There’s an awful lot of talk about the news lately, but not, unfortunately, the sort of constructive conversation that promotes critical thinking and engages people with their neighborhoods, their country, or their world. No, what people are talking about is the media, or, more specifically, and more onerously, the business of media. The Star Tribune is losing readers, pages, and staff. (Did that venture-capital firm buy it just for its prime downtown real estate?) The Pioneer Press is facing the same challenges, and rumors have been circulating for over a year that it will cease to exist altogether. The corporate hijacking of local “alt weekly” City Pages seems finally to have succeeded, at least in a manner of speaking. (New Times indeed—just who the hell is this Hoffman character, anyway?) And it’s not just with these outlets. Almost everywhere you turn the quality of news is being questioned as resources and profits continue to dwindle. It’s just too expensive, it seems, to chase meaningful stories these days, and the competition has never been fiercer for advertising dollars.
Enter the internet, the longtime boogeyman and sworn enemy of print media everywhere. As it turns out, it just might be the best tool any news reporter, storyteller, or publisher ever dreamed of. With more than half the U.S. now online—and two-thirds of them getting their news online—the web is suddenly a sexy proposition for all sorts of formerly hidebound print junkies. The venture capitalists are intrigued as well—you’d have to suppose that in a recessive industry, not having to pay for ink, paper, press operators, and distribution would bode well for the bottom line.
And so, with (undoubtedly) noble thoughts and high aspirations, many Twin Cities newsies have been turning to the web as a panacea for a host of the ailments currently bedeviling the news media. Former Strib publisher and editor Joel Kramer got the attention of media insiders across the country when he launched MinnPost, his long-anticipated online news site, in November. At about the same time, erstwhile City Pages editor Steve Perry debuted his own site, The Daily Mole, which he mothballed last month after a frustrating three-month run; now he is taking the reins at the Minnesota Monitor. Perry’s new employer, like a number of other local sites (including Twin Cities Daily Planet, the Minnesota Monitor, Cursor, and MNSpeak), had been up and running on the web long before that pair of high-profile upstarts made their splash at the tail end of 2007.
It turns out that the web, with its atmosphere of almost unbridled democracy (a sort of anarchic egalitarian free-for-all, if such a thing is possible), has breathed new life into the moribund American Dream. Freedom of speech. Free exchange of ideas. Anybody can play. People with a little bit (or a lot) of hubris can barge their way online and plant their flags. Every citizen (or non-) can put his (or her) voice out there. And anyone can hit the jackpot, which is, of course, measured in mouse clicks. (You can be sure even the gal blogging about what she had for breakfast is watching her numbers.) In the online world, clicks mean dollars.
The trouble, of course, comes in setting up a new online economy. How many clicks for how many dollars? What’s the rate of exchange? In a world where Britney has been the top search term for six of the past seven years, and where information is expected to be free, how can anyone make news financially viable?
Making a play with traditional journalism
Determined to uphold professional distinction above all else (presumed translation: no Britney stories), Joel Kramer latched on to a stable of reporters cast off in the recent newsroom purges on both sides of the river and set out to create a quality local news source. With the exception of a few videos and slideshows, MinnPost’s editorial model is little more than traditional newspaper journalism distributed online (in fact, until a few weeks ago, Kramer insisted on distributing fifteen-hundred Xeroxed printouts for those committed to words on paper).
While web-based businesses across the globe save on rent by having staff work from home, Kramer resists this as well. He is proud of MinnPost’s old-school newsroom, which features open space to encourage dialogue, an office for the business staff, and conference rooms and workstations around the perimeter. Just as newspaper reporters rush to meet an evening deadline, MinnPost contributors—drawn from a pool of fifty-six freelancers—submit stories each morning so that web editor Corey Anderson can post them online at 11 a.m. This also runs counter to standard web protocol, where news is live twenty-four-hours and reporters bypass editors by posting their stories directly on the website. “Our goal is not to exploit the web,” explained Kramer, “but to provide quality journalism.”
