Why Old Media Thrives on Secrecy
RatherGate has revealed an ugly truth of old media: It needs secrecy to succeed economically. It must have access to sources of information that no one else does. Secret sources are to old media what physical assets are to smokestack industries.
Media makes its living by revealing what it knows but once a story is in the public domain it ceases to be an economic asset to the organization that originally produced the story. Once an outlet publishes a story anybody in the world can reproduce it and resell it in any form.
It is the sources that go into the production of the story behind the scenes that comprise the true assets of the organization. Each organization differentiates itself in the market by having different sources. The only means of preserving the sources is to have them remain secret from the general public. If the sources become public knowledge anybody can produce the story. Future sources will not cooperate if they believe that doing so will thrust them into the public limelight. This idea is so central to old media that the law grants professional journalist the privilege of not revealing their sources in court. The law recognizes that old media will not function unless it's sources remain secret.
Secrecy is so integral to the production of news stories that several recent scandals have occurred because even the editors and publishers do not always know who all of journalist sources are.
This system only works if the consumers trust the media to honestly and accurately transmit the information from the secret sources. Once an iota of doubt about the reporting arises both the story and the organization's brand is in danger.
The internet era works against old fashion media secrecy. Many more people can ask many more questions about every story. Any potential inaccuracies are brought to light nearly instantly. The old media institutions are then required to justify their stories or risk losing the critical assumption of trust. But they often can't justify their stories without burning their sources. Bloggers have no economic interest in secrecy. They can tell stories in a perfectly transparent fashion. This gives blogs a tremendous trust advantage.
The era of secrecy and unnamed sources will soon come to an end and with it the economic advantage that old media currently holds over the blogsphere. The days of major media will soon be over. The questions is what will replace it?
Media makes its living by revealing what it knows but once a story is in the public domain it ceases to be an economic asset to the organization that originally produced the story. Once an outlet publishes a story anybody in the world can reproduce it and resell it in any form.
It is the sources that go into the production of the story behind the scenes that comprise the true assets of the organization. Each organization differentiates itself in the market by having different sources. The only means of preserving the sources is to have them remain secret from the general public. If the sources become public knowledge anybody can produce the story. Future sources will not cooperate if they believe that doing so will thrust them into the public limelight. This idea is so central to old media that the law grants professional journalist the privilege of not revealing their sources in court. The law recognizes that old media will not function unless it's sources remain secret.
Secrecy is so integral to the production of news stories that several recent scandals have occurred because even the editors and publishers do not always know who all of journalist sources are.
This system only works if the consumers trust the media to honestly and accurately transmit the information from the secret sources. Once an iota of doubt about the reporting arises both the story and the organization's brand is in danger.
The internet era works against old fashion media secrecy. Many more people can ask many more questions about every story. Any potential inaccuracies are brought to light nearly instantly. The old media institutions are then required to justify their stories or risk losing the critical assumption of trust. But they often can't justify their stories without burning their sources. Bloggers have no economic interest in secrecy. They can tell stories in a perfectly transparent fashion. This gives blogs a tremendous trust advantage.
The era of secrecy and unnamed sources will soon come to an end and with it the economic advantage that old media currently holds over the blogsphere. The days of major media will soon be over. The questions is what will replace it?
posted by Shannon Love at 11:41 AM
17 Comments:
The problem is that the vast majority of bloggers get their news from old media sources anyway, so the media is still very much in control.
I happened to randomly chance upon this blog :)
cheers
-taneem
I didn't just happen to find your blog...ya been insta"launched".
/this has to be a record...1 post and the man liks to ya...heh
I think rags like the National Enquirer and Instapundit will replace the traditional media. Blogs watch the MSM. There is only one problem. The Blogosphere doesn't really generate stories. It just links. If the MSM stops gathering information, blogs like Instapajama will have nothing to link to. I think the MSM and the blogosphere need each other.
