Sandra Knispel of Mississippi Public Radio has a story about blogging and the Scruggs cases this morning. She talks to David Rossmiller, journalist/journalism professor Joe Atkins, Alyssa Schnugg of the Oxford Eagle, and me. She presents blogging as opinion-based as opposed to fact-based-reporting, using a quote from Rossmiller and from Atkins. She does have Alyssa comment that, when covering this story, she first-thing looked to Folo and then to Pacer. During the interview, I told her that I basically didn’t subscribe to the myth that journalists were objective, and noted how a journalist would report opinion by finding sources that expressed the opinions they sought to express. That comment hit the cutting room floor, but the use of the Joel Atkins quote (a quote that suggests to me he has not looked broadly at blog reporting) provides a good example of what I was talking about. I’ll post audio later if I can get it, along with additional comments.
Update: Story can be found here.
I said for the most part, blogging IS opinon. Now, what NMC does here for everyone is different when he’s posting documents and what happens in a court room. But 90 percent is opinion. But no reporter would ever take something they read on a blog as fact without checking it out first, that is if they deserve that title of journalist.
And NMC, I can assure you I’m unbiast. I really don’t care in this case. That sounds harsh, but, 1. I don’t have personal relationships with anyone involved being new to Oxford and 2. I’m poor. 3. I didn’t go through Katrina or sued tabacoo companies. Sure, what happened sucked. Sure, bribing judges is a bad, bad thing. But I’ve dealt with dad’s molesting their children, mother’s selling their kids for crack, people getting killed by a drunk driver and kids stealing a widow’s wedding ring during a burglary. In the grand scheme of things that I deal with (those were all in Oxford and in the last year) criminally, Scruggs and his crew are just another headline. I do my job, and write what happens, what others say, what others do and what reports are filed.
So I promise you, some of us really are objective in this case. I leave the judgement up to the judge.
“NMC, I can assure you I’m unbiast. I really don’t care in this case. ”
I don’t think you are biased in a way that infects or harms your coverage in the least way. I’m not sure why you thought I’d said that. What I did say in the interview (on the cutting room floor) is that having a point of view is in the nature of the human condition and pretense that one doesn’t is an illusion. That’s more a philosophical statement than an accusation.
I was just going off on your statement. Haven’t heard the radio show yet. And it was just comment really for anyone, not just you, on the issue of biast reporting and so forth. I didn’t mean to seem like I was attacking. I wasn’t. Pre-coffee is all!
One thing I will go on record as saying, where I do have an opinion in all of this:
My heart goes out to Mrs. Scruggs. As a woman, a mother, I can just imagine the horror she is going through. That’s where I allow myself to feel anything in regards to this case. I’ve never met her officially, as I’m sure she will see me as the enemy, but if I could, I would give her a hug. And that goes to all wives and children of everyone involved in this case.
I just felt like saying that. It’s not really related I guess, just something I’ve wanted to say for awhile.
And NMC, what you said in the previous post about all the work you done is correct. You’ve been amazing and I truly appreciate your work. What you have done, isn’t what I normally view as “blogging.” You have put many of us in the media to shame.
I thank you and Lotus for Folo as it truly has been a great source for me.
One of the rare mornings I had MPB on. What a surprise it was to hear our very own NMC on the airwaves!
LydiaLaw:
First, I agree with your comment about Mrs. Scruggs. I can imagine the pain– most people my age have an analog in their life– and feel for her. I have no idea what it means precisely, though, because I don’t know them.
Second, thanks for what you said about the coverage here.
There is no such thing as objectivity in journalism.
What passes for it is the faux-balance of on-the-one-hand and on-the other, etc. By that standard, Holocaust deniers at the very least get an even break. That’s the extreme example. But you know what I’m talking about and you see it all the time in the mainstream media, especially in political coverage.
To be true to the craft, a journalist must be accurate, fair and thorough. That, unlike objectivity, is attainable.
And in that sense, good and true journalism would necessarily include quotes or attributed facts and statements that give a reader/listener enough information and context to, ta-da, reach an informed opinion likely similar to the one the journalist came away with.
It is possible to provide the information in a way that folks of different mindsets come away pleased enough with the story. But far from always.
NMC et al. apparently got snipped by someone who had the story in mind before reporting it or interviewing for it. There is a story to be done about blogs and opinion, but that wasn’t it.
The squeeze on journalism qua journalism is coming from blogs (the tubes themselves are killing the financial model.) We have quickly moved to cocooning in niche areas, e.g. blogs, that support our way of looking at the world. The Nation magazine and National Review have been offering this for many years. But now it is ubiquitous.
