Some links to an email discussion over the past 10 days or so between Jeff Jarvis of Buzzmachine and NYT executive editor Bill Keller.
Keller wrote about a comment of his about blogs* becoming misinterpreted and spreading through the blogosphere:
Watching this entirely minor episode unfold also confirms my concern that in this disaggregated media environment, people tend to gravitate toward information and opinion that confirms their own prejudices, toward zones of comfort and affinity. There are, of course, blogs where you encounter intelligent, provocative debate and reflection, and I value them, but it seems to be a world in which people quickly harvest the stuff that conforms to what they already believe, where there's a lot more pronouncing and cheerleading than listening and reflecting, and where the market has little tolerance for ambiguity and complexity. (If you have another sister who is a cheerleader, I apologize for any offense given.)
That's what I meant before about driving traffic toward the extremes. Just so I'm clear, this is a fear, not a conviction. I could be entirely wrong. Maybe the best blogs, the ones that cherish empirical evidence and struggle with nuance and prize intellectual honesty, will prevail in the great marketplace. Or maybe there will at least be robust (and sustainable) islands of serious discourse in the blogosphere -- like HBO in the television world or, forgive me, The New York Times in the shrinking pool of serious print media.
Jarvis responded:
First, there is the story that led to this exchange (bless its heart): In it, The Times quoted me as saying in relation to Eason Jordan, "I wish our goal were not taking off heads but digging up truth." That was accurate and certainly didn't make me look bad. But in my original post, I was talking about my fear that established media would portray us as a beheading mob; as snipped and quoted in The Times, that turned out to be a self-fulfilling prophecy. Was the quote taken out of context? Perhaps as much as yours was. Was the quote used to fit the writers' agenda? As much as yours was, I'd say.
And then there is the Sarah Boxer story about Iraqi bloggers that got me so apoplectic. I won't repeat my complaints now (they're all here) but I will note that The New York Times' idle speculation that pro-American Iraqi citizens might be CIA plants spread through big media like your quote spread through small media: The BBC spread it immediately; the Times syndicate spread it as well; and I soon found myself batting it down in a game of pundit wack-a-mole with Eric Alterman on MSNBC. Just as you saw the meme -- as we call it -- of your circle-jerk quote spread through blogs, so did Boxer's speculation -- and its danger -- spread through established media. As you said of blogs: "...a distortion or a half-baked interpretation metastasizes in real time, and can quickly acquire the status of conventional wisdom." Ditto big media.
The exchange started with Jarvis writing Keller on Valentine's Day and suggesting a one-day meeting of Times staff and bloggers "to discover how the interests of both groups are aligned and how we can work together to improve news."
The agenda is quite simple:
1. Let's spend a few hours letting each group vent at the other to get over it.
2. Then let's explore our common interests -- quite simply, informing the public, acting as the people's watch on authority, getting to the truth, and creating a better-informed democracy.
3. Finally, let's investigate the ways that citizens' media and professional media can help each other find stories and find the truth and listen to the public and extend the eyes and ears of The Times and its journalists in ways never possible before.
If we do this right, the reporters and the bloggers will learn that the "other side" is not another side at all; this isn't about monoliths and mobs but about good people trying hard to do the right thing. Times Managing Editor Jill Abramson spent a few days at Harvard in a room with bloggers and didn't seem to come off any worse for the wear; I think she and the bloggers came away, instead, with better understanding and respect.
So how about it, Mr. Keller? We'll bring the bagels, you bring the sandwiches.
The entire exchange up to today can be found here.
* Here's the Keller comment from the Columbia Spectator, newspaper of Columbia University in New York:
Keller also sees “blogging,” or online writing that blurs news and commentary, as a mixed blessing. While he celebrated the blogger’s ability to uncover breaking news, he noted that a blog’s inherent bias might be detrimental to the reader. “A blog is still a view of the world through a pinhole,” he said, noting that it can sometimes fall as low as being a “one man circle jerk.”