Sam Zell has put The Chicago Tribune's building on Michigan Ave on the auction block.
I visited the Windy City about five years ago and was blown away by what struck me as a real American city. Deep-pan pizza, buffalo burgers, hot wings like nothing I've tasted since. Blues and the el-train. The Hancock building, the lake. And right on one end of the wonderful Michigan Ave, Tribune Tower overlooks the Chicago river. A great site. A city site. It's part of its surroundings -- it says Chicago, much like the paper does.
While I agree with Sam Zell on a lot (I'm sure that is great comfort to him) is it possible that he has got his property developer's hat on a bit tight here?
If Zell owned the Chicago Cubs would he remove them from Wrigley Field and hawk the land for another boring Trump tower? Even if it made the best business sense, something almost indefinably valuable would be lost, and so it is with Tribune Tower. Ask a London hack of a certain age to walk you down the old Fleet Street and you will see the interesting times you have missed out on. Not necessarily better journalism, but more interesting times and definitely better pubs.
Why is it that businessmen can understand and financially account for non-physical assets such as brand, identity and goodwill but miss the financial worth embedded in shared values, the voice of a paper, even the nostalgia of a street associated with a paper (Most English papers on Fleet St, the Irish Times on Dublin's D'Olier St, the Tribune on Michigan Ave) and what it means to a city and its newspaper readership. These buildings become landmarks for a reason -- they signify the link between paper and populace.
Have we finally entered the phase where a reporter's interaction with the world he or she reports on is experienced only through a computer screen? If so we have lost something valuable.
Around the base of the Tribune Tower there are pieces of rock embedded in the walls -- all of them stolen from world famous landmarks including St Peter's in Rome, Cologne Cathedral and the Pyramids at Giza -- all brought back by the paper's foreign correspondents, so the story goes, to adorn the winning design in an architecture competition to house a modern newspaper.
(There is a fantastic flickr set here).
During my visit to the Chicago Tribune tower, they even had a window display showing a piece of moon rock. Think about that -- rock brought back by Apollo astronauts and displayed in a newspaper office window -- truly time when newspapers literally (if wrongly) brought a piece of the world to their hometown audience.
Maybe if we recapture that spirit, that imagination, that willingness to give readers a window on the world, people will start buying papers again.
Don't sell, Zell.
Friday 27 June 2008
Monday 21 January 2008
Training journalists online -- a response
I think paul conley is missing the point in his response to my last post.
His message would be valid if following the thought experiment "how would you build a newsroom from scratch if you had £x million?"
Certainly, other people have weighed in on what seems to me to be a technology-rich, but experience-poor, position.
Mindy McAdams has been oft-cited, but then uses her blog to expand training possibilities for people who, while perfectly adequate reporters or copy editors, "don't get" the web. Bravo. If there were more people like her in newsrooms, I doubt we would be having this debate.
Pat Thornton, as mentioned in a previous post, would do well to look up the meaning of the word "culture". Added to that, he should probably check "iconoclast" because most of the semi-religious veneration online seems to be for people who can use Facebook, MySpace, bebo, flickr and twitter rather than a telephone.
All of those Web 2.0 platforms are fantastic resources, fantastic means to promote your journalism and your chosen medium and fantastic developments in technology generally, but not one is a replacement for a well placed, well phrased, well timed question. And that, alas, is what cannot be taught. It can, however, be learned.
The fact is that most newsrooms have existing staff that do a very good job chasing stories, making calls, using contacts, etc, in order to get stories. Denying yourself their experience and ability just because you "get" a 10-year-old concept and they "don't get it" is a little short-sighted and will diminish your online efforts whether they "get it" or not.
To quote Paul, and I agree with him on this 100 per cent:
In my experience, that is what cannot be fixed by training -- the platform on which someone's work appears is irrelevant and there are bigger fish to fry.
Journalists, by and large, are employees-- newspapers are businesses. If newspapers expect a certain return from their existing staff, they have to be very clear about what they expect. If the business cannot convince the journalists of the merits of the web, that is a different story. But how many have really tried? I am reminded of the lament of Ned Flanders's beatnik parents at their inability to control an unruly child: "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas".
