How Newspapers Can Stop Being Stupid

Please don’t let the title of this post give you the impression that I disdain newspapers or journalists.  The journalists that I know are amazingly smart sponges of information and very diligent in their pursuit of interesting and informative stories. And the papers and magazines that they work for are trying to inform their readership — and stay in business largely through advertising. But no one, no person or institution, makes good decisions in a panic. And the panicked cacophony is creating an echo chamber of desperation out of which nothing good will come.

The blogosphere (and Twitter-sphere) are divided into two camps: the “woe’s us” camp, and the “something interesting is happening here” camp.

Of course, the woes us are in a greater panic and are therefore shouting louder. Open up a paper and read about the apocalypse:

1. The Times Arts section today devotes considerable real-estate in the print edition eulogizing the demise of the The Washington Post’s pull-out Sunday book review section. The book review section began in 1967, was folded into the Style section in 1973 (presumably because of a lack of advertising), reformulated as a stand-alone in the 1980s, and folded back in again today because of a lack of advertising.

I have three problems with this article: 1) if a critical mass of people aren’t reading this section (which we know because advertisers follow eye balls very carefully, and 2) the section isn’t actually going away, it’s going online and largely staying on land as well, then, 3) then why are we spending so much time eulogizing it except to stoke the woe’s us crowd?

A second woe’s us article was in the New Yorker today (brought to my attention by Jay Rosen, thx) by Steve Coll. Steve picks up on the Times op-ed yesterday about endowing newspapers that I dismissed here. The most telling sentence in this post is this sentence that follows a clear-eyed assessment of the benefits of online journalism followed by this sentence:

Still, there is just no substitute for the professional, civil-service-style, relentless independent thinking, reporting, and observation that developed in big newsrooms between the Second World War and whenever it was that the end began—about 2005 or so. And those qualities arose from the scale of those newsrooms, and the way the quasi-monopoly business model and high-quality family owners shielded them from political or commercial pressure—not perfectly, but largely.

Change is hard and difficult, but as someone once told me often times the thing we fear most has already happened. The clickety-clack newspaper offices filled with fedora wearing, ink-stained, “real” reporters is as long gone as Joe DiMaggio. The difficulty with the woe’s us approach is that it gets stuck in old, fundamental assumptions that are no longer true, if they ever were.  In this case they include:

• The presumption is that the only real journalism is the one that happens in newsrooms;
• That there ever reall was a firewall between reporters and commercial and political interests;
• The news that is posted online is by definition of a lesser quality than that printed on smudgy paper. Perhaps more than any other assumption I read, this is the most confounding to me. That simply putting news article online they will automatically, by definition, be of lesser quality than what was in print. I don’t know what this assumption is based on other than simply fear of change;
• The dismissal of amazing reporting done by individuals, you can call them citizen journalists, or just individuals who saw something and reported it, in places like Tibet, Kenya, New Orleans and on the campaign trial in lieu of or in combination with paid journalists;
• Oh, and  just because I can’t quite let it go because it really is stupid, one last comment on the endowment model proposed yesterday that Coll romantically embraces in his post. If anyone thinks that big donors will give money and walk away with no strings attached they should talk to universities and museums!

But if you listen carefully, you can hear and see interesting ideas beginning to bubble up.  Here is a very thoughtful post by Dorian Benkoil on various ways to approach the problem. Another interesting idea was posted today by Leonard Witt of to create a “community trust” for the Times like the Green Bay Packers whereby readers would invest, say, $400 each to become shareholders in the company. This would create an endowment to support the annual operations.

It’s certainly a better idea than a philanthropic endowment, but it stops short of fundamentally changing the relationship between newspapers and readers that is necessary to make them sustainable. We have so much more to offer than our small checkbooks. Why can’t newspapers:

1. Involve us in helping them to problem solve. Why not have community forums at local libraries and online to ask us to crowdsource  the problem and come up with new solutions?

2. Enlist readers as critics? Do we really need to read what one person has to say about movies, local restaurants and books? Why not enlist readers as critics who can create their own reputation systems online?