This is more the European style of journalism, in which news organizations sort of start out with the view of left or right. They’re not necessarily playing fast and loose with the facts; they just hammer harder on the ones that make sense to them. (The older I get, the more I wonder if we’re simply born looking at the world one way or the other, like being gay. Some friends think I’m feeble when I say that.)
Interestingly, the Europeans are much more politically knowledgeable than Americans, probably thanks to the journalism. Here, blogs are forcing the mainstream media to ‘fess up to how much they really know and what they think about it.
p.s.
I always love those surveys about journalists being liberal. Duh. Same type survey would show that Wall Street finance people are conservative.
Neither the media nor the blogs have done justice to the insurance story. From the beginning, State Farm has spun this as Scruggs and Hood and Lott out of control, and almost everyone has accepted that premise. So we got a lot of he said/she said coverage focused on the personalities with little exploration of the facts or the law.
Judy Guice nailed State Farm for the wind/water protocol advising adjusters that only the flood policy pays when there is both wind and flood damage. William Walker and Jack Denton nailed them in Broussard for making no attempt to distinguish between wind damage and flood damage. The US Attorney still has an open grand jury investigation of insurance companies as far as we know. Only Anita Lee writes about these things. Everything else is more gossip than news. Public radio itself has been obsessed with the personalities, in this as in almost everything it covers.
For the most part, the national articles and columns have been cartoonish sketches by business writers who accept the industry’s spin that this is about Scruggs.
Rossmiller, of course, is even more biased than the WSJ editorial board, and he has driven the blog argument.
NMC has been very fair, but he is covering the courthouse in Oxford, not Senter’s court, so his focus is the Scruggs case and other North Mississippi connections.
thanks, Researcher, and you are correct about where I am. I’m simply not up to taking on the whole insurance story, although it is a critical part of the overall picture. I also think that Judy Guice (and Flip Phillips?) would provide a key contrast on what a lawyer does, so I agree with your example of what’s missing. Unfortunately, also, I strongly suspect that a major part of the picture is going on in state court, where only those with access to the courthouses can really tell the story of what is going on. No one seems to be capturing that part of the picture enough so I can have a clue about it. What’s happened to Jim Hood’s state court case, for instance, and what is going on in the state court equivalents of McIntosh? Surely there are such.
NMC: I’d like to fist off say your reporting on the Scruggs case has certainly been more comprehensive than my own. Your lengthy posts describing new information have always helped me understand better what is happening, and for that matter has many times pointed out important legal arguments I simply didn’t understand. If somebody were to receive an award for best Scruggs coverage it would be you, with out a doubt you’re the best. However I still feel journo’s need to report the story the way we do, some people just don’t get on the net and read, they pick up the paper to look at a plethora of local news.
Its no secret you thought print media wasn’t covering the story as well as it should be, however we can not always write three stories in one day as you mentioned you did in the broadcast. We can’t rename the Daily Mississippian the Scruggs Newspaper, as much as I wanted them to. Plus there was about six weeks The DM wasn’t running after the indictments were handed down, I was gone and couldn’t report. However the day Scruggs’ office was searched I had the story, and when Clinton cancelled the fundraiser I was working on the story when the AP broke it. Sometimes we have to wait, I hate it but it’s just the way it goes. Then when the DM started running again I had many stories pertaining to Scruggs on the front page.
I guess when I wrote boasted I felt like you were attacking the news reporters following the case. You didn’t like our coverage and knew you could do a better job so you started blogging. If you didn’t mean to come off that way I am sorry.
My comment about blogs being equal to talk radio did not exactly mean you or all your posts, but sometimes that’s what it was. For example you posted the press release last week about Operation Falcon. Speculation then ensued as to what the meeting really was. Many people thought it would be the announcement of new Scruggs charges. As we all know that wasn’t the case – very talk radioesque. Then your comment about me and kool-aide is something I have heard Bill O’Reiley say a number of times, and he is a talk radio super star. I am too young to know exactly what that means, but I guess you are suggesting I have no idea what I am talking about. I think I know a little bit of what I am talking about. Either way you would not find a comment like that in a newspaper.
Also without reporters checking on certain issues bloggers would miss things that reporters catch. Remember when Keker was listed as Zach Scruggs attorney and we were all confused, it took a simple email to find out it was a mistake.
Yes you got the story out much faster than any new reporter, but we have to follow the rules. We are required to go through the editorial process. Somebody mentioned in a comment they are tired of journalist complaining about too little time to get a well researched story in by deadline. Well I spent more nights reading 100′s of pages on Scruggs, then getting my story in hours past deadline. For me, this was all new; I had never read a legal brief or tried to write a story on what was in one. It was guess work and I thought I did OK, I am sad to some people felt otherwise.