Screw Kerry! literally :)
Take away old media sources and the blogosphere would be reduced to geektalk and adolescent ramblings. And has it occured to you that without anonymity many news stories simply wouldn't get off the ground. (see Watergate)
The blogosphere will not and cannot doom the MSM. Blogs are scattered and relatively atomised compared to tightly-knit news gathering organisations, and simply cannot generate the sheer amount of data and reporting that is pumped onto the web every day by 'old media' (and let's not forget print, TV, radio). Unless bloggers can develop a huge information-gathering network and become more responsible (I'm not criticising anyone - it isn't the JOB of the blogosphere to be responsible). Nor do blogs necessarily have a massive trust advantage, except among other bloggers.
The media is undoubtedly entering a crisis that will involve a reorganisation and a refocusing of priorities, but will not result in its destruction. Not every organisation will undergo something as traumatic as Rathergate, so long as they learn a lesson from it.
Congratulations on your new blog and I look forward to reading it in future.
Andy
The Conservative Brit
Umm, not to be nit picky, but you typed a "to" when you meant a "too", welcome to the blogosphere ;>
Also, I am wondering if MSM wont push for some kind of Liscensing before being able to be a member of "the media". it is a commonly used barrier to entry used in a lot of service jobs that, while they dont need a high degree of training, are a skill, like nail technician, hair stylist, etc etc.
I think the beginnings of this are the McCain Feingold bill which limits speech by non-media outlets.
Another strategy would be for them to try and have the FCC regulate bloggers and assign fines or other punitive action for "non-acceptable" speech.
Knowing this lot as I do, it would be just like them to take the CBS document forgeries to spearhead a reform movement in which CBS pays millions in fines, but gets a precedent for mistaken reporting being punitively fined, then turning that standard to, if not the instapundits and uss clueless's of the world, then the Drudgereports of the world.
At the very least, they will go after service providers or hosting services to regulate what goes out over thier systems.
I dont think it will succeed, but I do think it will be attempted.
This is pretentious claptrap worthy of Maureen Dowd only with fewer cultural references.
"RatherGate has revealed an ugly truth of old media: It needs secrecy to succeed economically. It must have access to sources of information that no one else does."
Really? Read a newspaper lately? There are relatively few "secret sources" and most of them are in Washington, where raising and lowering trial balloons is an artform. Then, there are the spokespeople who agree to be quoted anonymously, but they represent a specific group. They're speaking for the White House, or the State Department.
So how is "old media" surviving economically if 99 percent of the stories don't have "secret sources."
"Once an outlet publishes a story anybody in the world can reproduce it and resell it in any form."
True, except that the value of a single story degrades with the speed of the value of a new car as you drive it off the lot. That's why journalists find themselves on the street the next day hunting for a new story, or a new angle on an old story. "Secret sources" don't enter into it at all.
"This idea is so central to old media that the law grants professional journalist the privilege of not revealing their sources in court. The law recognizes that old media will not function unless it's sources remain secret."
This is incorrect and backwards. The law does not recognize "professional journalists" at all. A press is a press is a press, wheter it's The New York Times or Instapundit or my weak excuse for a blog. Assuming that the law regarding protection of confidential sources as economic protection is wrong. It's a first amendment protection. Most courts have recognized that, sometimes, it is more important for facts to be placed before the public than anything else (such as a company's rights to its secrets, or a president's right to conduct a war). Economic survival does not play into it at all, unless you're a believer of Marxist economic theory, in which case there's no hope for you.
"The internet era works against old fashion media secrecy. Many more people can ask many more questions about every story. Any potential inaccuracies are brought to light nearly instantly."
This works, but only up to a point. It can only work if bloggers have expertise or knowledge that the old media does not. Rathergate happened, first, because the documents were released in the form CBS released them, allowing those with knowledge of typography and military jargon the ability to parse the evidence themselves. This form of verification would not have worked if CBS had held onto the documents. It will not work in areas outside bloggers' expertise. Can you imagine bloggers working the North Korea blast story? How about the Iraq WMD? Chechnya?
In other words, don't get cocky. Bloggers have enormous limitations. When the right story comes along, it can have an impressive impact, but it's not going to happen on every story.
"The era of secrecy and unnamed sources will soon come to an end..."