Can MinnPost make profitable use of an online medium without fully engaging its resources? Nora Paul, Director of the Institute for New Media Studies at the U of M, says no. “[Kramer] hasn’t embraced what’s interesting about online,” she argued, “which is the ability to create packages with a shelf-life, and that will have utility for a long time.” According to Paul, online news organizations need to find new and compelling ways to tell stories, and develop creative ways to pull together data. While most local online news sources have not availed themselves of Paul’s expertise, newspapers across the country are turning to her for the winning formula. Last month, eleven top newspapers, including The New York Times and the Washington Post, met with Paul (and five graduate students) to formulate questions they want answered about offering news on the web. What’s the best way to display video? Do news crawlers attract more clicks than breaking news digests? What’s the most engaging way to tell a story?
Above all, the web offers flexibility. “Online, the walls should be much more porous,” explained Paul, “so that you have an evolving story-telling space.” In other words, there’s no excuse for anything static. Online news is more a process than a product; it’s created through interaction and various points of view, so stories build up almost organically, with varied perspectives, in varied forms, from varied arenas. Ideally, the end result is a much broader picture, and arguably a more compelling story than we’ve been reading on paper for centuries.
It doesn't seem fair that full-time "web editors" should get paid to aggregate--read: pick through already-generated news stories to select what's most relevant--while the reporters actually writing the stories are expected to do their work for free of for crappy freelance pay. Why should the editor of say, MN Speak, get paid to link to a story, when the writer of that story probably didn't get paid at all?
And as for such "discussion" websites, I'd rather read the actual news than a bunch of snarky gossip about the news. When did contextualizing news stories become more profitable than actually uncovering new stories?
Cristina, this piece reeks of conflict of interests. It acts out all the old Tom Bartel grudges and skews data to do so (the sidebar in which the Rake is the third biggest source of news, next to the Strib and Pi-Press, was a nice touch). It's hillarious that this debuts at a time when David Brauer is reporting on MinnPost that the Rake (and this very website) are up for sale. Wonder if that had anything to do with the assigning of this article?
Anon, while I understand your point, I do not consider it a conflict of interest at all. First of all, my primary interest is to get information out to readers, not to kiss anyone's ass. But beyond that, the story focuses on web exclusive news media, which does not include The Rake. As for The Rake appearing third on the list, clearly, since The Rake was doing the asking, people mentioned The Rake each time. This is only natural, but again, not misinformation. The reason for including those links was to give a general idea of where people are getting their news, not to have a contest. In fact, I think the bottom links are far more important than the top links, as they introduce lesser-known sites. Perhaps we should have printed the list in reverse.
As for Brauer's piece — completely irrelevant to it, except to highlight the difficulties of print, journalism, and online news these days.
And while I'd love to say that I whipped this piece up in just a few hours, Anon, monthly magazine features tend to be assigned far in advance of the release date, so the timing is merely incidental.
I must confess, however, that I find it odd that you would think we're quite so conniving and deliberate in our story choices. Perhaps it's simply a relevant piece. Go figure.
Just FYI, Cristina had no inkling of my piece when she wrote hers, and I hadn't seen hers until I wrote mine.
I can't speak to motivations, but there's a lot of fair comment here. I don't hold traditional "one-way" journalism in the same low regard (if you want to see two-way, watch my MinnPost story on The Rake story ignite a torrid MnSpeak thread), and I didn't think the Daily Mole generated enough original local content, but Steve's about to fix that at MnMon.
I do wish we'd have more two-way on the site, and that's being actively chewed over as we speak.
Yeah, but Cristina's piece is clearly an attempt to fluff the feathers of the floundering Rake so Tom Bartel can get bailed out of his awful investment. That's not journalism, that's PR.
You guys could never argue a point like this in a newspaper!! I love it!