, that's why.
Symbolic, not difficult, you told us. Fair enough. But riddle me this, Dave: you wouldn't quit unless it clarified things to quit, right?
Posted by: on April 23, 2005 12:09 AMI said "quit" instead of "stop" because "quit" is self-aggrandizing.
I don't have a simple reason why I blurted out that I didn't think this was working out. The blurting was the result of a complex situation. My post already over-simplified the situation, as all writing except poetry does. Quitting (er, stopping) itself reduced a complex situation to a binary choice...but that doesn't mean that the reasons for choosing were binary. I really don't see how I can be truthful and simple about this, Jay.
And to answer Seth's question: We went on to discuss other topics I might talk about. No coercion. Friendly and calm. I should have made that clear, and thought I had at least in the comments. I like the producers personally and feel well-treated by them.
PS: Jay, I don't mind in the least your giving me a hard time. In fact, I appreciate it.
Posted by: David Weinberger on April 23, 2005 12:40 AMSimple? Who said simple? Did I say I wanted a reason that was simple? No, you brought in simple. I'm coercing you to complete my sentence truthfully.
Posted by: Jay Rosen on April 23, 2005 01:05 AMDavid, I certainly don't want to give you a hard time (I couldn't afford it, and definitely wouldn't over something like this) ... but I guess I'm saying I'm trying to understand the core conflict, and it escapes me.
Generally, quiting involves some sort of irreconcilable differences, often over a point of moral integrity (e.g. I once almost got fired for refusing to fake a product demo). What was the moral principle, the I-will-not-so-goodbye here?
Posted by: Seth Finkelstein on April 23, 2005 01:34 AMTimely call, David
Obviously you remembered Chris de Burgh’s priceless advice about not paying the ferryman until he got to the other side ;-D
Never ever sell your independent soul ...
Posted by: Jozef Imrich on April 23, 2005 04:30 AMSee David's response to my response here.
And my response to his response to my response to this post here. Buttom lines:
Blogs don't need mainstream media.
Mainstream media needs blogs.
Posted by: Jeff Jarvis on April 23, 2005 08:12 AMRegarding Jeff's last comment:
In other words, the MSM quotes bloggers who are talking about MSM-picked stories, but bloggers don't need established media. Makes no sense.
Nor is it true to say that the establishment media absolutely need blogs. That is especially false of cable news where the far-and-away ratings winner FNC hardly ever mentions blogs on-air, much less quotes them. As exciting as it may be to be on camera, it is boring television to watch someone reading something off the screen in a "so-and-so says X" but "what's-her-name says Y" fashion.
I applaud MSNBC for having the sense to start up something like this, but the current iteration of this effort is, to me, doomed to failure because you can't translate the production values from one medium to another. I don't see how merely quoting from blogs will be successful any more than the MSNBC predecessor America's Talking (which mostly consisted of televised radio talkers) was.
FNC doesn't need actual blogs because, in a certain sense, their whole network behaves much more like one. The blog attitude of approachability, lack of pretension, and a willingness to debate is much more needed in the media than actual blogs themselves. From a TV production standpoint, all the techniques that CNN and MSNBC are trying to do with blogs is old hat: webcams (late 90s), quoting the web (Alan Keyes), email (everyone).
Posted by: Matthew Sheffield on April 23, 2005 08:28 AMAfter rereading Jeff's response, I've amended that above comment to reflect what I now see to be a smaller disagreement than I thought earlier. Essentially, I still believe bloggers need big media but that I realize he and I both seem to agree with the idea that the media needs to somehow learn a few attitudinal lessons from bloggers (even though quoting blogs on the telly isn't good for the ratings).
Posted by: Matthew Sheffield on April 23, 2005 09:01 AMDavid,
Your reasons are valid. This is why I'm developing a virtual blog publication called BlogPubs. This post is a great example of a blog with interplay among participants..So with open contribution of other bloggers your ideas move forward into action by a group. This is what the benefit of blogs and community is all about. MSNBC misses the point but you were spot on
Jay, you're correct that I'm assuming that you want something simple. That's because I took it as a complete-the-sentence task looking for an independent clause, or maybe two. Sorry if I mistook your purpose. The non-simple, truthful answer is my initial post, as elaborated and corrected here. Yes, it's a cop out, but the entire post is in fact an attempt to explain why I stopped (not "quit" -- thanks).
Sethf, it's not a matter of principle. As you say, that's not the only reason people quit jobs (even granting that this was a lot less than a job). Something did feel irreconcilable: Our difference in perception of what's worth talking about on a news show. When the first editor suggested the spitfest, I wrote back that it seemed to me that "This is so not news." When the second one, in a conf call, independently suggested it, it felt like this wasn't an aberration but the norm. I wrote to the first producer and said that I'd be happy to surface ideas and voices otherwise unheard, and she reiterated that the aim of the segment was to do a moderate left-right counterpoint on a lead item the msm are covering. That was an irreconcilable difference in values, not in principles. And I'm conflicted even about that because I think I could have done some good within the system. But I was flu-y and verbalized my discomfort with their news values. So, we continued the discussion amicably, found other topics and I did my segment.
Seth, Jay, does this help answer your question? Or am I still missing your point? If so, pound harder.
Posted by: David Weinberger on April 23, 2005 09:04 AM