When I say folks didn’t give Scruggs the benefit of the doubt, by the time much of the evidence was released it started becoming clearer. All the same there were questions raised by Scruggs that seemed to me viable arguments that needed to be brought up to ensure the case against him was fair.
Also federal cases allow bloggers to do there job easier. Most courts do not have a website where you can find all the legal documents. We have to go to the courthouse, find the case, pay a dollar per page then do the reading and writing. We also have to make phone calls and check facts. We can be sued if we write the story a certain way, I don’t know if any bloggers have ever been taken to court for their posting’s. But my point is we have to be careful.
As blogs become more popular it is important to remember they/we work hand in hand with newspapers. And I don’t think NMC or Lotus or Rossmiller have it out for newspapers, as NMC said, he commonly puts links to the news stories, as do most bloggers. In fact blogs might be helping online websites get more clicks and have a larger readership, I just worry when blogs become the authority and newspapers are forgotten.
Ok, dm, you wrote: “You didn’t like our coverage and knew you could do a better job so you started blogging. ” That is, I suppose, your guess about what happened but it is untrue, and if you’d looked back through the archives you’d realize that.
I started commenting on the site because I knew principals in the story and lived here and thought I had a perspective that could inform. I also thought that no one but possibly the prosecutors knew what was going on, and was fascinated by the connect-the-dots game of everyone coming into comments with their own bit of the story and trying to add it all up to a narrative.
I was invited to blog because my comments were interesting to Lotus. My view of the reporting in print media had exactly nothing to do with my decision to do that!
Can I assume you were just surmising without knowing?
Paul also wrote: “Also without reporters checking on certain issues bloggers would miss things that reporters catch. Remember when Keker was listed as Zach Scruggs attorney and we were all confused, it took a simple email to find out it was a mistake.”
Check the archives again, Paul: A professional journalist wrote about Keker’s supposed appearance for Zach without checking with Keker, and there was egg on the reporter’s face; there was blog wonderment about it, all right, but only after it ran in a newspaper. You’re right, an email would have avoided embarrassment.
Here’s some Wikipedia help for you on “drinking the Kool Aid:”
The earliest known use of the term in its figurative, non-literal context (that is, outside of descriptions of people actually drinking real Kool-Aid), is from a 1987 quote about former Washington, D.C., mayor Marion Barry in the Washington Post.[2]
The term is derived from the 1978 cult suicide in Jonestown, Guyana. Jim Jones, the leader of the Peoples Temple, convinced his followers to move to Jonestown. Late in the year, he then ordered his flock to commit suicide by drinking grape-flavored Flavor Aid laced with potassium cyanide. In what is now commonly called the “Jonestown Massacre”, a large majority of the 913 people later found dead drank the brew. (The discrepancy between the idiom and the actual occurrence is likely due to Flavor Aid’s relative obscurity, compared to the easily recognizable Kool-Aid.) The precise expression can be attested in usage at least as early as 1987.[3]
The saying “Do not drink the Kool-Aid” now commonly refers to the Jonestown tragedy, meaning “Do not trust any group you find to be a little on the kooky side,” or “Whatever they tell you, do not believe it too strongly.”[4] Fox News commentator Bill O’Reilly is famous for using the term in this manner.[5]
Having “drunk the Kool-Aid” also refers to being a strong or fervent believer in a particular philosophy or mission — wholeheartedly or blindly believing in its virtues.[6][7]
Didn’t know O’Reilly used the term (I guess I don’t listen to enough talk radio) but I’ll say it without the cultural reference:
If you think that what is occurring on this blog, or for that matter on Rossmiller’s blog (or on Talking Points Memo… Brad DeLong’s blog… etc. etc.) bears a resemblance to “talk radio” as distinct from “real journalism” you are buying into a faith-based as opposed to reality-based view of what is going on.
I had to ask someone what it meant and they said Bill O’Reilly stuff, I don’t listen to talk radio either. I wouldn’t say this blog is particullarly talk radioesque, but for the most part that’s what blogs are. Open forums for people to talk about the news. you and the others are changing the way blogs are percieved, however there is still the conversation side that makes it talk radio. Like this back and forth we are doing right now, is this not like talk radio?
You are right when you point out the Keker mistake, however it took a reporter to check the facts was my point. I dont think you are anti-newspaper, however because MPB’s story made it sound as such I had to threw in my two cents. I hope you are not taking any of this as personal as it seems.