3. Partner with local bloggers to share their content? Does it really take a professional journalist to cover school board meetings? Newspapers have held citizen journalists at a distance and in disdain to their own detriment. This is not a zero-sum game, there is room for both and more citizens should be encouraged to take up a local “beat”.

I’d love to hear other suggestions of ways for newspapers and readers to become partners in a new hybrid entity.

Times Editorial = Downright Stupid

Lately I’ve felt a little sorry for the New York Times. I know that probably doesn’t mean much to them, but they just seem so sad and lost. I read about their lost advertising dollars and watch the paper shrink to about half the size it was five years ago, and so feel doubly determined to march out into the snow, dig the paper out and read it every morning. It feels almost patriotic to sit at the kitchen table and flip through the pages that make my fingers dirty, even as angst filled as they are.

Then this morning there was an editorial, News You Can Endow, and it’s so stupid and misguided that I want to throw the whole paper back out onto the driveway into the snow. So, newspapers are a sacred trust that now require tax exempt status to survive according to the authors, David Swensen and Michael Schmidt, neither of whom are journalists or nonprofit professionals.  Instead one manages the financial portfolio at Yale that lost nearly 30% of it’s value last year and the other is a “financial analyst” whatever that means.  But they are fully qualified, according to the Times to pontificate about the future of journalism and the appropriateness of providing tax exempt status for newspapers.  More than a whiff of desperation drifts upward from my paper and I can only imagine what Jeff Jarvis and Jay Rosen must be thinking!

I am not a journalist or an expert on that subject, although it does seem odd to me that panicked debate about the future of newspapers seems to be centered on its form – whether it will survive in hardcopy or not – and not on the more fundamental question of whether people will pay for quality news, which is yes.  Maybe not as many as before, but there are still a fundamental core of newspaper readers, like me, who would like to flip through the pages while eating their oatmeal.

But the question that I am qualified to answer is whether endowing newspapers and conveying upon them nonprofit status is a good idea.  And it isn’t, it’s a stupid idea.

The stupidity begins with these sentences, “the Internet has the potential to be, in the words of the chief executive of Google, Eric Schmidt, “a cesspool” of false information. If Jefferson was right that a well-informed citizenry is the foundation of our democracy, then newspapers must be saved.”

So, the fundamental premise of the need to endow newspapers and preserve them at public expense is that false information exists on the Internet? Of course it does, as it does on TV, on the radio (should we also consider endowing Rush?) in magazines, and in many, many newspapers. Which media would the authors like to choose as being least likely to contain false information? And which medium do they think did the best job of  bringing the lies and corruption of the Bush Administration to light — hint, don’t look at newspapers, Josh Micah Marshall and his Talking Points Memo website would be a much better bet.

So, the fundamental premise that only newspapers can hold government accountable is specious. But that isn’t my biggest issue with the article. It is the naive assumption from those outside of the nonprofit sphere that 1) nonprofit status is intended for companies that don’t have a viable business model, and 2) raising billions of dollars in endowment funds is doable, particularly in today’s economy.

The very best outcome for this scenario would be that a national icon of quality journalism (although I didn’t feel that way over breakfast today!) might be able to raise endowment funds, but that the rest of those poor suckers out there would be lost. Not exactly a prescription for saving and rewewing an important resource.

Often times when groups are in panick they spend far too much time having the wrong conversation. This is the wrong one. Newspapers need to reinvent themselves as part of their communities, as a focal point for conversations about issues that are important to their readers (or more accurately, their users) and they need to form partnerships with local bloggers who can supplement their reporting rather than disdaining their efforts.

Hey, Times, stop the panic, start the conversation!

Robotic Photo of the Inauguration

The digital convergence can sometimes be breathtaking in what it produces.  And if you think it only produces flashing, beeping, buzzing, chattering things, think again.

David Bergman is a professional photography (sent to my by my hubby once again!). During the Inauguration he, “clamped a Gigapan Imager to the railing on the north media platform about six feet from my photo position. The Gigapan is a robotic camera mount that allows me to take multiple images and stitch them together, creating a massive image file.”

