Couldn't resist this photo of Prof. Rosen. Seemed apt.

While newspapers, TV journalists, and news radio bemoan the internet as an attack on journalism, Jay Rosen’s excellent piece, The Quest for Innocence and the Loss of Reality in Political Journalism explores the failures of journalists themselves. In an attempt to cling to the standards of an obsoleted era, journalists, not the internet (read: those of us who use the internet) are failing as the Fourth Estate. The 'quest of innocence,' that stems from the need for objectivity seems to run counter to the mission of reporting facts. This leaves Prof. Rosen to end with a question: “How the hell could this happen?”

There are of course, far too many reasons to answer the question succinctly, but let me posit a few observations in an attempt to respond:

The need to remain relevant

If “sources are going direct” then one of the roles of the traditional news institutions, to report fact, has become obsolete. To remain relevant, newsorgs are left with three possible methods of covering the news: a) present an opinion on events, b) cover parts of the story the sources themselves will not reveal, c) curate the sources into a digest. Traditional journalists feel the need to remain objective (more in a bit), which eliminates opinion and leaves only a combination of behind-the-scenes reporting and factual curation as a means of covering news. Since access is the easiest way to cover what the sources won’t self-reveal, newsorgs live in fear of angering any one party and cause them champion the shield of objectivity.

Objectivity means detachment

If the only way newsorgs can provide value is to gain access and curate, the desire to use the blanket of objectivity has never been so strong. Seemingly, only objectivity can persuade sources to provide access to a reporter. A strong reputation for only reporting facts … and who a fear of reporting any facts that might run counter to the source’s interest is always best. The ethical tenant of objectivity is perhaps the greatest hinderance to reporting ever conceived.

This is an age where objectivity is treated as a moral impossibility and therefore a mortal flaw. Though perhaps its editors don’t like to admit it, the NYT doesn’t have a reputation for objectivity. The Gray Lady is known as anything from liberal rag to a shining example of the liberal media. Not that they’re singled out – I can’t think of a single newsorg that has a untarnished reputation for unbiased reporting.

Not that it matters, because newsorgs themselves aren’t in question – its the individual reporters that are. We live in an era of transparency, and more apropos – access. We no longer trust the ‘voice from nowhere’ – we trust personality. Hence, the rise of Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, Michael Arrington, and oh so many more.
The editorial desire for objectivity misses the point.

“This was a news story, an attempt to report what’s happening out there, as accurately and fairly as possible. Which is not the place for the author’s opinion.” Or: “I was trying to describe the Tea Party movement, and to understand it, which is hard enough; I’ll let others judge what to make of it.”

— The Quest for Innocence and the Loss of Reality in Political Journalism

Statements like those are the equivalent of a photographer showing up without caption information for his photos. A truly objective report is an omission of context that, for photographers, has long been criminal in newsrooms.

Journalists don’t have a view from nowhere. We value them precisely because they have a view from somewhere. Journalists are experts in their field. They have knowledge, contacts, and experience that we can’t replicate – so we go to them for their expertise. Just a doctor presents a diagnosis, journalists present the best accumulation of facts they can find and create not an opinion, but a conclusion.

Fear of Failure

Perhaps the most dreaded words of any traditional newsorg have been “we regret the error.”

Newspapers and broadcast TV have both been terrible at owning up to their mistakes. With apologies coming too late, or not at all. Organizations that persist with this culture of objectivity foster the need to never be wrong – the idea of right or wrong can’t exist in an institution masquerades as objective.

If journalists are experts, and express a conclusion just as a scientist would present a theory, newsorgs need to be willing to accept that even the best conclusions might be wrong. After all, at one time, the best theory of the day said the world was flat.

In my experience, the web has shown that people forgive failure more quickly than obstinacy. We trust experts, not institutions. We forgive failures that are owned, and shy away from mistakes that are glossed over. TechCrunch, for example, doesn’t have an unstained reputation, but who sets the agenda for tech news – TechCrunch or the Wall Street Journal?

Once, they feared the press

The struggle with objectivity and fear of failure lead to the elegant phrase from Prof. Rosen – “the quest for innocence.” This quest, spawned out of a fear of failure, a desire for objectivity, and a need to remain relevant, has created the real problem: the toothless media.

I’m not sure when the cudgel changed hands, but The White House has now mastered the manipulation of the press. President Obama, in a sources-go-direct move, is phasing them out of traditional roles. Journalists are scared of loosing access.

