Poynter Online

Auletta: Internet Disruption Similar to Cable in the '80s

By Julie Moos

For his new book, "Googled: The End of the World As We Know It," longtime media analyst Ken Auletta spent two and a half years with Google and traditional media companies to understand how the search giant has changed the way news spreads.

In a clip from a "Q&A" interview with C-SPAN's Brian Lambthat airs this weekend, Auletta explains what bugs him about traditional media, how the Internet disruption is like the cable disruption of the '80s, and what's different about this change:

"One of the things I take away from this two-and-a-half-year visit to another planet, including visiting back with traditional media companies, is that I am harsher on the traditional media companies than I am on Google. (Though I'm sure people at Google think I'm too critical of them on some things, and I am critical of them on some things.)

"But what really bugged me about the time I spent with traditional media were a couple things. One is, is how late they were to understand the new digital world and how the Internet changed the game. And they had to change and play a new game and they weren't doing that. 

"The book -- you interviewed me once -- that I wrote, called "Three Blind Mice," was about how the television, the three television networks, which were dominant, missed the cable threat, the threat from the new technology, which in the '80s and early '90s was cable. And they missed that and they were late. They could have invested in cable, owned cable, they didn't do it. They were afraid of the cost -- short-term thinking. And the same thing happened here with traditional media: didn't invest, didn't plunge into that digital world and Internet world the way they should have, and they waited too long.

"... When I hear people in traditional media today whine about, 'Oh, woe is me, they're doing these terrible things,' I have no sympathy for that at all. 

"... The head of Nielsen Company said to me -- he's a former GE executive who's now the CEO of Nielsen -- he said to me, there are two types of people in this world. There are people who lean forward and there are people who lean back. And the people in traditional media were leaning back. And in this new world which is changing so fast, you gotta lean forward. 

"The other thing I learned, and I write about at some length in this book, there's a conceit that people in Silicon Valley have, that the Internet is the most transformative technology the world has ever seen. That's crap. It's not the most transformative. Electricity was much more transformative. In fact, you wouldn't have an Internet without electricity if you think about it. It powers everything, including the Internet and our laptops and everything else. 

"But what's different about this period of change than any other period of change is the speed of change. It is all happening in an eye blink. And that creates an enormous amount of insecurity in executive offices, and it should. People are terrified, and why shouldn't they be?"

The full, hour-long program airs Sunday at 8 p.m. EST on C-SPAN. The book will be released Tuesday.

Auletta doesn't feel sorry for traditional media execs

Poynter Online
They were late to understanding the new digital world and how the Internet was changing the game, and refused to play a new game, says Ken Auletta. "There are people who lean forward and there are people who lean back. And the people in traditional media were leaning back. And in this new world which is changing so fast, you gotta lean forward." || More Poynter Online features:
> Not sure what Twitter Lists are all about? Read this
> Seattle Times, hyperlocal sites collaborate on coverage
> NOLA.com benefits from expats staying connected to NO
> Moving from short-form journalism to historical books
> Who and what drives Seattle's independent news sites

BW president leaves the mag, stays with McGraw-Hill

BusinessWeek
"I am proud that I played a role in ensuring that BusinessWeek has a new home at Bloomberg, where it will thrive under the leadership of Norman Pearlstine," Keith Fox tells his staff. The McGraw-Hill veteran didn't say what role he'll play at the company after helping with the transition to Bloomberg ownership. || Peter Kafka: BWers should be thankful ZelnickMedia didn't win the mag.

Authors Describe What it Takes to Move from Short-Form Journalism to Historical Books

By Bill Kirtz

Top reporters detailed at a Boston University conference this week how they moved from deadline to years-long projects and blended storytelling and research skills to bring the past alive. Isabel Wilkerson, who won a Pulitzer Prize at The New York Timesand now directs B.U.'s narrative nonfiction program, made a point that many echoed throughout the day: Journalism and history borrow from each other. "We want compelling narrative reporting to try to make sense of a complicated world," she said. Pulitzer-winner Tim Weiner told the B.U. audience that he turned his CIA beat reporting for The Philadelphia Inquirer and The New York Times into a book by keeping his notes and delving into tens of thousands of declassified documents. The result was "Legacy of Ashes," a history of the CIA that won a National Book Award.  He compared the job of condensing so much information "to turning an ox into a bouillon cube" while retaining the flavor. "Bait your hook for the reader" in the first few pages, he advised, saying he rewrote his opening section 24 times. And to keep decades of events clear, "there's no logic like chronologic."  Vanessa Mobley, who has edited two Pulitzer-winning nonfiction books, agreed that the best books go through many drafts and that some have to be "boiled down" in length. Mobley, a senior editor at Broadway Books, a division of Random House, said she looks for original stories and a "fruitful combination" of subject and author. Her advice to reporters with authorial ambition: Think about new ways of telling stories to get beyond the ordinary. "What is the theme driving this story?"  In "Black Hawk Down," his award-winning account of a U.S. humanitarian debacle in Somalia, Philadelphia Inquirer columnist Mark Bowden tried "to illuminate a moment in time as deeply as I can. ... My goal wasn't to interpret but to explain. I keep my opinions to myself, my goal is to flesh out in more detail and try to understand how and why things happen."  He noted that his book necessarily isn't the whole truth; Somalis would have a dramatically different view. His hope: that historians and political scientists can build on his reporting. Bowden, who also writes for The Atlantic and Vanity Fair, drew nods from the audience when he said, "Good journalists write authoritatively only about what they know."  Annoyed by what he called pundits' "pose of omniscience," he said every nonfiction writer should "be honest with the reader and yourself about how much you know and why. The real temptation of journalists is to pretend they know more than they do."  Larry Tye chooses his topics by finding "a story that needs to be told." In "Satchel: The Life and Times of an American Legend," the former Boston Globereporter who now trains medical journalists traces the Jim Crow era through pitcher Satchel Paige's colorful career.  For this, his fifth, book, Tye found researching easy, using daily reporting techniques. Interviewing old ballplayers (including an 111-year-old) was the "fun part," and journalism training came in handy when checking out claims of decades-old athletic feats. He aims for compelling narrative in hopes of focusing "a lens onto an era; we all look for that perfect little story that tells a bigger story," such as separate drinking fountains for blacks and whites to illuminate the Jim Crow era.  Tye blended lucid writing -- so bright 9 and 10-year-olds could understand Paige's exploits -- with research that produced 72 pages of footnotes and bibliography. "You can't wing it with book editors anymore," he said. "You have to have deep subject knowledge."

