Adirondack Blogs and Local Media: A Comparison
During the recent WAMC-NCPR flap, Adirondack Almanack, Musing of a (Fairly) Young Contrarian, and Adirondack Musing, all covered the story (in our opinion) better then the local mainstream media and with deeper insight. While we might not expect local mainstream media outlets to mention by name any of the blogs' more in depth coverage and commentary, we also would expect that when they draw directly from blogs for content they would give credit where credit is due.
When WAMC withdrew its offending application, the Times Union's business reporter Chris Churchill committed a journalistic no-no by claiming "Some observers suggested the fight between the public radio networks was about money. Lake Placid, they said, is a relatively wealthy community that's potentially fruitful for public radio stations largely dependent on contributions for their survival." Those "some observers" were Adirondack Almanack and MoFYC who the Times Union didn't bother to mention by name. That's some reporting despite the absolute failure of local media to cover one of the larger trends to hit our area in some time. There are now more than 75 blogs in the Adirondack region, and hundreds more in the coverage area of local media. Not only does it show the failure of local mainstream media to do anything other than follow the pack, it also hints at just how scared they are of citizen journalism.
This recalls the Blog-Times long bet. In 2002, Blogger Dave Winer bet New York Times executive Martin Nisenholtz that: "In a Google search of five keywords or phrases representing the top five news stories of 2007, weblogs will rank higher than the New York Times' Web site." The results show that the blogs won the bet, but the real winner was Wikipedia - you'll remember the claims the Almanack made about wikis some time ago. Wikis are another topic ignored by local mainstream media.
I decided to conduct a search of the top Adirondack stories of 2007 and see how blogs show up against local mainstream media. Here are the results:
#10 Nature Conservancy Purchases 161,000 Acres
bldgblog ranked fifth. The Albany Times Union ranked seventh. Winner: blogs
#9 Lake George Workers Exploited
Albany Times Union ranked first. Deacon's Blog ranked eleventh. Winner: mainstream media
#8 The Failure of Big Sky Airlines
Press Republican ranked thirty third. No blog ranked less than fifty. Winner: mainstream media
#7 Adirondack Hermit Alan Como
Adirondack Base Camp ranked first. The Glens Falls Post Star ranked second. Winner: blogs
#6 The NCPR - WAMC Flap
NCPR ranked first. The Adirondack Almanack ranked third. Winner: mainstream media
#5 Adirondack Global Warming Impacts
Adirondack Almanack ranked fifth. NCPR ranked twenty-fifth. Winner: blogs
#4 Changes in DEC, APA, and ORDA (we used Curt Stiles)
NCPR ranked eighth. Adirondack Almanack ranked seventeenth. Winner: mainstream media
#3 Adirondack Health Care (We used Hudson Headwaters)
The Glens Falls Post Star ranked forty-third. No blogs ranked under fifty. Winner: mainstream media
#2 Adirondacks State Tax Payments
Adirondack Musing ranked first. The Press Republican ranked second. Winner: blogs
#1 Northway Cell Towers
The Press Republican ranked first. Adirondack Almanack ranked tenth. Winner: mainstream media
The overall winner, 6 to 4, is the mainstream media. If NCPR was thrown out of coverage of itself, Adirondack Almanack would have made the overall contest a tie.
Obviously this little exercise is not very scientific but it's clear that over the past year local blogs have begun to take their place alongside local mainstream media on the Internet. Blogs like Adirondack Almanack and Adirondack Musing have been around for only a few years - the mainstream media players in the Adirondack region have been around for decades, and have paid web experts and a stable of reporters on their staffs. Most local blogs are the work of one or two people.
Clearly something is happening in local media - wouldn't it be nice if local media took notice?
15 Comments:
Hi.
I'm a native of the north country now living outside the region. I keep up with blogs like yours (to which I subscribe), public radio podcasts, and mainstream newspaper web sites.
I first learned of the NCPR/WAMC conflict through your blog, for which I'm grateful. I then followed up for more information via the NCPR site and other sources. Blogs are great funnelers of content, and provide a wonderful opportunity for independent opinions to get aired.
But I must take exception to your contention that the Times-Union reporter failed to credit you in a story about the WAMC/NCPR project. The fact that WAMC wanted to corner the Lake Placid market for its high-income demographic is fairly obvious to anyone who has a passing knowledge of either NYS geography or how public radio stations are funded. Any number of people, from NCPR reps speaking on background to the reporter's grandmother, could have and probably did make this observation in the reporter's hearing, and hence a general term like "some observers." Also, "some observers" is a kind of a newspaper way of saying "this is so widespread and obvious a feeling that it's not even controversial enough to have to attribute to someone."
A minor issue, sure, but as a former daily newswriter myself, I hate to see evidence-poor attacks on reporters' integrity. It's a hard enough job as it is.
Thanks for reading.