I’m was pretty sure that this its supposed to work the opposite way – the media, as the Fourth Estate, has the duty to check the first, second, and third. Remember when organizations used to invite journalists to events because they’d get bad press otherwise? I don’t. I don’t know if that age has existed in my lifetime. At one point, the press was scary (and only in part because of the paparazzi). Now, the press is controllable. Journalists shouldn’t be scared of loosing access. Politicians, companies, stock holders, the military, ought to be afraid of loosing coverage.

Could the source go direct? Sure they can. But, who’s going to trust The White House critiquing the president’s performance at the State of the Union? Who will believe the military’s assurances that their new plan for the three-month-turned-nine-year war is really the right call? Are we really taking Toyota’s claims that they’ve fixed all their problems at face value?

We’ll be looking to the Fourth Estate to provide not just facts, but conclusions. Sources can present all the information they want, but if they want trust, they’ll need transparency. That means giving access to the press.

This, does of course, mean journalists have to work. The church of the savvy has failed. It’s not possible for journalists to just take the access granted to them. Sources going direct is a liberating experience – it should free journalists from the menial task of simply re-wording press releases.
Shift the cudgel back to the press.

All this complaining…

There’s no point hand wringing that the mainstream media just has it all wrong. There are solid steps to be taken to move forward.

• Abandon the view from nowhere. Embrace journalists as the experts they are. Capable of expressing not an opinion, but conclusions.
• Allow for the possibility that the world might be round. Failure is an option if its not a habit. Wrongness isn’t a sin if its admitted and corrected quickly.
• Abandon objectivity in favor of transparency. This is an old one now, but it’s a cultural shift as drastic as Jeff Jarvis's turning off the presses for traditional institutions and therefore a tough pill to swallow.
• Get some cajones. If journalists realize that sources going direct has freed them of many of the traditional, menial tasks, of reporting, they can focus on the isn’t the right way to do business – that sources on the inside aren’t the only sources – they can release themselves of the need to remain ‘objective’ and avoid access lock-out. Rely on old fashion reporting instead of softball access.

Update

I published both this post and a comment on PressThink at the same time, but my comment seems not have made it past the moderation filter though many others have. I resubmitted my comment a day later, and after waiting another day, the comment had still not made it past moderation. I'm going to go with the notion that my comment was rejected by a spam bot because of too many links, or perhaps I twice mistakenly didn't finish the submittal process. I will however, go ahead and publish it here:

Prof. Rosen–

Thank you for writing this piece. I’ve attempted an answer to your last question on my own blog as it got too long for the comments, but I wanted to respond to your example of tyranny.

I’m a moderate, registered independent, voter. The Tea Party goes down in my book as great fodder for The Daily Show but not much else.

That said, the word “tyranny” though a bit exaggerated, shouldn’t so quickly be belittled. I’ll point to the rise of presidential power which has only increased over the last 80 years, and the last two presidents have dramatically increased that power. One of the greatest examples of this expansion of power is the use of signing statements.

President Bush issued more signing statements than any other president. In these statements he affirmed that he wouldn’t enforce certain portions of bills because he believed them to be unconstitutional. Now, President Obama has said that he won’t be issuing some signing statements at all if he’s previously spoken against the issue.

Tyranny might be a strong word for that in todays politically correct society, but I think anyone would admit, there’s something not right with a President saying he can make, enforce, and decide the constitutionality of the laws – especially if he’s not even going to write it down for us. (For those not keeping track, The Constitution states that only Congress can make laws, the President is obligated to enforce them, and The Supreme Court is solely tasked with decided constitutionality.)

Of course, this argument is really just a good example of why the claim should have been explored in the NYT. I’m fairly certain it wasn’t because sources are going direct, the Fourth Estate has lost its teeth, and Objectivity is killing good journalism.

Similar Posts:

• Apparently Reports, Editors and JUDGES Decide Newsworthiness
• Paid Content = Paid Wifi
• Can We Give Clinton’s Problem to Bush?
• An Economist Approach to the Newspaper Industry
• Dear Bill Keller

Dear Mr. Baker:

Thank you for writing to me about exclusivity agreements in the wireless market and your support for legislative reforms. As a wireless phone customer myself, I understand your concerns. I welcome this opportunity to respond.

Although the market for wireless phone service has become increasingly competitive, some consumers have not seen the kind of efficient, reliable, and fair service that they want. Rather, according to the Better Business Bureau, wireless phone service has become the Nation's most complained-about industry.

I appreciate hearing your support for open access to wireless networks. I understand the frustration of purchasing a mobile phone that is locked and then not being able to use it with a different carrier. There have been multiple lawsuits filed by consumer advocates to prevent wireless carriers from locking their mobile phones, or at least to force carriers to find ways to guarantee interoperability of locked phones between networks.