NMC has made a good point to me that maybe this isn’t talk radio. More like folks talking at the water cooler, or in a bar. I rather like this theory and hadn’t looked at this way. Maybe I’ll retract my earlier statements. Its always nice to have a discussion on the direction of the media.
dmwriter: I took some of it fairly personally. And the point you make in 14 is critical: The MPB interview I did was premised (from the reporter side, not mine) on setting up a print-vs.-blog dichotomy. That was her point of view. It’s a legitimate point of view, but the interviews were just the dots she connected and no more “what was there” than the big dipper will be there when and if you look for it tonight.
dmw, you said earlier, “… on a blog, I can write whatever I want.” Well, I suppose you can . . . but if you think you can go on writing as carelessly every day as you have today, don’t be expecting a long career in any New Journalism that does without copy editors. Just sayin’.
Something interesting dmwriter touched on when he said he couldn’t turn the DM into the Scruggs paper. Same for the Oxford Eagle. You wouldn’t believe the amount of comments that were made from readers tired of reading about Scruggs. Many people here, not in the legal profession, find it hard to relate to this story. Some are simple people and would prefer reading people features and news about ‘real’ people. The paper has to make everyone happy. These people wear suits to court that cost more than most people here make. Scruggs is larger than life in many respects and many Lafayette County people don’t consider him a local. You would be surprised how many people in this town really could care less about any of this. Wrong or right, it’s the truth.
People have stopped me on the street and have asked me if I have a personal grudge against him since I would write about it all the time. We just can’t make everyone happy all the time.
But I stand by my statement that blogs, in general, can’t be considered a factual news source. There are blogs about everything out there. And most people post behind screen names so as a reporter, I could never quote someone from a blog. So overall, blogs are more like discussions ABOUT the news, rather than news sources.
And I said in general, because some blogs, like Folo, have been a source for news. But we have to consider blogs on the whole.
blogs are more like discussions ABOUT the news, rather than news sources
Bingo, Lydjah. That’s all this one ever meant to be — but first Dickie Scruggs & Co then NMC happened by, and as he mentioned upthread, folo became something I wasn’t expecting — something that, thanks to him and later you too, actually did break some news.
I love these surprises — as well as the ones like Ben Cole’s this morning. Ben: respect and thanks.
I can’t argue with much of what you say, Lydia. I also think that there has been some local resentment of the story among “friends of the Scruggs,” who don’t understand why folks won’t shut up about this thing that is causing pain to their friends. I’ve heard that repeatedly.
Additionally: I have an observation. You wrote: “blogs are more like discussions ABOUT the news, rather than news sources.”
I’ll rewrite that: “newspaper accounts are more like discussions about the facts, rather than fact sources.”
Blogs provide a different function than print journalism in my opinion. Both can be an important part of one’s “daily news diet.”
“I told her that I basically didn’t subscribe to the myth that journalists were objective, and noted how a journalist would report opinion by finding sources that expressed the opinions they sought to express. ”
There is no doubt that this is a correct statement. It is human nature to be biased. And we are all human, including journalists and bloggers. Like NMC said, its not an accusation. IMO, it is an observed reality.
Such is why I NEVER trust any print media source, or any other source 100% for information. If an issue is important to me, then I will gather information from many sources to help shape my opinion about it.
Journalism is not really a profession. It requires no license, it has no true code of ethics with consequences for a breach, nor is it governed by any board or entity with powers to level fines, etc. for stating things that are not true. It is loosely governed within the contraints of the First Amendment, our civil laws for slander, etc., and a publication’s own internal management policies. And for obvious reasons, I would not want it any other way. But, it is up to us as readers to realize its limitations and take it for what it is worth. If we don’t like what we are reading or hearing, think it biased or unfair, etc. , then we don’t have to continue purchasing it and/or reading it or listening to it. And that aspect of it brings in free market factors that also serve as a loose form of judgement of the product.
Long live the free press. It is essential to our freedom. Also essential to our freedom is the ability and desire to question the information we get from the press, and discern for ourselves what to do with that information.
Lotus: I am leaving for Tyler Tx today, sorry I can’t edit my comments to your liking, I have 8 hours of driving a head of me. However I will say that I try to always use words. If you are going to take a shot at me I feel free to take one back. Its cute and funny when you make up words, but it isn’t professional by any means. I knew you guys wouldn’t agree with my post but didn’t think this would turn into the attack Paul Quinn show. People who have personal blogs can write whatever they want, how can that ever be taken as seriously as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal. People should remember we all need editors, nobody is perfect and even folks with professional blogs get there stuff edited before posting. As a writer I know people will critique every word I write, as well as criticize what I write about. I have learned not to take this personally and was in no way attacking this blog, just merely pointing out why I think news media is better than blog media.
Weeeeellllll, I’m not going to wade into this one.
One question: On/during what MPR show did this interview air? Is it Mississippi Edition or some other show?
dmwriter, ducking and running, wrote: “People who have personal blogs can write whatever they want, how can that ever be taken as seriously as the New York Times or Wall Street Journal.”
