Rate my journalist (.com)

I suggested last week that if the Internet means the decline of print journalism, the real question, as far as democracy is concerned, is whether democratic needs will be better served with a new breed of journalism, an Internet-based one, than it was served when news was distributed in print. In other words, if a change in the means of production and in the means of distribution – driven by the Internet - leads to a better-informed citizenry, then the decline of print journalism will not at all be an issue – from the democratic standpoint. I then pointed out that this was a big IF, one that needed to be tested. So let me now toy with the question with a quick case study.

I’m a big sports fan, bordering somewhere between obsessive and compulsive. I’ve held season tickets for two teams, the Paris Saint Germain Football Club (Paris, France), and the California Golden Bears (Berkeley, California). As far as Cal is concerned, I closely follow football and rugby, and used to track basketball, ice hockey and lacrosse as well. Needless to say, watching a game, live or on TV, does not fulfill my obsession, and the question of access to beat reporting is a key one.

Interestingly enough, my means of information for the Paris Saint Germain on one hand, and for the Golden Bears and the AS Cannes on the other, are completely different. The French paper Le Parisien (95 euro cents daily) features daily beat reporting on the team. The reporting takes as many as two pages on big days, and can be limited to a tiny box listing players who did not attend last practice because of injury, as well as the time and location of the next practice, on uneventful days. I buy the paper on a daily basis when I’m in Paris, solely for the soccer beat (I actually very much enjoy the rest of the paper as well, as it offers excellent local and political beat as well, but I would pay to get the soccer beat by itself). As far as the Golden Bears are concerned, however, I almost only rely on two fan boards, formerly known as cyberbears.org, but now split into an “official” board ran by ESPN and an alternate board hosted by the Scout network.

Why such a difference in news consumption patterns for both teams? One could think it’s a question of access to the print press: when in Paris, I buy the journal because I can; when in LA, I have to rely on the Internet to follow the Golden Bears, since the SF Chronicle and the Contra Costa Times are harder to come by. Except that I do read “Le Parisien” online almost every day when I’m in LA, rather than the Paris fan boards, and I could read the Chronicle online to follow Cal sports – but I don’t. In fact, I used to buy the Chronicle every day when I lived in the Bay, but never for the Cal sports reporting.

The actual reason that explains the differences in my consumption patterns has to do with quality. The Paris beat reporter is outstanding, whereas the fan boards are full of violent lunatics and Sunday coaches. The Cal boards are full of Sunday coaches as well, but they also feature a small number of retired alumni who have nothing better to do than to attend practice every chance they get and to attend all events sponsored by the athletic department. Some of those alumni have excellent writing talent as well, and their posts are both well informed and insightful. Overtime, they establish themselves, quality-wise, just like a seller would establish itself on EBay, except more informally. They become credible sources, trustworthy citizen journalists.

Will I be short-changed if the SF Chronicle goes under? No, because the citizen journalists, in this case, fulfill the role of the media in a democracy better than the print media does: the SF Chronicle is simply no insightful on Cal sports – whereas the Cal boards reporters are, to the point that some of them have become quasi-official writers on the Scout network site: they occasionally get a special order for a story that subsequently gets posted on the Scout main page.

The issue then is to be able to identify the trustworthy sources amongst the citizen-journalists. It is very feasible, as the Cal Bears example shows. But one problem is that this process requires time, whereas, the old guard will say, the print journalists are inherently trustworthy. I beg to take the later statement with a grain of salt. Experience shows that editing processes are very capable of failure. I can think of multiple instances where the mainstream – supposedly reputable media has falsified stories. And misstatements of facts occur every day. We’re told that too much information kills information. We’re told that bloggers and board posters are untrustworthy. But is it so, or has the print media just missed the boat? Could it be that those comments are no more than self-preservation moves?

So why not try this: an EBay-like rating system for bloggers, board posters, and “legitimate” journalists. Not rate-my-professor anymore. Rate my journalist.

Commingling of Arguments

We’ve heard a lot in class about the sadness of seeing familiar print papers disappear. While I can certainly agree with that, I have the feeling there’s a confusion – conscious or not, of two arguments: an economic argument on one hand, and a democratic argument on the other. Those should not be mixed.

Why should we care about the doom of print papers? One footnote to start: I don’t believe in the announced doom of print journalism. At times of history, there have been crunches in certain industries, but it doesn’t mean those industries have necessarily disappeared. While there has been a crunch in the print industry – as there has been in many industries affected by the internet – calling for the doom of it is premature. So let’s call it a decline. This decline is usually presented as something bad. In fact, it is usually presented as something dramatic. And this assessment is usually presented as self-evident. Here, I’ll argue that we should challenge the foundations of such reasoning. So I’ll put it bluntly: why should we care about the decline of the print news industry?

Most arguments I’ve heard in class and elsewhere revolve around two considerations, one economic, and one which I would call a backward-looking argument. First, people in the industry are scared because of the loss of jobs. This is a legitimate concern. Losing one’s job can be dramatic. The second type of argument I hear goes along the lines of “this is sad, I grew up with this paper,” or “this is sad, this paper was the heart and soul of this city.” Again this is an understandable argument. So from the economic standpoint, and from the backward-looking standpoint, the decline in print journalism is a bad thing.

However, those arguments should have no bearing on a more fundamental question: which impact will the Internet have on democracy? If the Internet means the decline of print journalism, the real question, as far as democracy is concerned, is whether democratic needs will be better served with a new breed of journalism, an Internet-based one, than it was served when news was distributed in print. In other words, if a change in the means of production and in the means of distribution – driven by the Internet - leads to a better-informed citizenry, then the decline of print journalism will not at all be an issue – from the democratic standpoint. It could even be a blessing.

Clearly this is a big if, and one that must be tested. But what must be done first is to separate the economic argument and the backward-looking argument from the democratic one. Jobs do not equal democracy. It is not at all self-evident that the decline of print journalism will mean that democracy is short changed. When assessing that last issue, economy should not be taken into consideration.

PS: One counter argument will be that economic prosperity is a pre-requisite for democracy. I will already address that one by suggesting that evidence suggests otherwise. For example, in the 2008 Reporters Without Borders Press Freedom Index, France, the fifth richest country in the world, ranks 35^th, 14 places behind Jamaica (21^st), and right behind Ghana and Mali (tied at 31st), all much poorer countries than France is.