I guess I just don't buy it. After following the news cycle regarding the NCPR-WAMC issue it seemed clear to me that he had obviously been reading our posts.
I think most would agree that news reporters (and I have worked as one on and off for many years) should attribute the news they are "reporting." "Some observers" is just plain lazy in my opinion.
Whether or not he got his opinion from the bloggers, we were clearly breaking the news and putting forth the opinions - why not attribute them?
Great post, but I think a deeper examination of search results would show blogs and new media much closer, especially when doing "Long Tail" type searches.
Oh well, we still kick-butt and people probably believe and trust us more. Yeah!
Thanks for the mention. In the sake of fairness, it's worth noting that the 'Lake Placid-money' connection was originally made by the Almanack. At least that's the first reference I saw. I merely repeated the allegation, which hadn't previously occurred to me but made more sense the more I thought about it.
It would nice if the mainstream media (MSM) stopped seeing the blogosphere as the enemy and started seeing the two as complimentary.
I understand a little bit of the skepticism. Some blogs are amateurish and have a bit of the 'axe to grind' about them. If I were an MSM journalist, I might be a little resentful of some blogger sitting home in his pajamas taking cheap shots at my work behind the veil of anonymity without doing any of the leg work of journalism himself. However, there are also many blogs out there with insightful commentary, make valid points that are too outside the box for MSM outlets and some that offer good original journalism. And some of the MSM whining comes off a bit as the watchdog moaning about someone daring to watch them.
Almanack offers the best coverage of Adirondacks' issues of any media outlet I'm aware of, MSM or otherwise. Yet I don't read AA INSTEAD of reading the Post-Star or Adirondack Daily Enterprise or INSTEAD of listening to NCPR. I read AA IN ADDITION to those other outlets. I do so because you frequently offer perspectives not reflected (or barely) in other places.
But this knee jerk hostility toward blogs by the MSM is a bit like throwing the baby out with the bath water. Blogs are a part of the media, not apart from it.
Thank you Brian for the kind words about the blog. I think your suggestion that MSM and the blogs are complementary is spot on. I certainly still read the local MSM media and can't imagine a day when only the blogs will do.
The results of this little experiment are interesting though. I think I'll try to do it every year to see how the results change.
As the Post-Star reporter who covered the Alan Como story, I found your ranking of the Como story interesting, particularly because the blog you cite took my article word-for-word with no attribution to The Post-Star. Isn't that the same thing you're complaining the Times-Union reporter did to you? Maybe you shouldn't reward it by touting this blogger as some sort of journalist when it appears he or she is just a plagiarist.
Don,
I guess you've demonstrated the point somewhat in your energy to call TourPro (that's his name, the blog is Adirondack Base Camp) "just a plagiarist."
TourPro DID in fact cite directly your article in the link that leads-off the post and the "word for word" you are so indignant about is a direct QUOTE as denoted by its indentation and the blue line running alongside.
When your paper runs a newswire story is that plagiarism? It looks like you owe someone an apology.
I guess this incident points to the fact that some in the MSM have little or no experience or understanding of the local blogoshpere. We know that having little or no knowledge in a subject is par for the course in shrinking MSM newsrooms, so your comments Don seem to point directly to the kind of hostility Brian's comment talked about.
Hey Almanack, thanks for watching my back. MSM is not familiar with blog etiquette, so I'm sure it was simply a matter of ignorance.
Hi Don, fancy having a conversation here huh? I actually think that you did some great reporting about our Bushman. Your writing is better than even I could have imagined, check out all these plagiarists. Some of those lazy bloggers don't even bother giving you a link.
Keep up the good work.
Hyperlink or no hyperlink, there is no mention of the source from which you took the information. I didn't see your hyperlink. The person who forwarded me the link to your site also didn't see it as a hyperlink.
It looks like a simple headline to me, unless one happens to click on it, because half the page is the same color blue.
The link doesn't say Post-Star.
And as to a newspaper running a wire story, wire stories are attributed to the source, be it The Associated Press, Reuters or whomever. It's not plagiarism when the source is cited, is it?
That's all I'm looking for.
Don,
Blogs have been around for at least ten years, they use hyperlinks as citation. When you mouse over the hyperlink it gives you the source - it says "poststar.com".
It's irrelevant whether the person who "sent you" the article (presumably by e-mail, although I'm beginning to wonder if you didn't actually get it by old fashioned snail mail) included the links or not - take that up with them.
Some real questions are posed by the way you've handled the original post.
Why are you so hostile to the community you live in and serve? We read your articles after all and were kind enough to link to your story and direct our readers there.
That's something the your paper NEVER does, although a number of other outlets do, notably NCPR, the Syracuse Post Standard, the Albany Times Union's Capitol Confidential blog.
Don, it's a new media world; one that include a multitude of sources and perspectives. No longer will reporters like yours be the only voice that gets heard on local issues.
