I hate to be the contrarian in the room, but sometimes, it’s too easy.
Fred Wilson is right to say that journabloggers don’t always do as much diligence as actual journalists for their stories.
Steven Hodson is equally right to say that this opens an opportunity for someone with more patience and a discerning eye to get the story right.
But guess what? It won’t happen, because the model does not allow for it. Last week, 24/7 RealMedia CEO David Moore observed that:
the Internet has been either dramatically underpriced or offline media is dramatically overpriced. Right now a reader of the Wall Street Journal might be worth a dollar, but for someone reading the online Journal you get a nickel. That’s 20 to 1 offline versus online pricing. You need 20 online readers to replace one offline reader. So when you talk about pricing overall I think the web is dramatically underpriced already.
In other words, newspapers have the luxury of hiring actual reporters and providing them with researchers and fact-checkers (at least some) because their inefficient model allows them to do so. As the downward spiral of cost-cutting in publishing continues, then newspapers will have to compete with the same blogs and journalists too will be asked to put the pedal to the metal and publish more in less time.
The net effect of this will be a tradeoff between accuracy and speed. In fact, since I’ve began commenting on the industry and publish such commentary, I’ve noticed that traditional media is usually a few days (not hours, days) late to report on story. Is it because we’re better than them? Of course not. In fact, I actually have a full time job yet I manage to pontificate on stories and rumors much faster and oftentimes in more depth (not bragging, just based on people’s feedback, and let’s face it, not sure if my verbose prose is even a good thing).
I’m not alone, as Fred Wilson points out, there are countless of actual blog networks dedicated exclusively to cover stories that beat journalists and traditional publishers to the story. They are in the business of reporting, I am not. I have a separate focus which is WatchMojo.com, a producer of video content.
Traditional media does some diligence and investigates stories and checks their sources. Generally speaking, we don’t. Or rather, the cutoff for what passes off as due diligence is lower than what it is for traditional media.
My concern is different: Personally, I always ask myself if what I am saying crosses some kind of ethical line as an executive operating in the space with sensitive, private info. When YouTube or Revver or Google does or says something, I know when it’s real and when it’s BS. It does not mean I will write about it.
But Tech Crunch, Giga Om, RRW, etc., do not have to worry about that because they are full-time writers. It is their mandate to call on BS. The flip side is that one would hope they check sources and what not, but I doubt they do all the time because these now compete not only with traditional media but with one another. Within one another, it’s a freefall for what passes off as accurate information and not hearsay.
This race towards the lowest common denominator for what passes off as actual facts and not innuendo and rumor is both good and bad… but ultimately, given the obsession over growing digital, because, again to quote Mr. Moore:
I haven’t spoken to anybody who thinks media fragmentation is going to stop. I think we are dramatically underpriced compared to offline. The amount of money newpapers and magazines have been getting per thousand is outrageous. Newpapers and magazines are still getting roughly 30% of all advertising expenditures–yet if you look at their share of media usage, they’ve got between 7% and 9%. Thats why they’re having so much trouble.
I suspect that the actual journalists will start to emulate the journabloggers and not the other way around. Why do I know that? Just trust me, I do.
More commentary on this from Mathew Ingram, an actual journalist, who also blogs.
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