I don’t really know what all that means, but it doesn’t matter, click on “full screen” near the bottom of the page and zoom all around and in and out at the Inauguration. The scope and the clarity of the image are mind boggling. Tell me if you can find Oprah!

Watching the Twestival Unfold

One problem with monitoring the spawning activities of Twitter is that it generates words like “Twestival”! That’s too bad because the thing itself, the Twestival, is an awesome idea.

As Beth explains here, Twestival is a fundraising effort on Twitter to raise money for charity:water working for clean water in villages around the world.  Laura Fitton, a.k.a. Pistachio on Twitter, set a goal at holiday time of 12,500 donors each giving $2 to this cause. It began with the simple question, “What can $2 do?” Well, a lot, of course, when a large number of people give it.  And now here comes Twitter, the fastest, cheapest way to reach 12,500 people if you’re Laura Fitton who has over 15,000 followers on Twitter as of today. But as Beth notes, the campaign was successful not just because Laura has a large social network on Twitter.  It was successful because the ask was easy and inexpensive, the cause was very easy to understand, and the giving was powered by tipjoy a giving portal for Twitter users.

With that success under her belt, next up for Laura and charity:water is Twestival. On February 12th self organized groups around the country will be meeting, eating, talking, tweeting to raise money for clean:water. And this is the answer to the question I am most asked about social media fundraising efforts: are they scalable?  We’ll see on February 12th, but I already know the answer and that is yes.

VolunteerMatch Launches Google Earth Feature

VolunteerMatch has created an awesome Google Earth search feature to locate volunteer opportunities based on your zip code.  Click here to use this great new tool.

Or watch this great demo narrated by Greg Baldwin, the president of VolunteerMatch, here.

Pizzigati Prize Application Announced

The 2009 Pizzigati Prize application was just announced.  The prize is a $10,000 grant to a person who had spearheaded a great software for the public interest.  Just FYI, I am a judge for the prize, alas, I don’t live in Chicago and can’t be bribed.

Here’s the announcement:

Good deeds do get rewarded! If you know someone who’s been toiling in the open source vineyards, developing software that’s  helping nonprofits succeed, check out the Tides Foundation Pizzigati Prize, a $10,000 annual award for outstanding contributions to software in the public interest. The competition, judged by a panel of national leaders in public interest computing, is now entering its third year. The application deadline for this year’s prize: March 2nd, 2009. You can find out more at www.pizzigatiprize.org.

I “Rock” Says Fast Co. Mag

Fast Company Magazine lists “Women in Nonprofit Technology Who Rock” (reprinted from Beth’s Blog) in which I’m listed as a “Big Picture Thinker”.  Cool!

It’s an awesome list, if I do say so myself!, that includes my co-conspirator on the GiveList Marnie Webb, Amy Sample Ward, Katrin Verclas, Lucy Bernholz and the Case Foundation bloggers Kari Dunn Saratovsky, Sokunthea Sa Chhabra, and Megan Stohner.

Just a few years ago, it would have been difficult to compile such a robust list of women who are thinkers, doers, strategizers. And now look at us.  Rock on, women!

Hope is Here

Images from Flickr from today’s Inauguration. A new day at last!

Paul Hurst's Word Cloud of the Inaugural Address

Ten Things I Wont Miss When Bush is Gone

Change is coming at last!  But before we begin anew, I wanted to list the ten things that I can’t wait to be rid of along with George W. Bush:

1. Anyone saying the word Nuclear as Nucular.

2. Haliburton and Blackwater

3. Texans and Crawford, Texas

4. Incompetence

5. Religious ideology masking as public policy

6. The bastardization of phrases such as “clean air” and “healthy families”

7. Political dynasties

8. Condoleeza Rice and other syncophants

9.The disappearance of habeas corpus

10. The Imperial Vice President (and his little buddy president)

Why Max is My Superhero

It is a wonderful week to be an American, isn’t it? I just want time to stop right now when everything is new and shiny and there are no door dings and scandals and disappointments.  Of course, I’m speaking about the Inauguration, but I’m also speaking about my oldest son who was Bar Mitzvahed last Saturday.

