Can't the Media all get Along?

Submitted by kpaul.mallasch on Mon, 03/20/2006 - 8:57pm.

Heh. This is kind of ironic. I ran across this story at the SFGate tonight. Earlier, though, a very similar issue came up at Muncie Free Press. I've had a few journos tell me I'm wrong for thinking this way, but I really don't think I am. As journalists, we need to make decisions as journalists not as businessmen. (And believe me, I know this perhaps moreso than those still currently entrenched behind the towering walls of Big Media...)

Alan T. Saracevic wrote:

Newspapers are suffering and music publishers are litigating. Advertising dollars are floating from place to place, looking for safe harbor. And media consumers are drowning in a sea of information, unsure of what's trustworthy and what's false ... unsure of how to process all the data.

No one said revolutions were pretty.

This cataclysm has been going on for years, written about ad nauseam and debated at dinner parties until the coffee got cold.

But this week I had a minor epiphany. (A miniphany?) It started when a group of us reporters and editors in The Chronicle's Business section started a technology blog. It's called The Tech Chronicles (sfgate.com/blogs/tech) and it might be the last thing the world needs: another blog.

But the reaction, internally and externally, led to my miniphany. I was worried it wouldn't be good. I was worried no one would read it. And I might still be right on both counts.

But in the process of getting this thing going -- which to be fair is just the latest of countless digital projects The Chron and SFGate have undertaken over the past 12 years -- we reached out to the Bay Area's media revolutionaries and asked for advice. And in typical Bay Area fashion, the real revolutionaries responded in kind, encouraging us and offering to help the dreaded MSM bridge the gap between old and new.

I also saw a bunch of crusty newsroom types get newly jazzed about our ancient profession: finding information and passing it along. We're having a blast playing with a new printing press.

The combination of reactions gave me hope. Because for any of us immersed in the media's spasmodic reinvention, as a participant or consumer, the resulting mess has been ugly.

Now, I don't agree that all the best action is happening in the Bay Area, but it's nice to see the Old Media out there "working with" (not ignoring) the 'media revolutionaries' in their area.

For there to be hope for Journalism we (and by we I mean the journalists who live and die and breathe journalism) have to work together, no matter what side of the wall we might be on at this point. I mean, as journalists, we serve the people, or are supposed to serve them. And yes, the stockholders are people too, but the local people are most important and sometimes their best interest isn't heeded.

Anyway, here's hoping The Star Press turns around and starts working with me, or at least begins by acknowledging my existence.