How the courts resolve these cases will impact what practices are allowed and whether legislative action is warranted. With our State's large business sectors and diverse communities, any change in our telecommunications laws needs to take into consideration a variety of competing concerns since it will have far-reaching effects.

Several states, including California, have enacted or are in the process of enacting laws to protect wireless phone subscribers. Nonetheless, federal legislation may become necessary so that all Americans are treated fairly. I believe that any workable solution for telecommunications reform should focus first and foremost on consumers and the public interest, while also balancing the needs of the network, service, and information providers.

Please know that I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind as the Senate works to address these issues in the 111th Congress.

Once again, thank you for writing. If you have any further comments or concerns, please feel free to contact my Washington, D.C. staff at (202) 224-3841.

Best regards.

Sincerely yours,

Dianne Feinstein

A Response

Senator Feinstein–

Thank you for your response. I appreciate you giving some thought to this matter.

It's clear from your email that you've decided that wireless exclusivity is not an issue that deserves to make it into your portfolio. As the senator representing the Silicon Valley, and my representative, I must urge you to reconsider.

Mobile carriers in this country have taken advantage of consumers for far too long. There are a long string of examples where legislation, not court cases are called for.

• As covered in the New York Times last week, mobile carriers are making the us pay extra for simple services like voicemail. A bill to force carriers to allow users to set their own voicemail greetings, or one that forced them not to charge for listening to their service messages would go a long way toward controlling this out-of-control industry.
• In most other countries, customers are only charged for outgoing calls – much the same way landlines have worked in this country. In the US however, we're effectively double charged – for both outgoing and incoming calls. This practice, effectively allows mobile carriers to  make twice as much off of each phone call. Legislation that enforced a "one charge per call" policy would go a long way toward straightening our backwards industry.
• As you may have heard, the FCC has just began an investigation of AT&T for potentially unfair exclusivity arrangements with Apple to the exclusion of Google and other VOIP providers. The issue is one of Net Neutrality: can AT&T control what data is allowed over its network? Users pay for access to "unlimited" data rates over the AT&T network. For them to disallow certain types of data because it competes with another aspect of their business is not only anti-competitive, it's censorship. I urge you to support the FCC in this investigation and take a strong stance on Net Neutrality.

Senator, as the representative to the Senate for the heart of technology innovation in our country, I ask you to take a stronger stance on these issues. Not only are the mobile carriers stifling other businesses, AT&T has now threatened to censor the internet – an act that goes counter to the freedoms this country protects.

Senator, as your constituent, and a citizen deeply engaged with the future of the internet economy and information access, I must stress: this is not a small issue.

The mobile infrastructure in this country is poorly lacking. Third world nations have done better than the United States in laying the groundwork for an efficient mobile network. We need to correct the course we've set.

This is not a matter for the courts. It's not a matter for the states. It's an issue that deserves to be addressed at the federal level – as indeed the FCC appears to have noticed. Please consider adding Mobile Phone Infrastructure and Mobile Phone Net Neutrality to your portfolio – it's an issue that your constituents in particular are behind.

Best regards,

—Joey Baker
Saratoga, Santa Clara County, California

If you've gotten this far…

I encourage you to copy-paste this letter to Dianne Feinstein's email form.

Similar Posts:

• The Wall Street Journal Has Their iPhone App All Wrong
• Paid Content = Paid Wifi
• AP Cuts Prices, Announces Mobile Product – washingtonpost.com
• Newspapers Should Repurpose Craigslist to Save Their Classifieds
• How I Want My Data: Locality & Cloud Aware

Google's ChromeOS, might be vaporware, but the idea of a Google built OS is an interesting thought experiment in design. Knowing that Google is engineer friendly, have a business based on search, and a tendency toward minimalist design, leads me to the following guesses:

• The paper paradigm is antiquated. Navigation will be dead, this will be a search driven OS. That means that they're gonna do something with the desktop, as in forget you had one. An analogy: If your current desktop is like the Yahoo homepage (cluttered, full of everything), a ChromeOS desktop will be like the Google homepage: a search bar.
• Apps? What apps? You're not gonna be able to run photoshop on this. You don't need to. This isn't designed for people who need apps. It's designed for people that do email, web, and word. All of which can be done in the cloud.
• You're not gonna see ads all over the place. Think Gmail ads, not google search ads. Small, inline.
• Local storage won't matter – the goal here, is to store all you data in the cloud. Besides, this is gonna be for netbooks, what data do you have that can't be stored in the cloud? Think about the difference between the Palm Pilot and the iPhone. On a Palm, you had to sync all of your data to bring it with you. The iPhone can store it all (even your music) in the cloud. ChromeOS will operate the same way. I'd expect to see a 3G modem, similar to the Kindle, built into devices.

