Our own worst enemy

No, not women. You’ll never hear me say that. (Have you noticed that those who say women are their own worst enemy do so whenever the topic is sexist attitudes and behaviour? It’s a convenient way to deflect attention.)

Journalists.

The most noticeable thing about #grogsgate and #twitdef has been the silence from other journalists. Regardless of whether we are in the Massola/Mitchell camp or the Jericho/Posetti camp, journalists have stayed out of the public discussion about journalists, journalism and ethics, and this is a mistake. Our silence implies we’re siding with the journalists; siding with what looks to outsiders to be The Australian trying to discredit People On The Internet.

Bloggers are not a threat to journalists. Without journalists, we’d all be blogging about cats and Doctor Who, which would eventually get boring (the cat part, at least). And most of the bloggers who write about the news industry are writing about how it can be better. We don’t want journalists to be out of work – we want to know about what’s going on in our world and we need journalists for that.

But here’s the thing about that silence: journalists aren’t allowed to comment on stuff like this. I can only criticise the SMH because I don’t work for Fairfax. And, as a result of this blog, am unlikely to ever work there. (Although, in my defence, it’s the only newspaper I read which is why I blog about what’s in it.) As far as the print media goes – and by print, I include online because that’s where most of the content comes from – Australia is a two-company country so sticking the boot into the other mob is a career-limiting move. News organisations also have very restrictive social media policies that control private comments we make outside of work. They own our names.

The other reason journalists are quiet about this is because it’s drummed into us that we’re not allowed to have opinions, unless we’re specifically writing an opinion piece. We’ve adopted the idea of objectivity from American journalism and we hide behind it. I don’t buy the view from nowhere argument as reason to keep our opinions to ourselves. Firstly, because it doesn’t exist – bias shows in the people we choose to interview and the way we write the story. (Further, the idea that there are only two opposite sides to each story means we end up giving equal time to nutjobs). And secondly, because expressing an opinion about our industry is very different to, say, an environment reporter keeping quiet about being an active member of the Greens. Having an opinion about what we do is not a conflict of interest.

And so the conversation goes on without us and we look like we think we’re too good to discuss what we do with our audience. It makes us look arrogant and out of touch.

What are the organisations we work for so afraid of? That one single journalist, or even a dozen, might say in public – gasp! – that they disagree with what another journalist at the same company did? Are we, the journalists at the bottom of the food chain in these organisations, really that powerful?

At the moment, discussion about what we do matters a hellava lot. News organisations are spending a lot of money trying to find a way to make their audience pay for something they’ve always received for free. With news websites full of AAP copy and re-written AAP copy, they’d better include some free porn if they want us to pay for it. Oh, wait. Porn is already free on the internet. In that case, news organisations had better improve the product.

Thank goodness she got her looks back

In today’s Sydney Morning Herald is an article from the Telegraph in London, by Bruno Waterfield: Girl’s face grows back after three years:

A SWEDISH teenager has grown her face back after an allergic reaction to a single paracetamol pill caused the skin to turn black and peel off.

Eva Uhlin, 19, has recovered her looks after suffering an allergic reaction to the common painkiller, bought over the counter.

What purpose does the second sentence serve, other than to say she “got her looks back”? Her name and age could have been given in any number of the following sentences.

I’m probably a sucker, but I give journos the benefit of the doubt when it comes to language, because so much of journalese is tired and tied to cliches: The Greens have slammed the Government; Victim has spoken out about her ordeal; Tiger’s mistress has broken her silence; Thailand’s restive south…

It’s unlikely that Bruno Waterfield was saying “Phew, she’s pretty again” or that without her looks a young woman is worthless, but that’s what his words mean.

Newser pays #2

I keep going back to a piece Jason Whittaker wrote in March. He says the hope that ad revenue will support online news has been dashed and it’s time for consumers to pay. But it’s become a quality problem:

“Big media in this country baulks at charging for its online content because, they assert, readers will go elsewhere. It exposes the clear belief in management: that their content isn’t worth paying for. A quick thumb through any of the daily tabloids around the country and it’s hard to argue. It’s an insult to readers, an insult to hard-working journalists, and will ultimately spell the death of mass media around the world.”

He suggests an iTunes-style account for news, which works across all news sites. It sounds good, but Clay Shirky says it won’t work because how many news stories do you want to go back and read again and again? Which is fine if you’re just talking about a direct substitution of news for music. Now, I know Shirky is an expert in this area, but what if we’re just not being creative enough in the way we’re looking at it? What if wire copy was free – because everyone uses it – but the rest you paid for? It would have to be good, of course, not just the crap we serve up now and call news.

Shirky says it won’t work because you can’t establish a monopoly on news. True, but you can establish a monopoly on your journalists. In fact, news organisations already do with the contracts they make you sign. So why not advertise your journalists so readers know where to find them? We already do it with radio hosts, so why not good journalists?

Truth and opinion

Does truth matter in opinion pieces? Does it matter if you tell a white lie to illustrate your point?

Personally, I think it does. If you have to lie to make your point, then perhaps you need to rethink that point.

The reason I ask is because a journo I know recently wrote an opinion piece in which she said she’d been to uni, when in fact she’s done one semester of a one year diploma. (Do you like how I haven’t included a link? It could have been a great piece, but it isn’t.)

Lying about your education to talk yourself up in the pub isn’t a big deal – I had a housemate years ago who told people she had a psychology degree, when she’d only done a semester of first year psych and then dropped out of uni. I thought it was pretty funny, since I do have a psychology degree.

But that’s different to saying you have a university education to show how successful you are. Still, it’s not up there with SMH blogger Samantha Brett presenting herself as a “single gal” when she’s in a long-term relationship.

The ethics of Twitter

Here’s a question: When you’re out with a friend and they post Twitter updates during the conversation, apart from being rude, is it a violation of privacy? Is it any worse than repeating the conversation to other people later?

I may be the only journo not on Twitter because I think it’s a load of wank. People talking about their Twitter posts bores me almost as much as hearing about their iPhone apps. And when journos write opinion pieces about how they’re addicted to Twitter – six months after it became popular – it reeks of lame. Yawn.

Anyway, when do social media rules evolve and are they based on the real world?

Kyle fail, Jackie O fail, media fail

Reading comments on news sites over the last few days, it’s clear that most people – or most people who post comments on news sites, which may or may not be the same thing – don’t get why Kyle and Jackie O should get their butts kicked for asking a 14-year-old girl about her sex life. They think the problem is that when the girl revealed she had been raped, Kyle asked if that was her only sexual experience. (Thereby calling rape a sexual experience, rather of a violent one.)

But as much as he makes my skin crawl, I have to cut him some slack on this one as we’ve all said something dumb when put on the spot. Because what he said is not the problem.

Kyle, Jackie O and their producer should indeed get an almighty kick up the bum for deciding that strapping an underage girl to a lie detector and getting her mother to ask her about sex would be entertaining. The mother aside, that at least three adults did not think there was anything wrong with this situation is disturbing.

But then the story is reported as “Kyle, teen, rape revelation on air, stupid comment” and so it’s not surprising that readers don’t get it. Rape counsellors are interviewed to comment on Kyle’s stupid comment and no one is asked whether the segment should have been on air in the first place. And what we end up with is a large section of the public who think Kyle and Jackie O have been taken off the air because he said something stupid. Which means as journalists we haven’t done our jobs properly.

It also means that each time there’s a new “scandal” – The Chaser, footballers, take your pick – more people think each story is a media beat up.