Actually, it can. Blogs are a former of specialty journalism, almost like trade journals. On subject where a blog writer has established their credibility (e.g. Josh Marshall on inside baseball stuff about politics, Brad DeLong on economics or academia) or came to the blog world with credibility (Richard Posner’s blog comes to mind), I would view blog posts as having more credibility on certain issues than either the Times or the Wall Street Journal.
If Judge Posner comments on law and economics on his blog, I am going to have a strong presumption it’s going to be better informed than anything anyone at the Times can say about that subject.
And honestly I think Folo has covered the Scruggs cases vastly better than the Times. I hope that doesn’t sound arrogant, but the Times has usually been behind the curve and even not particularly accurate on this (e.g. misreading a deposition to report that P.L. Blake was getting $15m when he’s getting $50m). The Wall Street Journal when it has covered this has done an excellent job with which I could not hope to compare as far as the reporter’s job of going round and interviewing people, but I think a blog post has a newspaper beat on posting about and linking to documents and saying what they mean.
They are different forms. They have different advantages and even different utilities. Declaring one is better– which you are doing and I am not– doesn’t match the reality I see.
I understand what you mean about an editor. It helps to have a second set of eyes help, and even more so a trained set of eyes. That’s a function issue; print journalism has it’s own problems of function, and does not have sufficient protections in place (editors included) to prevent the occasional errors, just as there are errors with blog posts.
DeltaNative:
It was during MorningEdition, at 6:35, 7:35. It was not in Mississippi Edition. I’m told later today it will be available online.
Good. I’m looking forward to drinking the Kool-Aid.
Long time lurker coming out of the shadows…
NMC you posted earlier that “you are buying into a faith-based as opposed to reality-based view of what is going on.” I would have to suggest you are doing much of the same. I agree w/ you that blogs present a wonderful supplement to your daily news diet, however, you are leaving out – in defining blogs as akin to specialty journalism – the fact that blogs are, by their very nature, dialectic. Posts are presented on blogs in part to illicit commentary from others with informed (that may be questionable) and respectful opinions and views. In fact, if you view the “about” page on this blog miss lotus herself devotes a large portion of time to etiquette based on the idea that she would like as many people as possible to read and post their comments here. So with that in mind, I think your movement away from similarities w/ talk radio and association with “real journalism” is also a faith-based move on your part. A blog defines itself, it is a dynamic, constructive form of media that might have more to do with the commenters as it does with the moderators. I realize there is some need for us to define something by using known entities (ie print media, talk radio, etc.) but I really think that when you do not realize that there is a strong correlation between blogs and talk radio (dialectic forms of media, often driven by specific issues determined by moderator) you are failing to see a large part of what blogs actually are. And I realize you did not say there was no correlation, but your rather adamant departure suggest so, in my humble opinion.
Back to the bushes….
Ducking and running. Or just visting his mother. Either one I guess is true. I wasn’t talking about Scruggs and NYT being better than y’all. But I doubt a blogger could cover Iraq or the upcoming election as well as the national media. For the Scruggs case bloggers have been the authority, no doubt. It was easier as a blogger to cover this case, check pacer and there is everything you need. But those murder cases Alyssa covered I too followed. Patsy B did as well. For those you have to find the news, go to the court, call the lawyers, research the details, before sitting down at the computer. It’s competive, and there is no way to know when new developments occur. Also, When Alyssa and I covered the Bracey murder trail we had to see pictures, and listen to testimony about a dark and gruesome murder. My point being was it wasn’t easy. Scruggs is different, sweet potatoes and bodies…I mean wtf. I think if we look at the overall blogoshpere, the majority of writers are not trade journalist (which its safe to say you qualify). Most bloggers are people just trying express themselves, talk about what interests them. And when people start just looking to blogs for news our uninformed public will multiply. I don’t want to imagine what happens then.
My first phone internet blog ever, I’ll be in touch.
To dmwriter:
I will take folo or insurancecoverageblog any day of the week over the NYTimes, WSJ, Clarion-Ledger, Sun Herald, DM, or Oxford Eagle when it comes to coverage of the Scruggs case. That is where I get the facts, as well as interesting commentary. The same was true of the Duke Rape Hoax — the blogs, particularly Durham-in-Wonderland, were head and shoulders ahead of the NYT and the Durham Herald-Sun, not only in terms of getting out the facts but in terms of objectivity.
Frankly, I have been amazed at the shallowness of the print media’s coverage of the Scruggs case, arguably one of the top legal stories in the USA during 2007-08.