Finally, for all those calling it vaporware, I say this: Google has yet to disappoint. The Android OS had a similar lack of information too. I have faith! :)

Similar Posts:

• A Web Design Critique of Google News
• Cloud Computing Is Well and Good, but It Can’t Beat the Desktop Computer. – By Paul Boutin – Slate Magazine
• How I Want My Data: Locality & Cloud Aware
• MobileMe Reviewed
• Google Wave: The End of the Wild Web

This post outlines the second takeaway, and will be 1000 words. Pictures are worth 1000 words right? :)

Take a look at the comparison between the print and online layouts of that article below.

click for a larger version

The print layout is clearly, superior. It’s far easier to read, offers a summary of what the article is at an eye’s glance.

• Multiple Pages The online version requires the user to click to a second page to read the whole article. Yet, the print version fits handily on one page. WHY!?
  There is no newshole online! Stop making it difficult for us to get to the end of the article!
• Ads Admittedly, the print version shares a spread with a full page ad, but the content remains ad free. The online version feels cramped. There are two, small, intrusive ads, that serve to distract from the content.
• Styling is Gone This is a great example of why shovelware is bad for design. The print version nicely separates out questions, credits, and answers with font styles. The online version? Nothing. Someone just copy-pasted the content out of a text document. It’s much harder to read than the article, let alone tell that it’s a Q&A.
• The Sidebar is Distracting Even if Google is my homepage, there is far too much content presented to draw me in. The sidebar is full of irrelevant stuff that distracts me from the article. The clean, minimalistic design in print is far more eye-catching.

The Takeaway

• Use subheads Give the reader entry points. Especially online where people are used to reeading short blurbs of text are are prone to skimming as they scroll.
• Don’t forget the rule about one piece of dominant artwork It's amazing how truly good design never changes. Presenting one place for the eye to center on that sums up the content is a design trait that goes to the way we think – regardless of the medium.
• Leave some whitespace Clutter on the page makes your content hard to read. Just because your CMS allows you to dump in your content and move on, it doesn't mean you should. Giving this article the same amount of design time in both print and online would have helped a lot. I'd bet that the amount of design time for the web could be much less.

Similar Posts:

• Myth: The Smaller News Hole (at the NYT)
• Micropayments Lead to Piracy
• A Web Design Critique of Google News
• The New York Times’ Design Director Defends Its New Welcome Mat. – By Jack Shafer – Slate Magazine
• Make Money by Removing Ads

You’ve got to be kidding me.

I had hope. I’ve been to the new Times newsroom, I’ve seen your awesome web infographics, I’ve talked with your developers, I’ve watched videos of your futurism department. There are many, many, smart people working for you.

When I asked one of your employees, why he had given up a well-paying job to come work for you he told me “…when the Times calls, you answer.”

I was emboldened when I read your byline from Iran. You, a manager, reported from the heart of what continues to be the world’s biggest story.

You sir, are in control of one of the finest journalism producing institutions in the world. Yet, people like you are pissing it away.

I was heart broken when I heard that the New York Times, which I have a deep respect and love for signed it’s intent-to-file-chapter-11 forms.

Nonetheless, I have a deep appreciation for experimentation, and I hope that your endeavors will teach the rest of us a thing or two about how to make money on the web.

Then, I read a Q&A that you did in TIME magazine. Even though the copy had to fit on one page, and your answers are brief, I’ve never seen a journalist sound as much like a politician as you did in that article. (And I use the word 'politician' that in the out-of-touch, slimy, refusing-to-be-held-accountable sort of way.)

Apologize for your mistakes. Transparency is all it’s cracked up to be.

You admitted that journalists in this country had failed as the Fourth Estate. The flat-out bad reporting when ex-President Bush took this country to war against Iraq was in-excusable. The argument for war was based on lies. To this day, the media hasn’t made a resounding statement saying as much.

You didn’t apologize.

You blamed us, the people, for creating “conventional wisdom” for you to ‘float along’ with.

If you want us to trust you, we’ve got to have an honest relationship! Tell us when you get something wrong. We’ll be mad, but we’ll trust you more because you came clean.

The smell of ink doesn’t justify its cost.

You said that print still has “a lot of life left in it.” I’m not sure if that was the diplomatic answer but I think most of us would have been more impressed to hear that you were actively looking for ways to move your operation digital; that print was on its way out as the foundation of your business.