Is it a failing of the journalists to see the light or a failure of management to make the case?
If you want to take a proactive approach, you could do worse than follow Howard Owens's advice on Objectives for today's non-wired journalist as endorsed by Jeff Jarvis.
That's just technology -- it's no mystery -- it's reasonably easily taught.
You stand to lose a lot more by sacking the technologically inexperienced web-skeptics than you do by hiring the journalistically inexperienced web-acolytes.
His message would be valid if following the thought experiment "how would you build a newsroom from scratch if you had £x million?"
Certainly, other people have weighed in on what seems to me to be a technology-rich, but experience-poor, position.
Mindy McAdams has been oft-cited, but then uses her blog to expand training possibilities for people who, while perfectly adequate reporters or copy editors, "don't get" the web. Bravo. If there were more people like her in newsrooms, I doubt we would be having this debate.
Pat Thornton, as mentioned in a previous post, would do well to look up the meaning of the word "culture". Added to that, he should probably check "iconoclast" because most of the semi-religious veneration online seems to be for people who can use Facebook, MySpace, bebo, flickr and twitter rather than a telephone.
All of those Web 2.0 platforms are fantastic resources, fantastic means to promote your journalism and your chosen medium and fantastic developments in technology generally, but not one is a replacement for a well placed, well phrased, well timed question. And that, alas, is what cannot be taught. It can, however, be learned.
The fact is that most newsrooms have existing staff that do a very good job chasing stories, making calls, using contacts, etc, in order to get stories. Denying yourself their experience and ability just because you "get" a 10-year-old concept and they "don't get it" is a little short-sighted and will diminish your online efforts whether they "get it" or not.
To quote Paul, and I agree with him on this 100 per cent:
"What journalists -- all journalists -- need is curiosity, open-mindedness and a willingness to learn."
In my experience, that is what cannot be fixed by training -- the platform on which someone's work appears is irrelevant and there are bigger fish to fry.
Journalists, by and large, are employees-- newspapers are businesses. If newspapers expect a certain return from their existing staff, they have to be very clear about what they expect. If the business cannot convince the journalists of the merits of the web, that is a different story. But how many have really tried? I am reminded of the lament of Ned Flanders's beatnik parents at their inability to control an unruly child: "I've tried nothing and I'm all out of ideas".
Is it a failing of the journalists to see the light or a failure of management to make the case?
If you want to take a proactive approach, you could do worse than follow Howard Owens's advice on Objectives for today's non-wired journalist as endorsed by Jeff Jarvis.
That's just technology -- it's no mystery -- it's reasonably easily taught.
You stand to lose a lot more by sacking the technologically inexperienced web-skeptics than you do by hiring the journalistically inexperienced web-acolytes.
Sunday 13 January 2008
Teaching a young dog old tricks
Just weighing in on the ridiculous "you can't teach culture" posts popping up around the place.
Paul Conley kicks off with
I completely disagree with his argument in general, but, in Paul's defence, he is writing about B2B press, an area I have no doubt he knows much better than I do. However, his post has been picked up and expanded upon.
Pat Thornton adds:
The blogosphere can't have it both ways -- either journalism is independent of platform (and therefore the skills are independent of platform) or they are not. Journalism happens between the brain and the pen (or the typewriter/word processor/blogging software/CMS) not once the text hits your RSS feed or website -- that is distribution.
What is important about what you read, listen to or watch online? Is it the background software applications that enable it to reach your screen? Or is it the content? That content does not come from programming knowledge. That content is generated by inquiring, skeptical minds who have the perseverance, the contacts and the sheer will to wring a story from what seems like thin air.
When those minds meet -- that's culture. And journalists, as a body, decide what their culture is -- the web will transform, inform and, I honestly believe, improve the content generated by that culture, but it should not dictate which minds will or will not be allowed to join the club.
Paul Conley kicks off with
"I'm urging employers not to offer any training in Web journalism."I've trimmed the two reasons he posts for this:
"1. You cannot train someone to be part of a culture.
...An online journalist isn't a journalist who works online. He's a journalist who lives online. He's part of the Web.
It's a waste of time and money to teach multimedia skills and technology to someone who hasn't already become part of the Web.