I agree, bushes, that there is a conversation aspect to a blog missing in other forms of media noted above, and that goes on with talk radio. But that conversation is a secondary characteristic in my opinion– there are quite successful blogs without comments, and there are blogs that allow comments that I read but find the comments pretty much useless– hundreds of folks not adding much either way to a conversation. In the first category, there’s TalkingPointsMemo. In the second category, there’s the Freakonomics Blog and Atrios. I read all three for the posts, not for comments. (It’s actually more unusual for me to read blog comments. Occasionally I’ll glance at comments on Brad DeLong’s site, but rarely, and slightly more often at Unfogged. I read comments at Yall, Cottonmouth, and Slabbed somewhat because I am more closely following the stories and issues they post about). I read and comment here and have from the beginning… because I do enjoy the dialog. So use that as proving your point, if you will, but the other blogs disprove it.
Do you really think the dialog arising from comments is a primary characteristic of blogs? If so, you are consuming this media in a different way than I do.
What issue of “faith” do you think I subscribe to? That this is distinct from talk radio (just as it is distinct from print media)? Well, I think each have really different things they do. Talk radio has has no function for the story telling, tied to links to primary documents, that you see on blogs. On the other hand, blogs don’t do very well the question/answer interview format. We’d make a lousy town hall. Talk radio makes a lousy story telling medium.
On the topic of blogs and the MSM, I found this very interesting. It’s about the role of the blogs in the Kozinski story.
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121417899247595581.html?mod=googlenews_wsj
I keep hearing that folks feel sorry for the relatives/spouses/children of those who have pled guilty. But for those old enough to be enjoying the many tasty fruits of that kind of unethical behavior (paying witnesses/judges) ‘lo these many years, does anyone really think that they are completely aware of this behavior? Do you get a pass (and thus sympathy) if you merely looked the other way when you thought something your hubby/son/father was doing smelled a little funny or did not quite sound right or legal to you? I’m just sayin’/askin’ because this issue came up on the Sopranos re-runs this weekend on A&E and I happened to see a parallel.
My favorite part of this whole thing is the way our journalism professors approach blogs. They tell us we absolutely must get one. They even require us to have one for class, but do they tell us what we should be posting on them? Nope. So some of us try to reinvent the Xanga phenom on blogger, others let our blogs sit empty, and the rest find something semi topical to talk about, but none of us (that I know of) are doing anything very successfully that involves blogs and reporting. And in class we never address ethics and the blog.
I don’t see a point in discussing whether bloggers are biased or reporters are biased. This is a blog, therefore, the bloggers win, right? From what I’ve seen above, you get attacked brutally for intelligent comment, and you barely have time to posit a response before another attack is launched.
But yes, reporters are biased. For stories like Scruggs, we come up with a hypothesis, we test it thoroughly, and we report (in our article) the results of our tests (quotes from either side). We let the reader or the columnist draw conclusions. We have to be biased just to figure out who to interview. Or, we have to think biased.
Good reporters keep their traps shut opinion-wise on stories they cover because the public will accuse us of not being fair if we opine publicly. I don’t really agree with this system, but if the public is too naive to believe I can keep my reporting and my opinions separate, I’m willing to give up some of my opinions to protect the sanctity of the press and the good of our country. Maybe bloggers should keep stronger divisions, too.
So, I sorta posted without even listening to the broadcast. My afterthoughts:
1. NMC said on the MPB thing that he wasn’t getting enough from the local newspapers, that nobody was covering it “full time.” So why did NMC take this back in comments when he said it was your his interest, not the lack of reporting, that led him to blog about Scruggs?
2. Atkins never said bloggers were all opinionated and non-reporters. He said “by and large.” He probably doesn’t know much about folo as it is. Also, he’s right. Reporters and bloggers are different. On a blog you can run on forever and retell every little detail. We have a lot in common. I’d say what makes this blog not reporterly is its lack of self-editing (budgeting) and how its “reporters/bloggers” write both news updates and opinions on the same stories.
Willow (and dmwriter), lemme help y’all out here. Some rereading upthread is in order: NMC did not “take back” a thing, and his account at 10 of how his participation began here parallels my memory of it perfectly. But why trust our memories when you can go straight to the raw evidence yourself?
Being it’s summer, we’ve got time to dip into folo’s archives from late November into December 2007 to watch how this Scruggsiana dealio crept up on and overran my little news-following blog . . .
On November 26, I said Good riddance! to the (in my view) ever-atrocious Senator Helmet-hair, Trent Lott. And on November 29, I had to begin a post,
I didn’t know any of these names (if I’d ever heard Dickie’s before, I’d forgotten it). But the story was fascinatingly outrageous, so I did what I could to keep on it. To my delight, someone called “n miss commenter” showed up here at at 11:14 PM on December 1:
You can see how happy I was to hear from a law-trained local, and over the next several days, it only got better as he (though then I couldn’t tell even that much about this person) brought in more and more goodies hot from Oxford, even some about Faulkner.