Make a commitment to doing journalism online because the myth that, “the best of online journalism is rooted in mainstream media,” won’t last long. I’m not sure what you define as “mainstream,” but you ought to consider re-evaluating your premise. The MSM isn’t the only group of people capable of doing journalism.

You’re not the last bastion of resistance. Stop resisting.

The Daily Show segment ‘End Times’ that made you look “faintly ridiculous” according to your wife should be the last time you try to look like an arrogant douche, not the last time you try to be a good sport!

Let me give you a clue: depicting The New York Times as, “the last ship afloat, we [at the NYT] have all these lifeboats floating around underneath us and people dying to clamber aboard,” does not make it sound like you ‘get it.’ It sounds like you believe your own hype.

There are plenty of other companies out there doing journalism. And frankly, some of us are pretty sure that your ship has been left behind.

“The people who are eager to dance on the grave of the times and other major news organizations” aren’t eager, just willing. We wouldn’t “feel a profound sense of loss if suddenly there were no organizations that were sending reports to afghanistan or policing Wall Street or Washington,” because we’ll still have that. Journalism isn’t being threatened Mr. Keller. Just your business.

I do have a bureau in Iraq. You would too, if you were actually listening.

I'm totally lost on your obsession with foreign bureaus. Your report from the ground in Tehran, during the recent Iran elections was little more than a summary of events. There was nothing in that piece I couldn’t get elsewhere.

Again: there was nothing in that piece I couldn’t get elsewhere.

Please don’t insult my intelligence by saying that bureaus are necessary for reporting. The number of stories about Iraq as dropped off drastically in your paper. Having people on the ground there isn’t helping. If you’d drop your idiotic social media policy, you might be able to present new information, instead of simplistic anecdotes that I can just as easily find on twitter.

Please don’t fail your job as a our watchdog again because you lacked a bureau. You may “think there is a little bit of a sense of war fatigue… while the country is going through a bit of a transition.” But, I think that sounds like you’re worried about selling papers.

Trust me, every family with a solider over there grasps for any information they can get. You can’t stop being a public trust because its inconvenient for your private shareholders.

So… what’s the difference?

The Times had no problem leaking state secrets, claiming the truth required that they be published. Yet it had no qualms lying about the kidnapping of one of its reporters to protect his safety. What is the difference?

—Bob Dame, time.com

Yes, that’s an inflammatory question. But, I’d still like an answer. What is the difference?

Not all of us are convinced that withholding information from the public is the journalistic thing to do. Please don’t skirt the question by saying that you save lives.

ALL Iranian journalists are being oppressed.

Yes, Iran’s policy toward journalists is “self-destructive.” Glad we agree. But, if you recall, Iran of all places, is a perfect example of Iran oppressing all journalists.

We’ve proven that the random guy on the street with a cellphone camera can show live video to the world. That’s faster reporting than the New York Times has ever delivered. Let’s not just worry about Iran oppressing journalists. Let’s praise the Iranian people for picking up the slack.

Okay, so do we have a free press?

“Do you think there should always be freedom of the press?” is a bit of a weak question. But, telling us that libel laws mean we don’t have “absolute freedom of the press,” misses the point.

Again, Mr. Keller, you’ve not answered the question.

Yes, absolutes are impossible. Yes, the press is regulated, but jeebus man! How about a resounding, “YES! Journalism will always be here!”

Is your faith that shaken?

Mr. Keller, answer the question please.

“One of the most important disciplines in journalism is to challenge your working premises,” is not an answer to: “Do reporters avoid writing un-flattering things about sources?”

It’s a cop-out. It’s avoiding the question. It’s horribly non-transparent. The sheer number of times you quote from a “high-ranking administration official,” in your paper is ludicrous. The answer you were looking for was a simple, “yes.”

The correct answer ought to include phrases like “we’re a part of the community we report on,” and “people know they’re always on the record when they talk to us,” and “yes, it does happen, but only for really good reason.”

Sir, you’re right, objectivity is impossible. So stop trying!

It’s amazing the pains you go through to remove yourself from your own articles. Stop that. I have no problem with knowing that you were, ya’ know, actually there. I forgive you. Really.

Stop worrying about The Gray Lady having a liberal tint. As you rightly imply, most of the folks calling you liberal likely think creationism is science. The rest of us are perfectly willing to accept you for doing a the best job you can. Be honest, and we’re willing to accept that you're just as human as the rest of us.

Society’s relationship with journalism has changed.

