Yesterday, at the 140 Character Conference, Jeff Jarvis criticised the newspaper industry and their online communities.
The conference looked at what Jeff Pulver calls “The State of NOW” – which is about how social media affects traditional industries.
Here’s some select quotes from what Jarvis presented:
“I defended [newspaper] comments for years. But the problem is that comments are too often the voice of assholes.”
“Newspapers don’t like to hear the voice of the people, and they are especially disturbed by the voice of assholes.”
“We allow comments only after we are done with what we’re
doing. It’s inherently insulting. We finish our work or stories and
say, ‘Now you can talk about them.’”
Shocked? I was. Let’s address his points:
“Comments are too often the voice of assholes.”
Now, that’s not strictly true. As with any situation where you put
people together, there will be those who shout the loudest, and those
who make their point quietly and succinctly. With online communities –
as with comments on newspaper websites – we gravitate to the comments
of twats. Why? For pure psychological reasons.
Those loud comments by ‘assholes’ are entertaining. And they make us
feel superior because we’re not getting involved with the news story on
that type of level. God, if we’re going to discuss the story, we’ll do it at a dinner party.
So let’s think a little deeper about the people who write comments on newspaper websites. Who are they?
If you’re reading this blog post right now, I can guarantee you’ve
never written a comment on a newspaper website. Or if you have, you’ve
done it once or twice. No more. Why do I say that? Because you’re just
like me. You work in the digital industry, you probably live in a city,
you definitely own at least one Apple product, and if you have children
born in the last couple of years they’ll have a retro name. I’m
generalising, obviously, but you get my drift.
So if it’s not you – or me – writing those comments, who is it?
We (and I mean you and I) like to think that the people
writing these comments are the type of people we’ll never be. We assume
these people are probably overweight, support the BNP, have issues,
live in suburbia, use a PC, and are poorly educated because they can’t
spell and don’t care that they can’t.
We like to think these ‘newspaper assholes’ have dubious personal
politics. They want to shut our borders, hate the way the government
wastes the ‘tax-payer’s money’ (even though they’re on benefits), and
even if they’re not sure where they stand on breast-feeding in public,
they want to make sure they comment on it.
But this simply isn’t true of the majority of people interacting with newspapers online.
How do I know this? Well, I’ve been in charge of the communities for The Daily Mail and The Sun,
and I’ve seen that yes, while there are comments written by people who
fit the stereotype I wrote above, there are also other ones. They’re
sensible, intelligent, and add value to a debate.
Yes, comments can be written by assholes, but the majority
of them aren’t. And you shouldn’t let your vision of this be clouded by
the loud ones who write the most attention-seeking remarks, or insult
everyone who interacts with a newspaper online. Great way to encourage
debate, Jeff. Impressive stuff.
“Newspapers don’t like to hear the voice of the people, and they are especially disturbed by the voice of assholes.”
1. I can guarantee that newspapers are NOT disturbed – especially or even vaguely
– by the voice of ‘assholes’ (commenting on their sites). They find the
more outrageous comments quite funny. Remember, newspapers have always
had a letters page, so they’re used to seeing a wide-range of thoughts
from their readers.
2. Newspapers DO like to hear the voice of the people. And I don’t understand why Jarvis thinks otherwise.
Take, for example, The Sun. Okay, so the paper may not be as
influential or as ground-breaking as it was in the 80s, but it still
does a fantastic job of claiming to not only listen to the voice of the
people, but being that voice. The Sun has a 24/7 community and
moderation team that actively encourages debate, and gets their readers
involved in the latest issues. When I worked there the opinions of the
people interacting on the site were taken to Conference, and The Sun
even recently launched SunVote,
to find out even more about what their readers are thinking. So how can
Jarvis say that ‘newspapers don’t like to hear the voice of the people’?
And one more thing on this. Jarvis helped write Murdoch’s legendary speech to the American Society of Newspaper Editors in 2005, when Murdoch said:
“Success in the online world will [be achieved by] listening more intently to our readers.”
Upcoming pay-wall or not, The Sun has always listened to its
readers, and will continue to do so – which is why they’ve invested
heavily in online community, and why most of the other nationals do so,
too.
“We allow comments only after we are done with what we’re
doing. It’s inherently insulting. We finish our work or stories and
say, ‘Now you can talk about them.’”
Or, actually, what’s more insulting is suggesting that a newsroom
can’t produce articles of a decent quality without readers (or, as
Jarvis calls them, ‘assholes’) getting involved.
Let’s be clear here. Journalists write the story, and
readers/users/consumers/’assholes’ (whatever you want to call them),
consume and then debate them. That’s the traditional model of news,
albeit on radio, TV, or the web.
I don’t understand why – with more interactive technology – this should change.
When the bombs went off on 7/7, I encouraged people from around the
world to tell their stories on the Mail website. The BBC did the same,
and from that came phone footage of the bombs, and some shocking – but
valuable – insights into what happened.
When the evil volcano ash cloud happened this week, you could see
people from all over the world sharing their stories about being
stranded. Again, it’s added-value, and it’s part of the story.
What it isn’t is that main story itself.
You can’t rely on your readers to write that story for you. How
could you? They don’t have access to the wires, they don’t have
investigative journalists working with them, they don’t have the money
or the resources or the contacts to write something credible and
truthful. (OhMyNotNews, anyone?)
So for that very obvious and basic reason alone, that news story has to be written by the newspaper itself.
And again, Jarvis is wrong in saying that once that story has been
written, that it’s over, and it’s only when it’s over that people can
comment on it. Okay, so perhaps that used to be case when people got
their news from the paper edition, and then wrote a letter to the
editor about it and popped it in the post.
But journalists constantly update their stories online, and more
often than not they take the points – and possible leads – presented to
them by readers, and follow up on them. I’ve seen it in action at the
Mail and The Sun, and I’ve seen exclusives come out of it.
So again, what’s Jarvis talking about?
I absolutely agree that no national newspaper has cracked the full
benefits of newspaper interaction. There definitely doesn’t seem to be
an obvious ROI for the thousands spent on it, other than it being a
feature readers want.
But why diss the people who work for those newspapers, and those who are in charge of doing their communities?
And, fucking hell, why call the readers who do get involved assholes’?
Have a bit of respect for people interacting with newspapers – and brands – all over the web. The future of news is
going to be more interactive, more on-demand, more personalised. So why
be rude about the trailblazing users? They’re making history right now.
Even if a minority of them are ‘assholes’.
(These views are my own, and are not necessarily those of Holly and James, who I work with at Spoke.)
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