2. When the fighting begins, the training must end.
As revenue shrinks, we can't spend money on training. We can't gather up the print folks and "prepare them as online journalists."
I completely disagree with his argument in general, but, in Paul's defence, he is writing about B2B press, an area I have no doubt he knows much better than I do. However, his post has been picked up and expanded upon.
Pat Thornton adds:
"Not every staff member can become an online or multimedia journalist.
And if they aren’t really great in their traditional media role, they probably don’t have a long-term role in your news organization. That’s the sad reality, but it’s the only way for newspapers to evolve.
You can’t teach culture."
I know dictionaries might be considered a dead-tree, olde worlde way of checking information, but I suggest Pat looks up the meaning of the word "culture". If paper offends thee, or you suffer from pulpuslacerataphobia, you could even try dictionary.com.
Try an analogy: an immigrant comes to your country -- they want to work, they have the right to work, they have an as yet unknown contribution to make. But they are turned back at the border because, despite their willingness to learn the language, the customs and the skills, they are informed "Sorry mate, but you can't learn culture".
Pat goes on:
"I think Conley would agree with me that the kind of training we can never offer is how to be an online journalist. We can only offer people with online skills the opportunity to learn more skills. You know CSS, well it’s time to learn javascript/Ajax. That sort of thing."
So, essentially, experience, contacts, even raw ability with language or images, count for nothing? This argument smacks of the "come back when you've got some experience, son" but in reverse.
The blogosphere can't have it both ways -- either journalism is independent of platform (and therefore the skills are independent of platform) or they are not. Journalism happens between the brain and the pen (or the typewriter/word processor/blogging software/CMS) not once the text hits your RSS feed or website -- that is distribution.
What is important about what you read, listen to or watch online? Is it the background software applications that enable it to reach your screen? Or is it the content? That content does not come from programming knowledge. That content is generated by inquiring, skeptical minds who have the perseverance, the contacts and the sheer will to wring a story from what seems like thin air.
When those minds meet -- that's culture. And journalists, as a body, decide what their culture is -- the web will transform, inform and, I honestly believe, improve the content generated by that culture, but it should not dictate which minds will or will not be allowed to join the club.
Monday 17 September 2007
What we need is a run on truth
This Northern Rock stuff has me thinking that maybe newspapers could be improved if there was a run on truth.
You know, you invest your money in buying a paper, you invest your time in reading the stories and, let's face it, there is an awful lot of credit extended to journalists in the hope that you will get a return on your investment in terms of cold, hard facts.
When that investment fails to materialise and you realise that you have extended credit to what can only be described as a sub-prime borrower, shouldn't you have every right to queue outside the newspaper's offices and demand the return of the money and time you have invested with them?
You know, you invest your money in buying a paper, you invest your time in reading the stories and, let's face it, there is an awful lot of credit extended to journalists in the hope that you will get a return on your investment in terms of cold, hard facts.
When that investment fails to materialise and you realise that you have extended credit to what can only be described as a sub-prime borrower, shouldn't you have every right to queue outside the newspaper's offices and demand the return of the money and time you have invested with them?
Wednesday 29 August 2007
Where was this when I were a lad?
When, oh when, are people going to turn all of this web 2.0 wondrousness towards the good old-fashioned dead-tree newspaper?
While trying to scale the Bloglines mountain of stuff I've bookmarked but not read, I came across a post by PF Bentley who points out that you wouldn't let your IT department choose your stills camera so why would you let them choose your video gear?
Quite right -- but let's take it a step further. Why should editorial types put up with the content management systems, or word processing systems or page makeup systems thrust upon them from above. I've used quite a few in my career (I find subs tend to have a bit more experience and aptitude for editorial systems than reporters, but feel free to weigh in) and most of them are rubbish. They simply are not designed to be used by or for people who need to quickly edit text, write headlines or crop pictures.
Why can't purchasing managers, or managers in general, make the not substantial leap to understand that the faster we can knock the stuff out, the more time there is to write the killer intro, the grab-you-by-the-collar head or crop the "jesus, would you look at that" image.