“Quality journalism not the quite the same as info, it is in greater demand than it’s ever been and it’s in shorter supply than it’s ever been.”

—Bill Keller, time.com

I’m sorry, what!?

Yes, information is in greater demand than ever before, and yes, journalism isn’t the same as pure information, but to argue that supply of either has gone down shows a level of ignorance I didn’t think possible for a man in your position.

We have more of both than ever before. Don’t go insinuating that your poor newspaper is society’s last hope for useful information. That’s at best disingenuous, and at worst, wrong.

Mr. Keller, I’m calling you to account.

I tired of seeing an older generation of managers ruin this business for the rest of us. I’m not waiting to dance of the grave of the New York Times. I hope that the institution continues to exist for a long time to come.

For that to happen, you’ve got to re-learn your entire industry. This is not the industry that you grew up with. We’re experiencing the greatest change to information distribution since the invention of the printing press 500 years ago.

Your 40 years of experience are nearly irrelevant in this new business. Take the time to re-learn and re-think everything you thought you knew. ‘New media’ is a bit counter-intuitive. Take the time to think about the new rules of the road. And, perhaps consider a hiatus from giving interviews until you can be a good sport again.

Your heartfelt supporter,

—Joey Baker

I hit the publish button on this post knowing two things:

1. Interviews are damn hard. It’s near impossible for a journalist, who is used to asking the questions, give the right answers all the time.

2. I will never be asked to work for the New York Times.

Updates

Update: I've tweaked this post for typos and added a few links to provide more examples.

Update: Apparently, calling the NYT social media policy, "idiotic" might have been premature. According to Jacob Harris, the social media policy that Poynter reported is wrong. I've asked if the correct policy is public facing, and haven't yet received a reply.

harrisj

(Jacob Harris)

@joeybaker One thing I will correct. The social media policy is not idiotic; you and Poynter are wrong on what the internal policy is.

On 13-7-2009 16:01:48 from Tweetie in reply to Joey Baker

• They Do Care, Right?
• Micropayments Lead to Piracy
• Objectivity: The Mortal Ethic That Started The ‘Quest for Innocence’
• Some Photogs Can Write
• No, No, Newsprint IS Dead

Turns out having a side project can lead to some really good work too. Just ask Google about their 20% rule.

After a long time of not following this sage advice, I am now fortunate enough to announce two.

The Vancouver Project

A good friend of mine, Andrew Burton, and I have been talking for a couple of months about the rise of DSLRs with video capability and what it the implications for sports photographers.

Andrew had the foresight to see that this new technology would come to head in the very near future – namely the coming winter Olympics in Vancouver. Exploring thought, we also realized that this Olympics would be the first since the rise of the real-time web, live video broadcasting from cell phones, Google Wave, and, and, and.

Our realization lead to a plan of action which we're calling The Vancouver Project. Stop by and check us out.

Shameless plug: if you're in a position to help by spreading the word to the right people we'd love to hear from you.

Linked Photographer

In other news, I'm writing a book.

That is a very weird sentence for me to write. I write posts, tweets, cutlines… not books. But, apparently, that's happening :)

An excellent friend of mine, and phenomenal fashion photographer, Lindsay Adler, approached a few months ago saying that she was looking into writing a book, would I be interested in co-authoring?

Today, I signed the contract. We'll be writing a book that's got the tentative title Linked Photographer. It will be part treaties, part howto, and part reference on how photographers can use social media for business. It's a bit more than a for-dummies book, but

We'll be launching linkedphotog.com soon, so stay tuned!

Similar Posts:

• Connecting Another Dot(s)
• CBS Journalist Freed in Iraqi Raid – New York Times
• ‘Olympicpix’
• Whiskey Tango Foxtrot Did Happen to That War?
• Still Photography Has a Future!

I recently critiqued the redesign of Newsweek, and was pleased to see the positive response. I sorta promised that this would become a regular feature for me, so I'll try to hold to that.

I'm only looking at homepages. Critiquing a whole site is a lot of work. I'll do it someone wants to pay me though :]

After leading a webinar for CoPress on homepage design, I've done a lot of research into mainstream homepages – what works and what doesn't. For the second go at this, let's look at Google News.

Google has an … involved … relationship with the media industry. Newspapers have accused Google of stealing their content, rumors say Google thought about buying a newspaper, and much to the chagrin of journalists everywhere, Google started linking to Wikipedia in the Google News results.

With all the hype, you'd think Google News was an incredible product that attracted a ton of pageviews. (Actually, Yahoo News gets more hits) In truth, Google News reveals itself to have many poor design principals, and, despite some good ideas, to be an eyesore that is really designed for one purpose: act as a search engine for news articles.