During December, more in-staters found their way here, the party really took off, and I started making guest posts out of some of NMC’s stuff. Meanwhile, the tide of Scruggs news was rushing in so fast, surfing it this constantly was wearing me out; I was also fretting about what might happen should something offline need my attention instead. So around New Year’s, I asked NMC how he’d feel about becoming my co-blogger (thankfully he said yes because the next news was, sure enough, I got sick for three weeks).
And that, my dears, is exactly how and why Tom Freeland fell into becoming a blogger: Kismet.
I’d say what makes this blog not reporterly is its lack of self-editing (budgeting) and how its “reporters/bloggers” write both news updates and opinions on the same stories.
Not really following this too well, Willow, especially the part about “self-editing = budgeting.” Do you mean that bloggers don’t have to fit posts onto a sheet of newsprint as newspaper people must? I hope so, because I can guarantee you that I do a TON of self-editing (since, to me, words are too precious to waste).
Anyhow, yep: reporting and blogging are (usually) different pursuits — ones that, done right, can form a nice symbiosis.
Only when I laugh….I truly don’t think his wife knew what was going on. Why would she? Her husband was a prominant, famous attorney whom many viewed as the “voice for the little man.” What wife would just off the bat say, “oh he must be bribing a judge?” Come on.
And I’m pretty sure Zach’s 5-year-old kid didn’t know what was going on nor understand where his “fruit” was coming from, other than Gerber.
Well, you all could have at least admitted NMC’s comment about getting started was in the broadcast instead of attacking people for asking about it. In the MPB broadcast, NMC distinctly said he started blogging about Scruggs because he didn’t feel the newspapers were covering it well enough. Go back and listen, Lotus. It might be different than what is written on your blog, but you linked to that MPB story. And if you didn’t mean it, don’t say it to a reporter. I just don’t see how you get off attacking people for commenting on what was IN the MPB story.
Yes, you guys do need some self-editing. When one rambles on forever, it’s neither conducive to print or online media. You gotta be short and sweet. I do know what I’m talking about. I work for one of the most successful newspapers-turned-websites in the country. We don’t only edit for space, but also for relevancy. Btw, I’ve never used an emoticon in a story. I think in that other post it conveyed nicely that I didn’t want to be too mean spirited. Maybe you need to decide whether you want to be “21st Century” or Precambrian … Your views and actual practices are quite opposite. Sometimes in “new journalism” we have to get things done fast. I use AIM at work … imagine that. And we use *gasp* … emoticons and such phrases as “lol” and “kk.” Gets the job done, so who cares?
Willow:
“Well, you all could have at least admitted NMC’s comment about getting started was in the broadcast instead of attacking people for asking about it.”
In the interview, I described how I got started in exactly the terms I did up-thread. That part of the interview didn’t make the cut. Sandra Knispel says “Freeland said he started blogging because the media…” but doesn’t play what I actually said. Instead, she plays an answer to some of her journalism-vs.-blogger questions. She asked me a series of very pointed questions asking me to set what journalists did against what bloggers did. While resisting the import of the questions, I answered them– did I think the print media was slow-to-the-punch on the story? I did, and talked about it. Did I think they covered the story well? Not terribly well. The Oxford Eagle has done an excellent job for a small town daily with limited resources. Patsy Brumfeld and Anita Lee have done a good job at times, with some major slips (search for Brumfeld and Mike Moore for an example if you wish) and the C/L coverage has been interesting at times but confusingly and indirectly written and has just dropped out 100% at times. The Commercial Appeal has been completely missing in action.
There’s a level of hostility on the journalist’s side here that is somewhat puzzling to me. Blogs have a different function and utility than print media. Like any form of communication, the reader has to make their own decision about reliability– exactly like print media.
Finally, listening to Joe Atkins’ statement drives home to me how much it’s errant nonsense. Yes, he uses weasel-words, but the generalities he speaks has no resemblance to what is occurring on more serious blogs.
Knispel introduces him saying Blogs “don’t replace reporters, says U. Miss. journalism professor Joe Atkins.” Who the heck said they do. Atkins then says:
“Bloggers still by and large don’t do the things that journalists do to gather information to attain some authority over that information to be able to digest it and give it back to the American public in ways they can understand and then make decisions. Bloggers by and large they get up on a soapbox and express their opinions and their observations.”
What blogs do above all else is digest information and feed it back to people; what they do differently is that the information comes back linked to some sort of source so that the “digesting” can be confirmed. We don’t have to take that part on faith or trust.
The annoying thing here, Willow, is that a journalist in the radio story set up and staged a story about “us vs. them.” That was the way the interview was done, and that was the way the story was played. That’s her story, and she gets to tell it. Paul Quinn picked up the cudgel and went even further with it, going further into the attack and quoting another professor (who I respect as a journalist) saying blogs were like talk radio– I’ll make a substantial wager that prof does not read blogs.