In short my question is this -- why is the internet awash with tips, advice and consultants' blogs on "THE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE YOUR NEWSPAPER KICK ASS ON THE WEB" when most of the people responsible for running the paper don't know their ass from their elbow when it comes to QPS over Hermes or Tera over DTI. And that's just purchasing the damned things, let alone setting up a workflow that works for your particular newsroom.
I could take this scrying over the future of a 10- to 15-year-old medium a lot more seriously if the guys who claim to have all the answers would take their load of crystal balls and apply it to improving the form and function of a 500-year-old medium.
Don't get me wrong -- Mr Bentley is right. We need to choose the tools of our trade. We're the ones who will be using them, after all.
Just don't forget who (for now, at least) pays the bills -- we are as sick of shoddy equipment bought by unqualified personnel as the shiny, new videojocks are. So how about a list of what the not-too-bright newspaper exec should be doing, and what equipment he/she needs, to make the newspaper kick ass?
While trying to scale the Bloglines mountain of stuff I've bookmarked but not read, I came across a post by PF Bentley who points out that you wouldn't let your IT department choose your stills camera so why would you let them choose your video gear?
Quite right -- but let's take it a step further. Why should editorial types put up with the content management systems, or word processing systems or page makeup systems thrust upon them from above. I've used quite a few in my career (I find subs tend to have a bit more experience and aptitude for editorial systems than reporters, but feel free to weigh in) and most of them are rubbish. They simply are not designed to be used by or for people who need to quickly edit text, write headlines or crop pictures.
Why can't purchasing managers, or managers in general, make the not substantial leap to understand that the faster we can knock the stuff out, the more time there is to write the killer intro, the grab-you-by-the-collar head or crop the "jesus, would you look at that" image.
In short my question is this -- why is the internet awash with tips, advice and consultants' blogs on "THE ABSOLUTELY ESSENTIAL STUFF YOU NEED TO KNOW TO MAKE YOUR NEWSPAPER KICK ASS ON THE WEB" when most of the people responsible for running the paper don't know their ass from their elbow when it comes to QPS over Hermes or Tera over DTI. And that's just purchasing the damned things, let alone setting up a workflow that works for your particular newsroom.
I could take this scrying over the future of a 10- to 15-year-old medium a lot more seriously if the guys who claim to have all the answers would take their load of crystal balls and apply it to improving the form and function of a 500-year-old medium.
Don't get me wrong -- Mr Bentley is right. We need to choose the tools of our trade. We're the ones who will be using them, after all.
Just don't forget who (for now, at least) pays the bills -- we are as sick of shoddy equipment bought by unqualified personnel as the shiny, new videojocks are. So how about a list of what the not-too-bright newspaper exec should be doing, and what equipment he/she needs, to make the newspaper kick ass?
Wednesday 25 July 2007
The fate of empires
Aristotle wrote or said or sang: "All who have meditated on the art of governing mankind have been convinced that the fate of empires depends on the education of youth".
I have had the benefit over the past two nights to view three BBC TV shows that I had previously missed:
The music of the primes -- Marcus du Sautoy's fascinating look at the Riemann Hypothesis. Like most journalists, maths isn't my strong suit, but it's to do with prime numbers.
The show, however, tied in Alan Turing, the Enigma machine, music, history, notions of beauty in maths, computer cryptography and quantum physics. I was gripped.
Absolute zero -- a semi-dramatised and mind-expanding look at a state where superconduction is possible, fluids can flow uphill (in a container, anyway) and the speed of light can be reduced to less than the speed of your family car.
More importantly it tied the personalities (There was a real Captain Bird's Eye! -- who knew?) behind the quest to reach zero degrees Kelvin into the societal changes wrought by refrigeration, the move from rural living to urban living, air conditioning and the destruction of southern US communities, right up to manmade climate change.
And finally, Coast -- biology, sociology, exploration, mythology, all lightly told by passionate presenters. For anyone living on an island nation or who just needs recipes for seaweed, it should be required viewing.
The next right-wing, free-marketeer journo that decries the state of British science education, blames the government for it, does nothing to redress the balance and then screams shrilly that "THE LICENCE FEE IS AN UNFAIR TAX" could do worse than switch off the fear-inducing headline-writing machine, make a cup of tea, sit back and actually learn something.