• Highly customizable: Easily the best part about the design is the amount of control given to the user over the content they want to see. Google throws out the idea that every user needs to see political and world news. You can setup search modules to show very customized content too.
• Color coded: it's trivial, but an important visual cue. This works pretty well in the nav bar, but the execution on the rest of the site is poor. They take a strong visual cue, and tone it way down.
• Google Juice: the site is really geared to be used as a search engine, and it shows. From the wonky side navigation, to the really cool "recommended for you" section that uses your search history to find you news, Google News is clearly designed to search your news, not browse to it.
• Art? What art? OK, there is some art, but its really small. Visually impressive, this site is not.
• Link List: Can you avoid the impression that the page is just a huge list of links? I can't. It would be nice to have some attempt at styling, design, etc…
• Summaries: Google News works because of automation, but the lack of hand-crafted summaries really limits the usability.

Overall, Google News design gets a 2/5. It's got customization, but it's really not a friendly UI. The site clearly uses a grid style design, but there's too many eyelines – I can't decide where to look.

As an execution of the 'river of news' concept, gNews misses one key aspect – you can only have one river at a time, or else, the eye gets lost. Google gets this right with search results, but somehow that design philosphy didn't carry over to gNews.

Perhaps my best suggestion for Google: bigger images. Much bigger. Draw the eye in.

Similar Posts:

• Google Tries Tighter Aim for Web Ads – NYTimes.Com
• UI Guesses for Google Chrome OS
• The New York Times’ Design Director Defends Its New Welcome Mat. – By Jack Shafer – Slate Magazine
• Rev2oh | Classifieds: Use a Tiered Selling Strategy
• A Web Design Critique of the Newsweek Redesign

I’m throughly shocked by the number of naysayers out there. The reaction on Twitter after the announcement, and the excellent review of the event on TechCruch, was mixed. Some were just as enthusiastic as me, but many have the wait-and-see attitude that, to me, doesn’t recognize the pure awesomeness that is Google Wave. There are only two obstacles Google Wave has to overcome to become as widely used as Google Search that I can see: market penetration and standards adoption.

HTML5

The switch to Wave is going to rely on HTML5, a standard that has been 5 years in the making. That’s a really long time coming. The same year the standard got it’s start gave birth to Facebook, Gmail was still new, and IE was still 91% of the browser market. In Internet terms, HTML5 has been in progress since the middle ages.

Changing the basic language of the web is a drastic change, and we need to be sure that the standard is right. Yet, surely we can adapt to adding new standards at a quicker rate? Because all “modern” browsers are open-source, and have a track record for continuous innovation, it’s inconceivable to me that was couldn’t innovate on a faster scale.

Five years is an awful long time, and it’s incredible how much – of the draft spec – the browsers are already supporting. HTML5 will bring about a friendlier internet – one that feels like a desktop experience. We have the technology to deliver that – why wouldn’t we?

Acceptance

To my mind, the harder part of making Wave successful is getting people to use it. I don’t just mean sign up. I mean, use it.

The pure genius of Wave is that it centralizes all communication.

Everything.

All of it.

That means your email (gone for sure), your IM (no doubt), your sticky notes (why not?), your documents (probably), your faxes (people still use that protocol!?), your text messages (not demoed, but why not!?), your blog posts (wordpress plugin anyone?), your blog comments (Hallelujah!), your twitter (likely) …your everything.

If you’re going to really use Wave, that means throwing out all of your old tools. Get rid of your email client, forget AIM, loose the SMS plan. They’re not needed.

As long as people can write some extensions for backward compatibility to those folks still stuck in the HTML4, pre-2009 era, there won’t be a reason to keep the old communications around.

One Source

Having one place for all of your communication is such a simplification of life that we ought to all go buy Google a beer – scratch that – a nice bottle of wine. You’ll have the time to drink it with all the … time … Google just saved you.

And that’s just the first thing Wave will do for you – save you time. It’s going to be easier than ever to communicate with folks. With the email paradigm broken and quicker, simpler, communication the norm, we’ll spend time in the inbox – it just won’t be as painful.

The End of the Cowboys

The other thing I see Wave doing is moving us toward a community driven internet. One of the biggest problems that the web has always had is trust. The Web is still very much like the old Wild West.

The Wild West was an era that determined how the western US would be settled. The Western frontier times ended once cities started to become established; commerce settled down, and laws could be written and enforced.

