Below the Fold

We Are the Firemen

In May 1993 – the exact date and time escape me – my inner world, the one where thoughts are born, developed and processed, lost its ability to be silent. I since have lived with constant noise, the result of a tumor that, in an ironic nod to God’s comic grace, left me deaf in one ear yet covered in a perpetual blanket of ringing static.

Sometimes it’s not too bad, other times it’s so loud it sounds like there’s a KISS concert in my cranium. But it is always there, never fully abated, never completely quiet. It will never be quiet, and it has been so long I have forgotten what quiet is, what silence sounds like, what kinds of thoughts stillness brings. How much smarter, how less painful the headaches and seizures, how more aware of my environment would I be if only I could hear more – and then, like most people, dial down the volume and hear nothing but thinking.

Rather than go insane, I did the next best thing – I went into marketing. Turns out my decision was less pathos than it was prescience, as I watch my former trade of journalism in some cases melt away, in others morph into a new kind of socially-driven journalism enabled (if not always ennobled) by modern technology.

THE DESCENT OF PRINT alone is not a problem for a our society. But the descent of thought is. And this death of reasonable thinking and discourse has given rise to a ringing in all our ears, a cacophony of “social media” for its own sake rather than the sake of the consumer.

Don’t get me wrong (though I guarantee someone will) – I love technology and Web 2.0. I believe in the power of conversation and the promise of connecting people to each other with authentic communications. But in this new silicon rush we far too often discount what’s gone before, throwing judgment into the intellectual pyre like so many worn newspapers.

In other words, in our well-meant effort to broaden and share our knowledge, are we also destroying the very knowledge and reasoned discussion we so boldly claim to seek?

Because we can connect with people like ourselves, we do. And then we act as if other opinions don't exist -- or if they do, then don't matter. We do this within our social networks, the pseudo social media intelligentsia do it at conferences and on their blogs, and the news media does it by giving us news tuned to whatever ideological frequency we desire.

We jump to conclusions and applaud hyperbole until the slightest chance of digesting an idea is gone. That idea is destroyed forever, lost in the echo chamber of self-important consultants and rash Twitter feeds.

Never before in human history has so much information been available so readily to so many. Yet although we are creating and writing more, we are saying less.

IN FAHRENHEIT 451, RAY BRADBURY’S seminal novel about censorship and intellectual intolerance, a “fireman” was someone who burned books. Well, we don’t burn books per se, but we burn discourse. We don't destroy newspapers, but our actions are killing them off just the same. We are the firemen.

So this is my warning and my plea: don’t get caught up in the social media panacea. Instead, experiment and decide what works for you and your company. Focus on the customer first and the technology second. It’s okay to take small steps, to do what’s best for your business, to embrace new tools at your own pace even if it goes against the “purists” who argue that there’s only one way move forward.

And above all, take time to think, to plan, to discuss and learn. Embrace the unknown and reject those who insist they know it all. Find some silence and make decisions without being surrounded by so much noise.

I would give anything for just a few seconds of mental peace and quiet. Don’t squander yours.

Ten Tweets I'd Like to See

Hillary08: Stuck in Indiana, please send money

God: Creating the world in seven days was a piece of cake, but writing something meaningful in 140 character fragments is a real pain in the a...

SocialMediaGuy1: if you’re not using Twitter then you are obsolete

ADD: Twitter is the coolest what yeah Pounce is the greatest what totally you going to finish those fries

Dr. Phil: As if I wasn’t overexposed already

SocialMediaGuy2: Twitter is obsolete

Dubya: Which one of the Internets is this?

G24khamr: If someone who publishes a blog is a “blogger,” how come people who use Twitter aren’t called “Twits”?

PhilGomes: I hear that guy from Bladerunner is in another movie this summer called “Indiana Jones”

SocialMediaGuy3: Does anyone remember the URL for my blog?

                           

Hillary08: Stuck in Indiana, please send money

God: Creating the world in seven days was a piece of cake, but writing something meaningful in 140 character fragments is a real pain in the a...

SocialMediaGuy1: if you’re not using Twitter then you are obsolete

ADD: Twitter is the coolest what yeah Pounce is the greatest what totally you going to finish those fries

Dr. Phil: As if I wasn’t overexposed already

SocialMediaGuy2: Twitter is obsolete

Dubya: Which one of the Internets is this?

G24khamr: If someone who publishes a blog is a “blogger,” how come people who use Twitter aren’t called “Twits”?

PhilGomes: I hear that guy from Bladerunner is in another movie this summer called “Indiana Jones”

SocialMediaGuy3: Does anyone remember the URL for my blog?

                           

Journalism's Next 100 Years

I got a call from the University of Missouri Journalism School, my alma mater, reminding me of the 100th anniversary celebration this year. Founded in 1908, Missouri was the world’s first journalism school and is still regarded as one of the best.