Why Greising left the Chicago Tribune for the Chicago News Cooperative

Chicago Reader
One reason: he didn't like the Tribune's new direction. Sam Zell's managers identified their audience as "frenzied families" and "carefree couples" -- yuppies perceived as having a greater desire to be understood and indulged than informed, says David Greising. He came to believe that hard, complicated news was no longer the Tribune's "sweet spot."

People mostly use the Internet from 9-to-5; that won't affect newspapers

The Morning Delivery
That was a Plain Dealer editor's thinking about a dozen years ago. Bill Lucey recalls asking in 1998 why the PD wasn't making more of a presence on the web. "The editor gave me disgruntled look... and then cited an unnamed study, which showed online users mainly used the Internet from 9-to-5 for a variety of information, nothing that would impact newspaper readership. As I was escorted to the guillotine by a security guard in July, 2008, I only wish that Plain Dealer editor had been right."

LAT's Lopez: "I can't imagine ever retiring from this"

University at Buffalo Spectrum
"It'd be like retiring from life," says Los Angeles Times columnist Steve Lopez. "It still doesn't feel like work." His one regret is turning down a foreign reporting opportunity. "My kids were too young and I couldn't very easily move the whole family, and then I went through a divorce and that made it even more complicated. That's probably the one thing I wish I had done that I never did."

Some Inmates Could Get H1N1 Vaccines Before General Publi

By Al Tompkins

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is concerned that the Swine flu might spread through close quarters such as prisons and jails. Inmates who are in poor health or otherwise at high risk could die.

So, inmates may get flu shots ahead of law-abiding citizens. Sphere.com noted that prisons, day care centers, schools, colleges and nursing homes, which all have populations in close proximity, are breeding grounds:

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention issued guidelines to states listing categories of people who are highest priority for receiving vaccinations against the virulent influenza strain known as swine flu. Christopher Cox, spokesman for the CDC, said the high priority guidance applies to higher-risk people whether they are in a prison, a homeless shelter, a school or a nursing home.

 

'' 'What we're looking at is vulnerability to getting sick and dying of H1N1. That's what we're trying to prevent,' he said.

 

"That has raised eyebrows in states like Massachusetts and Texas, because criminals with health issues may end up getting the shot before the general public."
 

As you might imagine, the thought of inmates getting priority treatment is not sitting well with some folks. In Austin, Texas, KVUE-TV reported that "State prison and health officials are standing by their plan to vaccinate some prisoners, but they say any inmate who gets the vaccine will have to wait in line with everybody else." Later, state officials responded by saying most inmates will not be given priority, only the most "at-risk." 

In Washington state, the Department of Corrections confirmed that doses of the vaccine have already been sent to two prisons.

In Ohio, the Dayton Daily News said the Department of Rehabilitation and Correction expects delivery any day now:
        

"More than 8,800 prison inmates may get H1N1 vaccinations before many Ohio school children, workers and families have a chance to be inoculated against swine flu.

"The Ohio Department of Rehabilitation and Correction said it expects delivery any day now for 10,876 doses to cover 1,984 prison medical workers and 8,892 inmates who are pregnant, diabetic, under 18 years of age or have chronic pulmonary or immuno-compromising conditions."

Related resources

• Some inmates in Canada may get shots before prison workers do.

• Mexican jails have limited visitation due to the flu. The limitations resulted in a prison riot last spring.

Report: NYT top editors checking complaints about Sorkin's book

Gawker

Some of Andrew Ross Sorkin's Times colleagues accuse him piggybacking on the reporting of NYTersDon Van Natta and Gretchen Morgenson without giving adequate credit in his book, "Too Big to Fail."John Cook reports executive editor Bill Keller and managing editor Jill Abramson are investigating, and public editor Clark Hoyt might examine the matter.

Newsday loses Gray Matters columnist because of pay wall

Topic:	Letters Sent to Romenesko
Date/Time:	10/30/2009 1:39:16 PM
Title:	Gray Matters columnist leaves Newsday
Posted By:	Jim Romenesko
From SAUL FRIEDMAN: Your readers may wish to know this: After 13 years of writing "Gray Matters" for Newsday and the McClatchy Trib service, and more than 50 years in newspaper journalism, (for Knight-Ridder and Newsday), I have severed relations with Newsday and will write for Ronni Bennett's Time Goes By. I will write the weekly Gray Matters as well as a twice monthly essay, "Reflections." The main reason: The new owners of Newsday, Cablevision, have shut  off access to its web site, even to me. It is available only to Newsday subscribers or to subscribers to Cablevision's ISP. Thus I cannot send my columns to people who don't subscribe to Newsday. And if it is picked up by Google or Yahoo, it would not be accessible. [Permalink]