People who don’t routinely “consume” blogs have somehow got in their heads they function like chat boards. Some blogs have a chat board quality. Perhaps I have a skewed view by staying away from those, but the ones I read– which are very prominent ones– have nothing of the chat board and are much closer to what journalists do than some internet-clueless journalists want to admit.
I keep using the example of TalkingPointsMemo. It’s been there since Nov. 2000. Give it a good hard look, and give a good hard look to my posts In the “greatest hits” post from yesterday and then resume the attack
Willow, like NMC, I don’t understand this hostility you’re demonstrating and can’t find anywhere in my 33 and 34 even a hint that I return it. What gives?
Lotus, I certainly read it. You seem to talk down to dmwriter and myself for being “youngsters.” You criticize the way we write on comment boards. And you attack us for things that we said after we listened to a story you posted.
I thank NMC for clarifying what he meant vs. what was in Sandra’s story instead of fighting us about it. And sorry to get mixed up in the journalist vs. blogger fray. As journalists, we feel the need to make sure people understand our role. We’re quite misunderstood. Most of the public sees us as people to claim to be objective, when we’re only objective in our means of information-gathering. I like how NMC sums up what bloggers are here for: digesting.
Willow 39, sorry, what’s the “it” you certainly read?
As for the rest of this, I dunno, again, I’m not sure what some of your phrases mean but my general impression is that you’re expressing a good deal of defensiveness.
Paul can tell you that over the spring I spent a good deal of offblog time with him trying to help him improve his writing (time and effort which I obviously wasted). This frustrates me no end, especially because he does have some good reporting skills and instincts. But the things he put online yesterday, both here and at his blog, were so sloppy in both form and content — in both thought and expression — that, yes, I threw up my hands and said to myself, “Aw, screw it.”
If that’s what’s really stirring up your anger — well, sorry, it’ll just have to. That’s really all I can tell you. We’ve both got better things to do than continue this particular wrangle.
Ok, so you maybe criticized my writing a few times. Gave me pointers here and there, and several times mentioned some improvement (in your mind). But it wasn’t LOTUS who helped, it was WILLOW! Go to her blog and read her stories, she is an excellent writer who helps me a lot. Any who, when I write a blog 20 minutes before a Spanish final it might be sloppy. And I think I explained trying to get out of town while posting. I rushed and put up sloppy work. I have seen plenty of mistakes in NMC’s work and nobody says anything (expect Lotus to me in emails). Watch the news for my next by line, I think everyone will agree it’s well written. When I have the time I don’t write as poorly as Lotus describes. I would appreciate a little more respect from her, considering all I have done for this blog. GTG to lunch now, have a nice day.
Talking of media, was in the law library just minutes ago and there’s a film crew doing shots of the class shots o the hallway wall – they were centering on early 80′s (NMC?) and were moving into the library doing shots of the MSSC books. Thought y’all might now what was going on – they have some very nice & professional looking equipment.
As for above, I think we need to remeber these two are young and oftentimes in youth, in addition to a common lack of foresight, we are elbowing and clawing our way into the adult world and hoping to not just gain an even footing in terms of respect and authority, but also trying to convert the substance of our education to the form of our chosen career in the real world. I hope y’all take the time when talking to these two young, energetic and bright people to realize their context and that you should be sensitive to the substantial effects your words, and the tone in which they are conveyed, while also understand that they are being taken with much more weight and may have more lasting effect than y’all either conceive or assume.
Lotus, the “it” to which I reference, is your hostility. In a reference to an earlier post, I believe it’s just fine to use a pronoun. I’m so sick of your grammar tirades. I know I’ve only posted on here today and last night, but I’m not blind to them. I love grammar as much as the next copy editing nut, but I’m not so boastful about it that I pick apart daily correspondence. Besides, the rules of English are static. Next I expect you’ll attack us for straying from the ways of Shakespeare.
I’ll have nothing further to say about this, Paul and Willow.
@lotus. Thanks, mom!
lydialaw at 35, that’s why I said those “old enough to know.” I did not mean to suggest the young kids would have any idea, but why are we all assuming that the spouses did not know what was going on? Sure, it’s sweet to feel sorry for the spouses, but what if they were active participants, should the Judge really be considering that type of argument for sentencing? If you get to enjoy the houses, cars, vacays, lifestyle, why should the fact that your hubby is going to jail really matter? If they had knowledge, why is this not like Carmella Soprano with the emerald ring, Cartier watch, ocean-front property and the Porsche SUV? Who says they did not know and why do people say/assume that of the spouses? Surely they read the newspaper!