You have to love it when people get all worked up and scared about blogs. Hello Roanoke Times! cVillain is on your tail.
Listen to this quote from a recent editorial:
Other bloggers do not do as well. They might look like legitimate news sources to the casual observer, but they willfully blur the lines between journalism and campaign hack.
Journalists, real journalists, follow strict rules about conflicts of interest. They do not take money or gifts from groups they might cover. They also maintain a wall between news, opinion and advertising functions.
That is not the case with many bloggers…
Ok, it’s not like the Roanoake Times is scared of bloggers or anything like that. Or are they? Maybe this closing sentence gives us more information:
That does not disqualify bloggers from a place in the media spectrum, but those who rely on them for their news and commentary should keep in mind the potential conflicts when they choose whom to trust.
Seriously dude? If anyone reads anything, anywhere, in any form, it’s biased. It’s biased by advertising dollars, it’s biased by relationships, it’s biased by people’s personalities, insecurities, it’s biased by political beliefs, it’s biased by anything you can possibly think. Oh maybe you forgot to close with “and you should trust the Roanoke Times because we are the only real news source.”
This raises an important issue we’ve been hearing through the grapevine. Some local businesses think our writing is biased. I can tell you I am biased, by restaurants that have good service and good food. I can’t stand restaurants that don’t. We’ve been accused of serving favors to advertisers and a lot of other things. Well, we don’t. Some businesses hate our guts because we don’t clean up our restaurant reviews and because our commentary is so RAW. Looks like we are the evil stepchild of Charlottesville media.
So, here’s the deal:
1. Roanoke Times, shut your face. You even run blogs on your own site.
2. We strictly manage all content and never publish submitted articles if we get the sense they are advertorial. We reserve the right to delete comments and things that are shameless self-promotion or intended to harm other businesses.
3. If we ever receive any sort of benefit, either as money or a non-monetary benefit for an article, we will disclose it clearly within the post.
4. Advertisement and promotion is a part of any media, so it’s hard to separate bias. As always, if you think we are doing a bad job, let us know, start a coup or boycott us. After all, this site is yours.
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Popularity: 45% [?]
Tagged as: blogging, Charlottesville, commentary, love, media, Questions, Roanoke, rules
geez, new media is kinda defensive! Is cvillain trying to be journalism? I hope and pray not. And if not, get off your little soap box, I don’t think they’re talking about you.
Even though the industry dying by a hundred bad business decisions, “old media” journalists still provide the spark of content for many many blogs including this one. Oh shit, am I allowed to acknowledge that? sorry sorry, blogs rule!
@1, no, i’m just saying it’s arrogant to say that many blogs are untrustworthy. we love old media, we don’t love when they rip on use cause they have insecurity problems.
Isn’t it funny that we have to be so heavily warned not to follow certain types of media like brainless zombies? I think it’s so sad that people have to be warned to use discretion and to scrutinize things with their OWN BRAINS. Shouldn’t we have learned this analytical process in grade school at some point? This reminds me of when people were freaking out that Wikipedia could not be trusted! A blog falls into the same basket as any other media out there including small town blogs, public generated encyclopedias and even the mighty FOX news. It all needs to be thought about, researched and then assimilated. So let’s just calm it down. Blogs are not a conspiracy to trick Americans into doing evil things.
cVillain is a conspiracy.
The Roanoke Times is a conspiracy…to ruin cVillain’s plan for world domination.
/outsnarked
This site is just a big chat room that occasionally mentions a shooting or a natural disaster. Other than those occurrences, journalism doesn’t happen here. Now could you please post another Free for All?
“Blogs are not a conspiracy to trick Americans into doing evil things.”
Well damn, there goes my legal defense. Anybody got anything else I can use?
@8 Just blame Thor. He is our guide.
@9, Web 2.0 Punching Bag… Punch.io
i get most of my news by piecing together little shards of conversation salvaged from blackouts. then i re-weave them into fantastic new rumors about people and businesses, which i then post on the internet. which is where you get your news.
the system works!
@10 I’ll take that as a yes.
I think this is just an expected line-drawing between, in a way, the “instructed” and the self-taught. There will always be old-guard camps that like to protect the boundaries of, for example, their academic degrees. I have an MFA in writing, and I know plenty of people who either look down on people who don’t have MFAs as “not real poets/writers” and I likewise know plenty of people who see MFAs as just a herd of losers who think they need a piece of paper to gain legitimacy. Both are true in many cases.