Enjoy.
I have had the benefit over the past two nights to view three BBC TV shows that I had previously missed:
The music of the primes -- Marcus du Sautoy's fascinating look at the Riemann Hypothesis. Like most journalists, maths isn't my strong suit, but it's to do with prime numbers.
The show, however, tied in Alan Turing, the Enigma machine, music, history, notions of beauty in maths, computer cryptography and quantum physics. I was gripped.
Absolute zero -- a semi-dramatised and mind-expanding look at a state where superconduction is possible, fluids can flow uphill (in a container, anyway) and the speed of light can be reduced to less than the speed of your family car.
More importantly it tied the personalities (There was a real Captain Bird's Eye! -- who knew?) behind the quest to reach zero degrees Kelvin into the societal changes wrought by refrigeration, the move from rural living to urban living, air conditioning and the destruction of southern US communities, right up to manmade climate change.
And finally, Coast -- biology, sociology, exploration, mythology, all lightly told by passionate presenters. For anyone living on an island nation or who just needs recipes for seaweed, it should be required viewing.
The next right-wing, free-marketeer journo that decries the state of British science education, blames the government for it, does nothing to redress the balance and then screams shrilly that "THE LICENCE FEE IS AN UNFAIR TAX" could do worse than switch off the fear-inducing headline-writing machine, make a cup of tea, sit back and actually learn something.
Enjoy.
Friday 15 June 2007
Wherever I lay my tinfoil hat ...
Neil McIntosh has a great post concerning the recent hokum from Panorama on "the evils of wi-fi" (that phrase works better if you wave your hands above your head and wiggle your fingers, bogeyman-style) and how these scares are not a modern invention.
What is wrong with Panorama? Little wonder Ross Kemp on Gangs stole the BAFTA. MRSA and C.difficile are killing people and these guys focus on unproven dangers from radio waves? Counterfeit medicine, e.coli, even dodgy nursing homes, all kill more people than wi-fi (more in this case meaning more than any). So you've done it before? DO IT AGAIN. At least you'll be able to sleep at night.
The one UK broadcaster that doesn't depend on advertising fees and they need to scare lowest-common-denominator audiences with rubbish like this?
What is worse is that newspapers then pick up the scare story. The Daily Telegraph ran the story on its front page, if memory serves, under the headline: '"Wi-Fi risks in schools 'must be reviewed' ".
This article contained such gems as:
"Researchers working for the BBC's Panorama programme found the maximum signal strength one metre from a wi-fi-enabled laptop in a classroom in Norwich was three times that measured 100 metres away from a mobile phone mast nearby."
So the signal one metre from a laptop was higher than from a mobile phone mast 100 metres away? You don't say. How strong was the signal one metre from the mobile phone mast? Or 100 metres from the laptop? And was either signal proved dangerous by independent, peer-reviewed studies?
But this was Nobel-Prize stuff compared to the Daily Mail's The clasroom 'cancer risk' of wi-fi internet, where the figures were stripped out altogether:
'The demand [for a safety review] came after it was revealed that classroom "wi-fi" networks give off three times as much radiation as a typical mobile phone mast.'
Did the Telegraph or Mail print a correction, despite the BBC Trust putting Panorama's wi-fi story under the microsope? Not that I saw. And to add insult to injury, the wi-fi danger has now entered columnists' arsenals as a pseudo-fact. Rowan Pelling in The Telegraph writes:
'My siblings and I survived thrilling re-enactments of William Tell and airgun pellets in our buttocks, but would we have survived the microwaving of our brain cells from wi-fi and mobiles?'
Now I know Ms Pelling used to edit The Erotic Review, but surely having William Tell in your buttocks calls for some sort of child services intervention. That aside, maybe she should check the number of children killed or maimed by airgun pellets and crossbow bolts against those killed by mobile phones or wireless broadband, then ask which she would rather have pointed at her child's head.
And Julia Stephenson has a go in The Independent with:
'Two years ago I got Wi-Fi. It was convenient, as I could work anywhere in my flat. But within a few weeks [I] began to suffer from a lack of energy and insomnia, and had difficulty concentrating. Other factors could have caused this, but I suspected that the Wi-Fi had something to do with it, so I returned to fixed broadband. My symptoms disappeared.
