The storyline of what most people are saying is, “Yikes. It’s pop culture over hard journalism. Society will collapse. Etc.”

First, let’s be clear: the pursuits of journalism and the pursuits of publishing aren’t the same.

Journalists seek to create compelling information that is helpful and news-worthy.

Publishing seeks to push more product, deliver higher circulation value, and create more value for sponsors/advertisers/money-holders.

Publishers need content creators of some stripe to do what they do. Journalists don’t need publishers, but publishers pay, so that’s a decent place to connect with an audience and be paid.

But never confuse the two.

The move by AOL is both smart for business and helpful for journalists who’ve lost their jobs.

Does this spell the end of news as we know it? Um, no. But news has been broken for a while now. That’s a good chunk of what Jeff Jarvis writes about when he’s not writing about Google. (Oh wait: Google is a publisher/media company, too!)

See how tricky this is? But don’t let your “shame, because we want purist journalism” to get confused in there with the “publishers give people what they want, and what they want is pop content” argument.

It’s harder than that to unravel.

And you said…

Valeria Maltoni has an interesting post about how journalists are now engaging fans. I’m lucky to have met and spent time with news people like Jennifer Cabala and Jamie Yuccas and Jim Long, who are people outside of their stories as well.

Some people are engaging. Some people are just turning in news the way they have all along. Others are learning what it means to be a storyteller with a face instead of the vessel of information.

And this isn’t just about news. This is a corporate story. This is a small business story. This is a relationships-are-good-again story. And the people who know how to storytell in this new space, and who know how to be a personality while telling these stories are poised to do interesting things. The medium has changed. The methods have changed. The opportunity has changed.

Jen and Jamie and Jim are three passionate people who aren’t just the news any longer. Don Lemon isn’t just a suit at a desk. You’re not just an employee in the machine. And there’s a chance for that to be interesting and useful.

What would you do with it?

Jeff Jarvis does it again. This time, he talks about how Arianna Huffington saves journalism. He’s not wrong. She is front and center of the mindset of people doing new, good, amazing things with journalism. Jarvis knows because he’s been screaming and shaking his chalky fists at everyone that things has to change, and then he told everyone what things had to change, and then it was up to you (in this case, “you” was journalists and the media).

But the story is about the signs.

Are You Watching?

Thomas Friedman’s book, The World Is Flat told us tons about what was coming next in business. He wrote about value chain disaggregation. He wrote about how things would splinter into components and that we’d have to hold on to the most valuable part of our various business workstreams, because a lot of it would move off to other places.

How many people made business changes accordingly?

Marketers, are you paying attention to who’s spending how much and where when you read magazines, watch TV, or see billboards? Are you extrapolating out what it means to you, your business, etc?

Expand Your Sources

No matter what your business (or whatever your use for social media), look for informational and inspirational sources outside of your main discipline, your vertical, and outside of even simple reason. Find stuff way outside your typical scope, and way far away from your own point of view.

Ask yourself frequently, “Where does this lead? What could this mean?”

If you’re in media, the stories are all around you. The model’s broken. Yep. The numbers are smaller. Yep. People aren’t as into paper. Yep. Ads online don’t make as much money as on paper. Sad, but yep.

Some companies are figuring it out. Others are just paddling forward.

The same is true for many thing: advertising, marketing, big companies versus more flexible companies, and several other things.

We can find signs, and we can decipher what they mean, or we can just shovel entertainment into our heads, and unplug every night.

Am I ranty? A bit. Am I wrong?

Photo credit Chimpanz APe

If you squint, and remove your “purist” filter, USAToday looks like a microblog. The paper has little bite-sized media bits, easily consumable, with nuggets of data that are useful and fast to absorb. CNN Headline News does the same thing. They work the short form news format, with fast info, quick data dumps, and as they are trying out lots of personable interactions, it’s even turning a bit two-way. (Not that long form is bad, and there should definitely be a place for lengthier journalistic work, but as a consumer, I believe we’re trending more towards the short info.)

We think often about how the web is so amazing and how communication works online, but to really get a sense of dynamism, don’t forget to look at what’s going on offline. This makes me want to look at my blog differently. I wonder if Chris Pearson is up to the challenge of making a magazine formatted theme, or Thesis skin. Wouldn’t this blog be a lot more consumable if you could switch between smaller pieces and long form?

Thanks, USAToday, for what you’ve contributed to information consumption/display models.

The following is a post from Alex Howard, brilliant tech writer, passionate local human, and someone I’m glad I know.

I I share Chris’s enthusiasm for public radio and for WBUR in particular. "Local Social- How WBUR Gets the Public in Public Radio" was a great post. And @EricGuerin, it was great to meet you in person.