I think it’s also an attempt to save newspapers from extinction. “We’re not them, so you still need us!”
Blogs are a kind of journalism the way collage is a legitimate kind of visual art.
2: we love old media
I’m sure they’re feeling the love as you tell them to shut their face. Similarly, they surely feel it as the blogosphere catalogs every mass firing with a mix of blood lust, snark and pity. Or as journalists watch their reporting get co-opted day after day in exchange for a tiny link and a peanut gallery of commenters shouting about how they’re irrelevant.
the editorial was true, if a little naive. Are the people creating content for blogs different from the people selling ads? not exclusively. An old media journalist could get fired for bias, a blogger builds a reputation for that. And remember: the Old Media audience is actually really old. It may seem silly to us to say that wikipedia is NOT an encyclopedia, but not everyone knows that.
so yeah, I read blogs, I comment every day on one, for goodness sakes. But while they’re replacing old media in people’s hearts and minds, they’re nowhere near matching them in terms of being a community watchdog. And as long as blogs keep acting like they are filling that role, I’m nervous. Because if old media goes, where go my lovely bloggy blogs? what will we snark about?
Looks like we are the evil stepchild of Charlottesville media.
and of course, it makes sense for bloggers to want to rise up and kill their parents. viva technological revolution! Just remember, someone’s still gotta pay the bills or the power will get shut off.
At least blogs don’t leave black ink on your hands.
there will always be print media, just less of it. what remains will be very, very good.
and soon enough, this festering cauldron of barely tolerable blogs will be tempered, and the herd will thin as pillars of quality writing and reporting rise above the fray. right now we’re in the messy in-between stage when old biz models are upended, and new guys (blogs, et al) who have hardly a clue what they’re doing run around trumpeting their “success” and relishing in the bloodbath. new or old, it’s all driven by money (ahem, bias), and eventually that money will find the most effective channels.
perez hilton? unfortunately yes. huffpo? probably so. cvillain? absolutely.
17: it’s all driven by money
true true… but for the worker bees it’s all about providing the news, they certainly aren’t doing it for their paychecks. And in your very accurate description of the messy stage, citizenry will be at a disadvantage until we figure out how to pay for that service.
an interesting editorial about that.
MC.. I think that traditional news creators are stuck in a lucrative space, believe it or not. Newspapers have had very profitable operations for a very long time now (30% margins!) and when things are like that in any industry, you get complacent after a while. It’s not that newspapers will die, but the idea of what a newspaper is will change dramatically.
I don’t know exactly what newpapers will look like in 10 years, but I take some guesses here:
http://www.naa.org/blog/FutureOfNewspapers/1/2007/11/From-Newspapers-to-Citizen-Destinations.cfm
If you say things are about the money, think about it like this. Advertisers want to see returns on their ad spend. If newspapers have raised rates for 50 years without delivering a more compelling product other than color ads and inserts, then after a while, it’s hard to justify newspaper advertising spend. Advertisers want results and advertising online is a much cheaper way to get a better impact. Obviously I’m somewhat biased in this analysis, but the numbers don’t lie. Online advertising has seen double digit growth for a while now and will continue to grow quickly, because advertisers like it a lot better.
Maybe online advertising is too cheap and it’s hard to “create journalism” in the same fashion as print media, but as online advertising gets more expensive it will support the same sort of journalism to which you refer. There are examples of viable blogging models that are similar to traditional journalism, only without the printing/distrubtion part. Read about PaidContent: http://kara.allthingsd.com/20080711/guardian-media-group-buys-paidcontent-for-30-million/
The bottomline is this: newspapers have sat around for a while and been complacent as their ad dollars move online to other businesses. They still have incredible community value and should be evaluation online business models like crazy, but they aren’t. Why? I don’t know. We’ve seen a lot of publishers and editors resistant to new media this resistance can be killer in today’s world.
Blah blah blah. Labels aside, blogs may offer some news and some good writing but they’re totally different creatures than newspapers. Newspapers don’t give you the kind of community interaction you get from a blog. Truth be told, I prefer getting my news through CVillain. One stop shopping- some info and some chitchat. cVillain is kind of like the hairy ape thing in between the normal monkey and evolved man. Print media shouldn’t be all skerred of blogs but try to figure out what blogs are doing for people that print media cannot and try to adapt. I don’t see either why there is this idea of needing to mistrust a blogger giving you news–aren’t all newspapers influenced by a company or publisher and advertisers? Are you only a worthy source if you have a degree? I think news from ordinary people is probably the realest news you’re gonna get.