Max is a terrific kid and I’ve never been prouder of him than when he gave his sermon.  His portion was about Moses and the burning bush. He compared Moses to a superhero who was both heroic, but also hesitant, fearful and very human.  Each one of us can be a superhero, he said, who can help to rid the world of injustices like hunger and homelessness. But, I’m not doing justice to his words, so here they are, I hope you find his talk meaningful and enjoy it:

Introduction
Dear friends and, of course, family.  Thank you all for being here and for some of my relatives who have come a long way and who have made it without any hardships, I hope you have enjoyed me reading the Torah and you will stay long enough for me to finish my speech.

The Portion
My Torah portion, Shemot, is about how Moses found a bush that was engulfed in flames but not consumed by them. God comes and enlists Moses to go and ask Pharaoh to let the Jews go.  But Moses doesn’t want to go because he thinks that either the Jews or Pharaoh won’t believe him or that he will mess up and stutter while talking to Pharaoh.  But God gives Moses some signs that he can use if the Jews don’t believe him. God turns Moses’ rod into a snake and back and gives it to him to show to Pharaoh if he doesn’t believe him. God tells Moses to use his brother Aaron as his speaker, but Moses has to be with him to tell him what to say.  Finally, Moses goes and eventually frees the Jews from the evil Pharoh’s clutches.

Moses as a Superhero

In my Torah portion, Moses is not yet the famous Jew he will become, but he still saves the Jews from Pharaoh, which, I think makes him a superhero. As most of you know, superheroes are something I know a lot about. I think a superhero is anyone who stands up to a bad guy or someone who steps up when they see something wrong, like Moses did to Pharoh. Especially if they’re afraid, like Spiderman sometimes is and Moses was, too. A superhero is also someone who might have super powers like Moses did with the help of God when he was able to turn his staff into a snake and back. But many superheroes, like Batman, are also human which means that he or she makes mistakes, just like Moses did when he murdered an Egyptian because he saw an injustice happen when the Egyptian was hitting a Jew.  And last a superhero is someone that everybody looks up to and wants to be because they have courage and sometimes powers but also because they are human like us. So we all want to be just like them because we know in our hearts that if we try we can become superheroes, which I think is what all the Jews thought of Moses after he rescued them from Pharoh.
Mitzvah Project
In my quest to become a superhero, and stop injustice wherever it may be and become a Bar Mitzvah, I did two mitzvah projects and I have decided to give some of the money I receive today to a group called Hope for Henry Foundation. They help children in hospitals by giving them gifts, including a lot of superhero toys and pictures.   My first project was a breakfast run that I did early in the morning with a bunch of my friends.  We gave breakfast to the homeless in New York City.  The people that we fed were not only homeless but they were starving as well. We handed out toothbrushes and toothpaste and one man came up and said he didn’t have any teeth to brush.  We need to help people so that no one has to live this way.  My second mitzvah project was working at a food bank.  We had to sort different cans of food and decide whether the food was good enough to eat or to set bad ones aside.  Eventually, the bad cans broke the metal table they were sitting on which tells you that there was a lot of bad cans. It was disappointing to see how many companies and people donated bad food and didn’t really care about hungry people.  We shouldn’t’ be giving out things that we want to get rid of; we should be giving people important things that they need.

It is an injustice that people living in America are hungry.  And superheroes are important because they can stop injustices from happening.  It was clear to me at the food bank that each one of us can be a superhero for hungry people and fight this injustice.

Thank You
I would like to thank all of the people who helped me with my bar mitzvah.  I would like to thank my mom and my dad, my two brothers who kind of supported me, my grandparents who always made me feel so nervous about this day and especially my Grandpa Jerry who would have done my whole haftorah for me if given the chance. I would also like to thank the Cantor for helping me with my torah and haftorah portion and the Rabbi for helping me with my sermon.  I would like to thank Sharon Kirschner for helping me with my mitzvah project.  And last thank you to all of my friends who came to the breakfast run, you helped to support me a lot.
Closing Prayer
Thank you God for making this day very special to me and for all of the loving and caring people who joined us today.  In the future, I hope that everyone can be a superhero to make the world a better place and to stop hunger and other injustices.