I really don't blame you for you or your paper's internet ignorance so much as your editors who where among the last major local newspaper editors to provide their content for free and have created a site that is so junk heavy that it's barely navigable, let alone readable. I hate to link to your site because the links are not permanent (when they are they’re called "permalinks"). As my little unscientific experiment indicates, I think your newspaper's website is becoming increasingly irrelevant in the local media world. The vast majority of web traffic is driven by search engines – when your paper appears to be losing ground to newly established one-man band blogs, I’d say you’re in trouble with this segment of the market.
A newspaper webpage should be more than a place for obfuscating the truth in favor of pet projects like daily DWI, Drug War, and local temperance reports of all stripes. Until your organization starts offering serious local news in a readable and permanent format, if I were you I’d be happy when someone links to your stories and quotes portions of them. After all, six months or a year from now, your story on Alan Como won’t be available on your own paper’s website.
Why not start your entry into the blogosphere fresh, be a good community citizen, and apologize for calling TourPro a plagiarist – we’ll forgive. We understand you’re not up to speed yet.
Or you could launch another ill-conceived and ill-informed defamation of one of your readers who links to your story – I guess it’s your choice.
I'm getting into this conversation 4 days late. I'd like to point out that this post has gotten 6 distinct reactions from readers with the almanack editor being able to give, almost instantaneous, feedback. Blogging is a unique style of media. Interaction is it's hallmark and it's this dialog that gives it a distinct advantage over mainstream media. Mainstream media is hard pressed to compete with a blog's ability to generate conversations and even arguments over news topics.
Don,
Some blogs set off blocks of quoted material with indentation and/or italicization. I do so with bold type. Any respectable blog also includes a hyperlink, which is like a footnote.
A hyperlink is better, in my opinion, than merely saying "...according to The Post-Star" or whatever because that way, readers can read the entire piece in context if they are interested, rather than merely an excerpt.
Let's not forget that most smaller newspaper run press releases verbatim from colleges, non-profits, etc. without any byline.
With all due respect, just because you and whoever sent you the link didn't notice the hyperlink/footnote is more a reflection of your unawareness of standard blog procedures than anything else.
You should really refrain from using harsh language like 'plagairist' until you take the time to learn the blogosphere's conventions.
As I said in my earlier comment, I'm tired of MSM journalists acting like blogs are their natural enemy.
Part of it I understand... the idea of a professional journalist being second guessed... though let's not forget that bloggers are general consumers of the MSM.
Someone like Ken Tingley publishes several columns a week in the P-S while readers are only allowed 300 words, once a month. Tingley, Will Doolittle, etc. have the opportunity to write whatever they want. Some people want space for themselves to offer commentary just like them so they have blogs.
Bloggers are today's equivalent of the 18th century pamphleteers. A lot of it is crap but some of it is good. There's no need to completely ignore the latter just because of the former. That's like saying the MSM is crap just because of the New York Post and Fox News (sic) Channel.
Sorry to filibuster but I wanted to add...
Don, I would agree that both word attribution and a hyperlink (footnote) would be preferable. That's the standard I follow on my blog. But if there's only one, I'd rather have hyperlink only And I'll tell you why.
A local political blog once ran an excerpt of a reasonably well-researched blog entry I'd written and then commented on it. It properly attributed the writing to me ("Brian at Musings of a (Fairly) Young Contrarian discovered: ...).
But what he did is used those paragraphs to come to a POLAR OPPOSITE CONCLUSION than I did... while implying that I felt the same way.
He used my research to come to the conclusion that local Democrats are lame, therefore they need to be strengthened. Whereas, the conclusion I drew from my research is that local Democrats are lame, therefore smaller parties like the Greens need to be strengthened.
If he'd included a link my work, people could've actually seen my work in its proper context and judged for themselves whose argument was better. But simply saying "Brian wrote..." denied people that context and implied I supported something that I, in fact, very much opposed.
This blog did the same thing a second time, though in a less egregious fashion. What's worse, I emailed the blogger to ask him to include a link when quoting my work and he refused to even acknowledge my request. I find that far more offensive, to say nothing of deceitful.
The Times-Union is well-known for doing hack jobs.
For example, then-media reporter Mark McGuire once wrote an article about the fact that my WAMC Northeast Pirate Network Web site (http://www.wamc.net/) contains serious allegations against Alan Chartock and WAMC about financial improprieties (amongst other things).
Mind you, McGuire never once dealt with the nature of the allegations themselves, just the fact that I was making them.
Amazingly, he never once mentioned the name of the site, nor gave out its URL.
It made me wonder just how much other underhanded stuff has been going on in NY State government, Albany city government, etc. that T-U has known about, but simply chosen not to report in order to protect sacred cows.
Well, it seems the ruling is in. We aren't journalists.
The Ultimate Authority on the Status of Blogging
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