We are the Australopithecus africanus of media. Pre-loin cloth, but able to make crude, rudimentary tools.
newspapers are one of those things everyone *says* they value. Like atomic burrito. are the owners of these “valued” institutions largely to blame for their own problems? of course, Kyle, of course they are. It’s a train wreck.
But letting the market sort it out doesn’t feel quite right either. Papers certainly aren’t feeling valued by the shareholders who protect their ginormous profit margins at the expense of nearly 6,000 jobs so far this year. Nor the community who doesn’t subscribe to a source with decades of community investment. Or the advertisers who flock to cheap online sources. Or the bloggers who feed off the carcass of the bloated inefficient old model.
sorry sorry, saying too much. one day the lion will lie down with the lamb and all media will be at peace. yeah. I’m gonna take a break now.
yeah, I can’t krinkle up a blog to help start a fire or wrap presents in a blog, I can’t even lay a layer of blog under my mulch to kill any weeds that are there. And I certainly can’t make a hat out a blog, or use a blog to swat a fly.
so much more versatile, that “old media”.
So Thor, good thing cVillain doesn’t allow people to post comments that constitute blatent self-promotion {cough}post19{cough}
I support MC on this one. First person reporting/blogging is no substitute for the reporting and analysis of the better old media outlets.
/Why is cvillain trying to put the NYTimes out of business?
@21 so we’re all metaphorically going commando?
Now I don’t know very much about the news industry outside of being an avid reader of it, but here’s my two cents. I think this is just a case of small city newspapers going through the growing pains that big city newspapers went through years ago. If you look at national papers like the Washington Post, they have now made an effort to use the internet to make their existing product better instead of seeing it as a medium to be feared. The smaller papers in the country are now starting to experience the internet competition that the national papers started dealing with years ago. The Daily Progress is going to be left in the dust in the not so distant future if they don’t start improving the web version of their paper.
/not an expert here by any means, just an opinion
@27: Yarrr, agreed. Now pass me a tool so we can feed on this carcass.
@28 the meat of old media is tough and leathery and tastes gross. it needs pepper.
Let’s make media tartare
MC, what about all the new jobs that are being created by New Media? I know it’s not in the same companies, but change can be good. Newspapers have a shakeup and even more jobs are created in the future. So, while there is short term pain, change will be good for everyone. When cars came around and the carriage went out the door, think about how big the car industry is and how much that helped other industries (not that cars are a perfect solution).
Silmo, I do work with this stuff, so I was trying to help.
@29 Do you think old media can be made into a hot munchies mix? Maybe like a hot munchies flavored Slim Jim made from the insides of old media. That’d be nice.
MC, what about all the new jobs that are being created by New Media? hahahahahahahahaha!!!! maybe this is true, but please please provide some data for that claim. It’s like the online revenue claim. Yes, it’s growing and it’s hopeful, but it’s still soooo tiny of a percentage it’s barely making a dent in the money needed to pay journalists to report the news, not to mention bolster the ludicrous 30% profit margins previously discussed.
new media = hippies.
hah!
it’s a lot like the 5th or 6th day, when humans mastered the dinosaurs, and used them (rightfully so!) as beasts of burden in the creation of agriculture. what happened to the animals that plowed the fields before, like snakes and worms? i’ll tell you: they went out of business, and became decorations in the bad dreams of sinners, and permanent fixtures on the walls and gates that formed the fiery cages of the damned.
i had 6 lunchwhiskeys.
@31 I know! I was just jokin’ around. No harm intended
i had 6 lunchwhiskeys.
trying to cut back?
the number of paid bloggers (w/o an old media outlet) i’ve ever known numbers somewhere south of 1.
paid..mmmmmmm
The Roanoke Times has been paying me not to blog over here, which is a lie I’m telling you. On a blog. On the internet. DOT COM, BITCHES.
@40: just another example of old media throwing their money away.
@27: Just this February, the NYTimes eliminated 100 newsroom jobs and the Washington Post handed out over 100 buyouts, all newsroom. It’s not a small or big paper problem. It’s an every paper problem. I blame … society.
i wish I had lunchvodkas today. that would’ve been nice.
As a bit of a non sequitur, all the folks in my neighborhood up in MA pronounce Roanoke as “Row-nuh-key” sorta like the Meineke Mufflers.
I like that better than RowNoke.