Think Twice, Post Once
Ben Smith’s apology at The Politico for having announced that John Edwards would suspend his presidential campaign underscores both the new power — and pitfalls — of this Brave New Era of communications and media. In spite of Ben’s reasonable, understandable explanation about sources, later test results, etc., the underlying reality is that the rapid-fire, get-it-out-first nature of the internet played a role in putting a false story out there.
This “race for a scoop” mentality is not some modern innovation, of course; the MSM press has been trying to out-scoop one another always.
Added to that, though, is the undeniable truth that had Polimom (or some other low-profile blogger) written that post, it wouldn’t have gone viral. In fact, nobody would have noticed at all — at least, not until well after John and Elizabeth Edwards had held their press conference.
This incident is proof-positive that at least some of the blogosphere has fully arrived. Judging from the way this played out (CNN and Reuters both evidently picked up the story from The Politico), the pundits have been right; some blogs are indeed part of the media flow now.
But is that a good thing? Or maybe what I mean to ask is… Does the blogosphere have enough maturity and credibility to responsibly manage so much power?
Because make no mistake about it — this is very potent.
There’s been a great deal of blogospheric navel gazing, with accompanying proclamations that “we” are the new face of journalism… or even that traditional journalism is an outmoded, archaic dinosaur.
That may very well be true. If it is, though, then the old adage of “Think Twice, Speak Once” could use some dusting-off in preparation for its revival.
* * * * *
Others writing:
Ezra Klein at Tapped
CBS’ Public Eye (Brian Montopoli), who writes:
The larger question here is this: Why rush out a story like this at all, especially as the press conference was less than an hour away? Is the bump in traffic really worth risking not getting it right?
(Cross-posted from Polimom Says)
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8 Responses to “Think Twice, Post Once”
I’m confused when I hear things like:
“with accompanying proclamations that “weâ€? are the new face of journalism… or even that traditional journalism is an outmoded, archaic dinosaur.”
Who actually believes this? Says this? All I can see that blogs do is report what actual news media people find out and reference eachother. It is certainly helpful in disseminating information but not so useful in generating it in the first place. Traditional journalism is still and for the foreseeable future going to be the source of any information I get outside of the reach of my 5 senses.
Are you saying The Politico is part of the blogoshere? It’s not. If you’re not saying that, I miss your point about “the blogosphere arriving. “In tead what you also seem to be saying is if a blog had published it, it would have gone nowhere.
Plrease tell me where I am misunderstanding your words. Although I note the commenter above is also confused.
Thanks Temple Stark
Politico might not be a traditional blog, but I’d put as a member of “this Brave New Era of communications and media.”
Usually, blogs are actually quite happy to be behind the MSM in ‘scooping’. One of the reasons I usually like blogs is because the writers take time to absorb the info and then post some hopefully thoughtful comments. I thought this came about because blogs realized that they don’t really have the resources to beat out the MSM on the big scoops, perhaps the Politico just was a bit too confident in their sources.
Sam asked:
> “with accompanying proclamations that “we�
> are the new face of journalism… or even that
> traditional journalism is an outmoded, archaic
> dinosaur.�
> Who actually believes this? Says this?
Fools and children, that’s who. What’s changed mainly is that among younger people, news is being obtained on-line — from mainstream media or conservative-alternative-news or extreme-left Web sites, not from “blogs,” which instead are sources largely and mainly of opinion. (They are analogous to reader remarks that may be found accompanying news stores on several mainstream Web sites.)
>>this Brave New Era of communications and media.�
Thanks Kevin.
Hmm, I guess I don’t see it that way as they are all longtime print journalists and are owned by a media company. The thrust / goal / methods can be different, for sure.
By the way I’m a small-town print journalist, myself, who runs a few blogs. One is a Google New Source, as I believe TMV is.
- Temple
C W Nevius has a blogpost up at SFGate that talks some more about the blurring of lines:
Edwards: The Story MayHave Been Incorrect, But We Had It First
I’m much more comfortable, as a blogger, reacting to various unfolding events with opinion or analysis, and I agree that the vast majority of blogs do just that. But not all — nor is that all some aspire to, I think.
Politico isn’t quite a blog but it is indeed now part of the blogosphere. It’s largely an online site (but you can subscribe and get it in print version). And it operates by rules of the blogosphere in terms of instant news. IN reality, it’s doing what blogs should be doing which is to try and do original reporting. The problem with trying to do original reporting and get it up immediately is that if you don’t have confirmation you can be burned. That’s what happened here. I only ran our post because I saw two reports — msnbc and the politico. BUT after I posted it I realized: “What if they both had the same “blind” source?” In most instances I wait before events and don’t really trust it if I see it on a blog or just a website news site first. I wait until I see the wire services picking it up. The politico item had been picked up by some of them…but even so…it was something that could have waited a few hours on their part and, definitely, on my own.
>>And it operates by rules of the blogosphere in terms of instant news.
Joe, I don’t accept that characterization either. Have you seen how static Politico.com’s page is during the day. It doesn’t change much and when it does, usually so far, it’s to promote another story already written, not breaking news.
Newspaper and TV sites break news online all the time. They should and could do it more.
(I know, three weeks to reply. I was just checking in)