I grew up listening to WHYY in Philadelphia and then to WMEW in Maine. WHYY was part of the rhythms of my family’s daily life during commutes, cooking meals or on weekend errands. It wasn’t until I moved to Boston, however, that NPR became much more closely woven into the fabric of my daily life. For the past decade, WBUR has consistently demonstrated over and over again just how good public radio can be at reporting on a community and telling deep, compelling stories about the what’s happening on the streets, in the cafes and around the boardroom table. (The station has won some well-deserved awards along the way.) I’m hesitant to call WBUR the best public radio station in the country but I’m certain there isn’t a better one.

Clearly, I’m a fan. As you say, Chris, they get it. Robin Lubbock and Ken George are quietly setting a new standard for social engagement through social media outreach. Just follow WBUR on Twitter to see what I mean. Keith Hopper is similarly blazing a new media trail for the Public Interactive group at NPR.

They’re all using the same social software and platforms that businesses and other organizations are leveraging on the Web now to interact with their listeners and audience. I heard Andy Carvin on Morning Edition today; his conversation with Scott Simon demonstrated exactly how well much NPR’s social media strategist ‘gets it.’

What’s exciting to me as both a long-time listener of public radio and citizen is how perfect the fit is between NPR and social technologies like blogs, podcasts, microblogging and virtual worlds. NPR has been at the forefront of podcasting, a natural evolution given their rich, deep catalog of syndicated shows. The challenge as they move more into this space is how to support the considerable expense of supporting the news coverage around the clock.

I hope that the technology for fundraising and direct electronic donations will catch up to the lightning-quick pace that advances in communication platforms have seen in recent years. Chipin widgets for blogs and microgiving campaigns using Twitter using services like Tipjoy hold some immediate promise in 2009. For instance, Web listeners streaming WBUR or other NPR news stations could immediately give a micropayment at the point of contact, replying to a tweet containing a story or clicking on a button below the “listen here” link on WBUR.org.

I’ve heard similar cases made for micropayments used for readers of the NYT, WSJ or Economist on a Kindle. It’s not a stretch to imagine an NPR application for the iPhone or G1 that has a similar “click to give” function during fundaisers. I dream about the day when I can donate and then be able to listen to programming free of the earnest pleas of the pledge drive — except, perhaps, for Ira Glass. His requests for money are always hilarious.

The WBUR tweetup on Thursday was an experience that will stick with me for some time. The conversation you led was, as you described it “all over the place.” When we talked about “business models for displaced journalists,” it was in the context of Adam Gaffin of Universal Hub, one of the best hyperlocal blogs around, who joined their ranks this past week. (My only regret from the night is that I missed Keith Hopper’s discussion. Fortunately, we can all listen to an Open Conversation on Hyperlocal News at KeithHopper.com). Questions about how newspapers, magazines and radio stations will make the transition through the massive disruption to their business models aren’t a matter of speculative fiction. As William Gibson has said,”The future is already here – it’s just not evenly distributed.”

He’s right; it’s happening right now, here in Boston. Time to go do some dishes while I stream Morning Edition through my iPhone.

You can read more from Alex Howard at Digiphile.

The Conversation

Here’s what Ken did well: he invited us into several conversations. Keith Hopper led what I’m told was a great conversation on hyperlocal as it pertains to media. I started off a conversation about participatory media, which then almost immediately went all over the place, covering business models for displaced journalists, the question of how public radio stations might shift into being curators and editors more than frontline reporters, and several other great angles.

The People

Every gathering is different, but what I loved about the WBUR event was that Ken George and Keith Hopper and everyone from WBUR who was around made an effort to make us all feel really great. I’m feeling really bad because I can’t remember Margaret’s last name, but she took me in her office and we talked about editing and sound and how radio is so intimate. It felt great, and I didn’t get a photo. (May I come back and do an interview some time?)

At the tweetup, there was everyone from Doc Searls to Shava Nerad to Mike Langford to Eric Guerin to Alex Howard and so many more. It was a grand time filled with wonderful discussions.

Public Radio and the Public

Public radio relies heavily on personal donations. There are corporate sponsors and there are occasional grants, but for the most part, it’s really “listeners like you” who keep it alive. With that in mind, it’s this embracing of the public, especially in this case the wired public, that will potentially keep a station like WBUR alive. How? Because once we know the face behind the voice, it’s a lot harder not to want to see the institution survive and thrive.