I hope not. So long as we have governments, we're going to need Daniel Ellsburg to come up with the Pentagon Papers. We're going to need newspapers to come up with al-Qaida's computers (see the recent Atlantic article). We're going to need someone to publish Saddam's papers showing who was paid how much to oppose the war. We're going to need not just the "old media," but the "old, old media" that was willing to report the story "without fear or favor" as someone once-reputable put it.
The very first word in your very first post in your very first blog is *RATHERGATE* a combination of the name of a long standing old media journalist and a secretly sourced scandal that brought down a president. It rather proves my point that blogs need old media at the moment rather more than old media need blogs. Let me know when Reynolds, Sullivan or LGF bring down a president (with sources they immediately make public) and I'll eat my blog. Actually, it's not a competition, is it? Good luck with the blog and don't worry, the world really is big enough for you AND the Washington Post.
Old Media can still use secret sources. As you said that's what it needs to survive, but they also need a way to encourage trust in these sources. They can accomplish this simply by making a good faith effort to fairly represent as many view points as possible and to own up to their own bias in a clear manner (i.e. Fox imho)
The blogosphere can do original reporting but for really good stuff to be done requires money and time that most bloggers just don't have (Please note that for all the legwork the bloggers did on Rathergate, it was to correct a faulty story not unearth a new one). It's analagous to any intelligence organization. The more time and resources put in, the better the product.
What kind of journalism do people admire the most? Investigative journalism. Investigative journalism does not lend itself to quick headlines in a daily news cycle but requires a lot of time and energy to do correctly. Had CBS put more time and resources into checking out this story (i.e. done some actual investigative journalism)instead of trying to rush forward with such obviously poor sources (leaving aside for the issue of whether they were blinded by their own ideological bent), they would have earned our trust and not our scorn.
True investigative journalism (and trustworthy journalism in general) is the opposite of "gotcha" journalism in that it respects the other side and gives it a hearing even if it is disagreed with. This is precisely what Rather has NOT done on his newscast and why he is sinking fast.
A great book called "The News About The News" talks about this, about the lack of resources and the death of wider networks of correspondents and beat reporters.
Old Media has an opportunity here to change the way it does business and to make itself a kind of public intelligence network with the blogosphere backing it up by fact checking more quickly and accurately than any couple of office researchers or interns ever can. If they can work together in good faith (or check each other so such faith isn't necessary along the line of Instapundit's remarks about lawyers) and put the information first, this can work out. Unfortunately I doubt they will.
I found your blog through Instapundit as well. Nice theme choice! Very elegant and attractive. Congrats on your new blog!
You have some interesting thoughts on big media, and I think you are on the right track. I doubt that blogging will replace big media. Blogging is simply the check and balance to the spin and distortion of facts. Perhaps a blend of the two will be something that we'll see in years to come.
Certainly Rathergate has sent a message to major media outlets, and this message is clear. The people who are watching your shows will no longer be fooled by card tricks. Check your facts, know your story and be certain of your sources before you proceed.
I also feel that this has much to do with why the Bush campaign has been silent on this matter. Why bother to speak up when it's ten times easier to let someone else do it for you?
What will replace it [old media]?
We're trying to figure it out at http://www.pegasusnews.com.
Heh. I just posted a similar message on my blog.
I also think that "sources" are an asset to Old Media. But I think we should deny them that asset.
"The problem is that the vast majority of bloggers get their news from old media sources anyway, so the media is still very much in control."
Oh, Taneem, you're so wrong. I, too, stumbled on this site -- via the Instapundit. The old media had nothing to do with it.
Hardly any original reporting comes from blogs. Most just link to mainstream stories and the majority are just compilations of out of context quoting that support a blatent bias. New media is just the same old rumormill with a new tool. Secret sources like traditional publishing, remain the relm of the real media and journalists. That ain't you.
Those posters who claim that bloggers are only derivative and reactive do not allow for the fact that as certain bloggers become famous and trusted, persons who wish to tell a news story will contact them rather than a not so well trusted old media institution.
When that happens, "scoops" will occur on the internet -- come to think of it, hasn't that already happened with Drudge and the stained blue dress?
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