The establishment of cities is a good metaphor for building online communities. But, there is one key factor that most online communities lack that new towns always had: trust. Small towns are a place where everyone knows everyone. Small cities are just many of these communities put together – there’s an intricate network of relationships. All of which are built on the idea that people know and trust each other.

When people don’t have a personal relationship with a part of their community, they have a trust in certain community institutions. Grocery Stores, for example, are a real marvel of commerce – not because of their business model (which is pretty good), but because they’ve standardized the way people buy food and guarantee a good supply. We’re not worried about food at all in our society – we trust that grocery stores will always be around to provide what we need.

On the Wild Web, we’re still learning the ropes. Institutions are still being built, and we’re still trying to figure out how to build relationships with literally everyone in the world.

Buying a product online can still be risky proposition. Everything from credit card theft to non-reputable dealers (far more common) puts you at risk. Engaging in Internet communities is a leap of faith too. Who really is stargirl73 answering your tax question on that forum? And what jack-ass is flaming you on your own blog?

The solution here? Create an institution that standardizes identities. If everyone uses one tool for communication, then it becomes easy for them to build a reputation. Wave will make it simple to build a profile of who you are. Others can you can get a sense of everything you’ve said and what you think. That’s just like building a reputation for yourself in the ‘real world.’

In real life, you don’t get to create a new identity at every store you walk into, every party you go to, every employer you interview with. You are who you are, and your reputation goes with you. Wave will help bring that concept to the web, hopefully, building trust that will allow us to have real community online.

Videos

Similar Posts:

• How to Save Afghanistan – TIME
• The Internet Broke the Economy
• Shrink the Web (2.0)
• Links for January 8th Through January 9th
• REPOST | Defined: Newspaper Platform

I had gotten really tired of being everyone's (free) tech support. The problems were always the same: My WiFi doesn't work! || How do I move to a new computer? || I have a virus! || etc…

That, and after going all mac for a few years, the PC interface just felt clunky to me. I really felt inefficient working on darn WinXP. So… I just told everyone to go get a Mac, then come to me if they ever had issues.

I went from doing 2-3 housecalls a week to one every six months.

Don't get me wrong – I love all my friends, but I've learned that in the drive to be a "nice guy," it's reasonable to set limits on what other folks can ask you. Without exception my friends would grumble, deal with my Mac evangelizing, and go ask someone else to fix their problem. There were no hard feelings (that I know of – I've had a beer with each of 'em :] and I'd guesstimate that 40% of them have now bought a Mac.

iPhone support

To the point of this post: this blog now supports iPhones. I finally got around to installing the wonderful WPtouch Wordpress Plugin, and I must say – it's rather snazzy.

In much the same way that I don't support PCs, I don't support Internet Explorer very well. But, to prove I'm an Apple fanboy, I do now support iPhones for the 6 of you who visited via iPhone in the last 30 days :]

Somethings make you think…

I don't know if this is because of my lack of IE support or some comment on the attention span of different browser users or an indication that the people who read this blog tend to not use IE, but a screen shot from Google Analytics on the right.

Similar Posts:

• AppleInsider | Apple Announces iPhone 2.0 Software and SDK Beta
• Simplicity
• I Don’t Support PCs
• How Apple Got Everything Right by Doing Everything Wrong
• You’ve Noticed the ‘Links’

Google CEO Eric Schmidt

Which lead me to the following idea – newspapers are very good at interviewing people. Further, their brand recognition can get them access to folks that the typical blogger doesn’t have access to.
Interviews of industry leaders talking about things they don’t typically present in public is certainly premium content that people would be willing to pay for – especially if they can write it off as a business expense.

What a great application of freemium to newspaper online content. Offer a shorter video like the one above for free, and then charge a monthly rate if people want live access.

Of course, there’s a major problem. People are already doing this and providing the content for free. This Week in Startups (TWiST), started just a few weeks ago by Jason Calacanis, the founder of Mahalo.com . The show concept is very cool: he uses ustream to livestream an hour long interview with founders and CEOs of interesting startups. He uses a Twitter hashtag as a backchannel to the whole show, allowing people to converse and ask questions. Best of all, this is free.

If Calacanis, who is undoubtedly a busy man, can do this, for free. There must be countless other examples of the same. Just check the iTunes Podcast directory for more.

Mark another lost opportunity for newspapers.

TWiST Episode 1

Similar Posts:

• Links for January 16th Through January 19th
• Paid Content = Paid Wifi
• LINKS | the Rocky Dies and the Daily Emerald Strikes
• LINKS | Micropayments Don’t Work, but Everyone Has a Better Idea
• Tough One: The Government’s Right to Notes