Will the walls of public radio become porous and let in more two-way experiences? I believe that’s where lots of media experiences will shift. We’ve seen the host-caller model for decades. What comes next (perhaps) is dozens of hosts and a few curators, plus the ability to interact at different levels. We see this last piece realized in the frequent use of, “For more information, visit WBUR.org and click on ‘news’” types of moments in broadcasts.

By the way, want a sign that WBUR gets it? Check out Inside WBUR. Front and center of the page? A Flickr photo slideshow of what? Mostly people visiting WBUR during these social outreach events.

Great job, gang. See you again soon.

This post by Ken George has even more info about the event, and his blog is worth checking out, too.

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• Getting public radio on your iPhone now a bit easier (macworld.com)
• U.S. public broadcaster NPR cuts jobs, programs (cbc.ca)
• NPR’s budget cuts memo * (laobserved.com)

I have a lot of fun reading blogs and often learn a lot. But as a trained journalist, sometimes I see things in a blogger’s copy that bugs me a bit, and sometimes I read stuff that makes me cringe. Some of it just confuses me, and some of it appalls me. So, when Chris asked me to write a guest post on what bloggers can learn from journalists, I decided to make a list:

What Bloggers Can Learn From Journalists

1. It takes time to gain trust. If you post something that has an “agenda,” be upfront about it. Being deceptive, unethical or manipulative may get you short-term results, but the long-term impact to you and your efforts will be detrimental. Most big stories by journalists have come only after they spent months or even years getting a source to trust them.

2. You are what you write. Whether it’s 300 words or 60,000 words, you have to make sure it’s accurate. A Pew Centre survey on bloggers found that while 34 percent of bloggers consider their writing to be a form of journalism, only 56 percent “sometimes or often” spent extra time trying to verify facts. Always double-check the spelling of a name, the name of an organization, dates, etc. If you want to be taken seriously by those outside the blogosphere, you’re going to have to verify your facts 100 percent of the time.

3. Use attribution. Journalists are trained to always provide a source for their material. This helps put the information in context, and tells the reader you’re not just making up stuff. It shows that you have a dedication to getting it right.

4. Step away from the computer. It’s easy these days to think that all questions and answers begin and end on the Web, but don’t insulate yourself that way. Talk to people on the street. Listen to conversations in checkout lines or while waiting for a movie.  Learn how to ask questions of people outside your circle of friends and acquaintances – that’s what will net you a golden nugget of information that no one else has. Anyone can regurgitate what they get from Google. It’s the effort to get original information and look beyond the obvious that grabs attention and respect.

   
   

5. Look for the news peg. Journalists have always known they’ve got a limited amount of people’s time, so they need to make sure no one says “so what” when reading a story. If you tie your information to a current event, it makes the story more relevant for them. For example, if you have a “green” company, then Earth Day is a perfect time to use it as your “peg” to attract attention.

6. Be consistent. Journalists use the Associated Press Stylebook, a rulebook we use to make sure our “style” is consistent. (For example, we write out numbers less than 10, and use numerals if it’s 10 or more.) You don’t have to use this stylebook, but you should understand it is distracting when your writing style is all over the place.

7. Precision is key. If you carefully consider each word and each sentence, then you’ve put yourself in another realm as a writer. Precision helps you gain respect and legitimacy because is shows you’re taking your writing and reporting seriously, even if you’re writing humor. At the very least, consult a dictionary, thesaurus and grammar book. All the Web site flash and dazzle in the world won’t cover up poor writing riddled with spelling and grammar mistakes. Trust me: If there’s one typo, one spelling error, someone is going to call you stupid.

8. Just get on with it. You may hate me when I tell you this: I’ve never had writer’s block. I’ve been writing for a long time, and I’ve never once sat down at a keyboard and had a blank brain. Here’s the key: Just blurt out loud the first thing that comes to mind when you think of your subject. This is a technique taught to all first-year journalism students, and it has never failed me. The point is not to labor over your lead. Once you get something down, you can get on with the rest of the story. If you “overwrite” your lead, readers will quickly lose interest and move onto something else. And one more point: Deliver what you promise. Don’t sensationalize your lead and then fail to back it up with the information in the story.

   
   

9. Rewrite. One of the most important parts of any good story is the rewrite. When I wrote my second book, I spent three months writing it and three months editing it. I put on five different hats when I read the copy: 1) as writer I made sure the copy flowed easily; 2) as a reporter, I made sure the copy included solid facts and sources; 3) as a copyeditor, I made sure I used proper grammar, correct spelling and looked for ways to tighten the copy so that it was concise; 4) as a workplace/career journalist, I made sure I was giving people information they wouldn’t find elsewhere; and 5) as a reader, I made sure that even if I knew nothing about the subject, it was still clear. (By the way, don’t try and put on all these hats at once. You’ll lose focus and get confused.)