Yet while overall it was a great first hundred years for American journalism, it’s the next 100 I worry about. Or in the prescient phrase uttered by ABC News anchorman Charles Gibson at Pennsylvania’s recent Democratic presidential debate, “the crowd is turning” on how professionals report the news.

History is the art of hindsight, so writing about an event before the ink dries and the digital bits settle is at best unfair. Nevertheless, you don’t need Galileo’s vision to see that the Pennsylvania debate marked another in series of dark turning points for the news business.

The financial pain we’ve known for while – as this year’s State of the News Media study revealed, advertising revenue is still going down, as are pre-tax earnings, profit margins and stock values. Even online newspaper advertising, while up 20 percent in 2007, is growing slower than online advertising as a whole, and is 10 percent lower than last year.

Newspaper owners answered with widespread staff layoffs, leading to less local reporting and therefore fewer readers which – you guessed it – resulted in less revenue. It’s also meant narrower reporting, with issues like Iraq and the presidential elections representing the majority of coverage. And it’s meant an unhealthy attraction to transient stories that are the equivalent of chewing gum, the media smacking its lips long after the gum has lost its taste.

All this came to a head in Pennsylvania. What should have been a debate about the future of the country became a Fox-style reality show about flag lapel pins. And the people responded, with boos in the audience and thousands of comments on ABC’s web site. The media itself became the story – a story prompted by ordinary people now with extraordinary access to the once powerful press.

Last year’s YouTube debates will be remembered for authentic questions about real-life issues from a mosaic of American culture. The ABC debate will be remembered as the day modern journalism died in a cacophony of tabloid-style interrogations, punctuated by the nervous laughter of a once proud newsman, gasping to stay afloat in a sea of discontent.

ABC should have known better. It should have known that news in the next 100 years will be more “service” that product, something that people will look to for intellectual guidance. News is a conversation, or as the BBC’s Richard Sambrook has said, a partnership – and in this sense, ABC failed its partners miserably.

Consider this: When asked about his debate performance, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos said, “The questions we asked…are being debated around the political world every day.” A commenter on ABC’s web site said, “"Some of us actually live in the real world and care much more about real issues like food and gas prices.”

This is where we need to start the next 100 years of American journalism – in the real world. The crowd is turning, indeed.

                           

I got a call from the University of Missouri Journalism School, my alma mater, reminding me of the 100th anniversary celebration this year. Founded in 1908, Missouri was the world’s first journalism school and is still regarded as one of the best.

Yet while overall it was a great first hundred years for American journalism, it’s the next 100 I worry about. Or in the prescient phrase uttered by ABC News anchorman Charles Gibson at Pennsylvania’s recent Democratic presidential debate, “the crowd is turning” on how professionals report the news.

History is the art of hindsight, so writing about an event before the ink dries and the digital bits settle is at best unfair. Nevertheless, you don’t need Galileo’s vision to see that the Pennsylvania debate marked another in series of dark turning points for the news business.

The financial pain we’ve known for while – as this year’s State of the News Media study revealed, advertising revenue is still going down, as are pre-tax earnings, profit margins and stock values. Even online newspaper advertising, while up 20 percent in 2007, is growing slower than online advertising as a whole, and is 10 percent lower than last year.

Newspaper owners answered with widespread staff layoffs, leading to less local reporting and therefore fewer readers which – you guessed it – resulted in less revenue. It’s also meant narrower reporting, with issues like Iraq and the presidential elections representing the majority of coverage. And it’s meant an unhealthy attraction to transient stories that are the equivalent of chewing gum, the media smacking its lips long after the gum has lost its taste.

All this came to a head in Pennsylvania. What should have been a debate about the future of the country became a Fox-style reality show about flag lapel pins. And the people responded, with boos in the audience and thousands of comments on ABC’s web site. The media itself became the story – a story prompted by ordinary people now with extraordinary access to the once powerful press.

Last year’s YouTube debates will be remembered for authentic questions about real-life issues from a mosaic of American culture. The ABC debate will be remembered as the day modern journalism died in a cacophony of tabloid-style interrogations, punctuated by the nervous laughter of a once proud newsman, gasping to stay afloat in a sea of discontent.

ABC should have known better. It should have known that news in the next 100 years will be more “service” that product, something that people will look to for intellectual guidance. News is a conversation, or as the BBC’s Richard Sambrook has said, a partnership – and in this sense, ABC failed its partners miserably.

Consider this: When asked about his debate performance, ABC News’ George Stephanopoulos said, “The questions we asked…are being debated around the political world every day.” A commenter on ABC’s web site said, “"Some of us actually live in the real world and care much more about real issues like food and gas prices.”

This is where we need to start the next 100 years of American journalism – in the real world. The crowd is turning, indeed.