Ta-daa! I too find wi-fi causes insomnia and lack of energy, but find it has more to do with looking for last week's Dr Who on alluc or, as of tonight, writing this blog.
For anyone who would like a thorough debunking of the Panorama story (or virtually any science story that appears in a newspaper that uses responsibility-dodging quotes in the headline), read Ben Godacre's excellent Bad Science column in The Guardian.
For anyone without the time to check these shoddy 'facts', try to remember that every time you flick a light switch, sit on the Tube, or just sit in your living room within 50 miles of a radio station, you are bombarded with electromagnetic radiation. And cosmic rays. If you're outside, you can add ultraviolet and infrared radiation to the spectrum.
Cue headlines reading: Sunlight can 'cause cancer'. Oh, wait ...
What is wrong with Panorama? Little wonder Ross Kemp on Gangs stole the BAFTA. MRSA and C.difficile are killing people and these guys focus on unproven dangers from radio waves? Counterfeit medicine, e.coli, even dodgy nursing homes, all kill more people than wi-fi (more in this case meaning more than any). So you've done it before? DO IT AGAIN. At least you'll be able to sleep at night.
The one UK broadcaster that doesn't depend on advertising fees and they need to scare lowest-common-denominator audiences with rubbish like this?
What is worse is that newspapers then pick up the scare story. The Daily Telegraph ran the story on its front page, if memory serves, under the headline: '"Wi-Fi risks in schools 'must be reviewed' ".
This article contained such gems as:
"Researchers working for the BBC's Panorama programme found the maximum signal strength one metre from a wi-fi-enabled laptop in a classroom in Norwich was three times that measured 100 metres away from a mobile phone mast nearby."
So the signal one metre from a laptop was higher than from a mobile phone mast 100 metres away? You don't say. How strong was the signal one metre from the mobile phone mast? Or 100 metres from the laptop? And was either signal proved dangerous by independent, peer-reviewed studies?
But this was Nobel-Prize stuff compared to the Daily Mail's The clasroom 'cancer risk' of wi-fi internet, where the figures were stripped out altogether:
'The demand [for a safety review] came after it was revealed that classroom "wi-fi" networks give off three times as much radiation as a typical mobile phone mast.'
Did the Telegraph or Mail print a correction, despite the BBC Trust putting Panorama's wi-fi story under the microsope? Not that I saw. And to add insult to injury, the wi-fi danger has now entered columnists' arsenals as a pseudo-fact. Rowan Pelling in The Telegraph writes:
'My siblings and I survived thrilling re-enactments of William Tell and airgun pellets in our buttocks, but would we have survived the microwaving of our brain cells from wi-fi and mobiles?'
Now I know Ms Pelling used to edit The Erotic Review, but surely having William Tell in your buttocks calls for some sort of child services intervention. That aside, maybe she should check the number of children killed or maimed by airgun pellets and crossbow bolts against those killed by mobile phones or wireless broadband, then ask which she would rather have pointed at her child's head.
And Julia Stephenson has a go in The Independent with:
'Two years ago I got Wi-Fi. It was convenient, as I could work anywhere in my flat. But within a few weeks [I] began to suffer from a lack of energy and insomnia, and had difficulty concentrating. Other factors could have caused this, but I suspected that the Wi-Fi had something to do with it, so I returned to fixed broadband. My symptoms disappeared.
Ta-daa! I too find wi-fi causes insomnia and lack of energy, but find it has more to do with looking for last week's Dr Who on alluc or, as of tonight, writing this blog.
For anyone who would like a thorough debunking of the Panorama story (or virtually any science story that appears in a newspaper that uses responsibility-dodging quotes in the headline), read Ben Godacre's excellent Bad Science column in The Guardian.
For anyone without the time to check these shoddy 'facts', try to remember that every time you flick a light switch, sit on the Tube, or just sit in your living room within 50 miles of a radio station, you are bombarded with electromagnetic radiation. And cosmic rays. If you're outside, you can add ultraviolet and infrared radiation to the spectrum.
Cue headlines reading: Sunlight can 'cause cancer'. Oh, wait ...
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