10. Understand you’re creating history. That may sound dramatic, but it’s true. Your writing will last forever. Don’t abuse the privilege of being able to record the events and feelings of our day. With every word you write, you’re leaving a record for future generations, and that’s not an assignment anyone should take lightly.

Anita Bruzzese is a syndicated columnist for Gannett News Service and USAToday.com. She is the author of two books, including “45 Things You Do That Drive Your Boss Crazy,” named one of the top 10 most notable books by the New York Post. Her website is www.45things.com, and she can be reached at anita@anitabruzzese.com

I’m thinking about media companies a great deal as I say this. Tom Steinert-Threlkeld wrote a piece about how older media organizations are having a rough time figuring out the new stuff. Here’s a quote:

The Fourth Estate hasn’t done that great a job of creating a Fifth Estate, on the Internet. Name one breakout online site or service created from within an established media company.

Beyond this, there’s a lot to absorb, and it’s worth checking out. I pulled that one quote to say that it is interesting to consider.

Consumer Reports or Consumerist? (hat tip Paul Gillin for this idea)
People or Perez Hilton?
Newsweek or the Huffington Post?

I’m not one of those “kill all the old newspapers” types. I think there’s a lot a company can do. But it’s HOW one gets there that I’m starting to wonder about.

If I Did It

I’d make an “escape pod” model, something like this:

• Pick a small core team, half insiders, half raw new outsiders.
• Stake them a startup seed round.
• Let them go a few months on that.
• No corporate oversight, only report backs. It’s spend/try/live-or-die.
• Assess. Good? Then raise an A round or give them more corporate assets.
• Revise revenue targets.
• Observe. Kill, or green light.

I’m starting to think this is the way to incubate ANY property in this newer media environment, and I’m curious as to your take on the above model, and/or whether you think traditional media organizations CAN put new crops into the ground without pulling up the roots to check how they are growing?

What do you think?

Photo credit, lexdenn and sage.

Meet the next generation of people who put stories out on the web. I say “next,” but blogging has been around for years and years. Some of us are making decent money at it, hiring and employing staffs, etc. Those types seem like mainstream press. But they’re not. One difference? We blog based on what drives our passion, plus in the case of some folks, what drives revenue.

Blogs have reach. Blogs don’t have as many barriers to cross before you reach the decision maker. Blogs don’t (always) require a PR agency to help you get access. Blogs always need good content, right? So it seems like a natural thing to just lob stories at a blogger, because more often than not, they’re going to be receptive, will run the bit if it fits their readership (viewership), and everyone wins, right?

Some differences.

Bloggers Often Write From Passion

Lots of us can’t NOT blog. We love what we do. We’re obsessed with getting information out into the world. Desperate to be useful. I’d say that we’re like news junkies, only we’re really interested in how we can contribute to making the news.

Bloggers Have a Bit More Ego Feeding Required

Try to disagree with me on that one, but when I just start rattling bloggers’ names down quickly, I can tell you that there are things you’ll want to do to reach out, and one is to know what makes a certain blogger tick. Want to get into TechCrunch or Mashable? Be sure you’re giving one the exclusive, and pick wisely. Want to get covered by Engadget? Don’t give it to Gizmodo on the same day. Go a few tiers down in blogs and what we want is to know that you know who we are, and what we cover. A pitch about something in my general area isn’t the same as noticing the kinds of things I write about and giving me something that fits.

Bloggers Like Free Prize Inside Experiences

If you want us to write about your software app or your new gizmo, give a few away. Nokia, Nikon, Flip, GM (Saturn), Garmin, and tons of other companies have given out gear on loaner programs (sometimes handled well, and other times handled a bit weirdly). And if it’s not something directly tangible, it’s something like getting invited to a pre-screening of a movie, or to a closed beta of an application, or something else that makes one feel exclusive. Still an ego play, and yet, very effective because once we play with your toys, we’ll be inclined to write about them.

Will we be fair and give opinions on the competitors like an official review site? Not always. Depends who it is, whether that’s part of their bailiwick, and whether they even know how to approach such a thing. I sure don’t. If I’m given something free to mess around with, I disclose it when talking about it, but then, my site isn’t a journalistic effort to review things fairly.

Bloggers Don’t Have To Be Polite

Though I prefer politeness, and try to be polite often (Sorry, Tom), it’s not required. And we don’t always do what you’d wish. It’s a little uncertain sometimes what you’ll get when you send a request to us. Wish it weren’t true, and I would prefer that we be polite more often, but we don’t have to be.

What Twitter Had to Say When I Asked My Friends

(That’s a hint, too. We’re far more networked. We talk to each other. We talk about YOU.)

Pitching ME

First, I have to say that I’m not usually on the lookout for a news story. If you read back through my posts, a great many of them deal with strategy and tactics that people can employ. I read about 1000 news items a day, plus I have a day job that isn’t professional blogging. So, I don’t always need news.

And yet.

If you’ve got something interesting about a new tool, a new way that someone’s using social media to build business or organizational relationships, a sense of what’s interesting to me and want to feed me something, here’s what you might do:

• Be my Twitter friend.
• Have read my last ten blog posts to have a sense of my flavor.
• Give me links, pointers, possibly screenshots, and follow up in about 9 days when I still haven’t managed to get your story out.
• Kindly understand if the story doesn’t fit what I cover (often).
• Realize that I can’t always check out your website.
• Understand that a “social network for ____” (dogs, lawyers, imaginary friends, ex-cons) isn’t really new unless they’re doing something REALLY new.
• Write the first paragraph of your email as if you really did only send it to me (I get it, but pretend, okay?)

While We’re At It

Here’s what I *am* really interested in writing more about, and where you can help me, if you’ve got an interesting story:

• Social media and network use inside the enterprise. (Spoke at Thomson/Reuters and IBM recently and was really impressed in both cases with what they’re already doing).
• Specialized social network applications – things that make a network more valuable, vs just profiles, blogs, pictures, and friends.
• Books about social media, social networks, next-generation PR/marketing, business, etc.
• Business models that aren’t advertising-centric. (For instance, Sermo has a neat model. So does Gimp.TV).
• Mainstream people coming into social media in a realistic and meaningful way.
• Nonprofit and organizational experiences with social media that have made an impact.
• Location-based tools and networking (for instance, I’m digging Yahoo’s Fire Eagle stuff)
• Technology that improves business, that improves personal interfacing with the Internet.

I’m probably forgetting a few of my favorites in there, but let’s start there. If you’re pitching something like THAT, drop me a line. My contact info is in the sidebar. I’m easy to find.

Further Reading

Social media expert, Jason Falls covered an advertising professional’s view on this recently, and that’s worth checking out, too.

Edelman’s superstar, Leah Jones showed us how to talk to bloggers.

Your Thoughts?

Lots of people who come here are PR or marketing professionals, journalists, and the like. What do you think about what I’ve said so far? What are your tales of success with bloggers, or your tales of woe? Bloggers, am I wrong in my starting concepts about what might feel different about bloggers vs mainstream press? I’m eager for your take.

Screen caps made with Skitch

Journalists

Journalists, at least those who have received professional education and training, have responsibilities, have certain skills, and have certain inherent traits assumed about their conduct. The United States, as a nation, uses journalists to keep our government (and to a lesser extent, larger corporations) in check, by vigorously reporting their actions. It is assumed that journalists disclose their biases in specific reporting cases, and that they work towards reporting at least somewhat objectively.

***UPDATE: Just found this great article by Scott Karp about how journalists need to better understand the web. Thought it applied.***

Bloggers

Some bloggers tend to work with journalistic standards in mind. Others are trained journalists. Still more are professional journalists have come into blogging out of necessity.

And then there are the rest of us.

Plenty of bloggers, like me, just use this medium to write what we think and feel. You’ll note that my site is fairly light on “research” in the traditional sense. I read the bejeesus out of the blogosphere, but I don’t go out and research and ask three hundred people to answer surveys. I don’t attempt objectivity. I don’t attempt to be unbiased. I do disclose as often as I can or remember to do so. But I’m not a journalist.

I don’t want to be a journalist. I think they’re great people, some of them, and I respect them, some of them, but I sure don’t need to be a journalist to tell you what I think. I share. I inform. I query. But I sure don’t intend to represent anything as a journalist.

Who Cares?

There are times for journalists. I like that they’re out there keeping government and corporations in their sites. I’m hopeful that they continue to deliver value. I want them in our lives.

But I’m also excited for the velocity, the facility, and the ubiquity that bloggers bring to information sharing. I love that bloggers are abound, embedded in our communities, ready to share information at the drop of a hat. I’m grateful that there are networks of us sharing information, reposting information, and driving insight into the various corners of what we’re passionate about.

Without these millions of bloggers, we’d be missing some interesting things. Because we can take these tools to use for ourselves, we have a powerful opportunity to try new things, to learn about things that might be overlooked by others who are following different incentives than some bloggers have. Because of all this information, we have the ability to learn more, share faster, and discover new opportunities.

At times like that, I don’t care which hat you wear. Thanks for helping me find something interesting out there.

What do you think?