Still Not Getting It
Bill Keller, the executive editor of the New York Times, has engaged in an interesting email exchange with Jeff Jarvis, who is a Democrat and a liberal but is also a genuinely nice, smart guy. Today Keller was the keynote speaker at Friday night’s Blue Pencil Dinner, held annually to benefit the Columbia Spectator. The Spectator reports on Keller's somewhat benighted views on the MSM and the blogosphere:
Keller’s speech focused on the struggle of print journalism to maintain its relevance in the face of constant cable news updates, increased blogging, and failures in credibility.He noted that, according to a recent opinion poll, the public’s trust in journalists is at its lowest point in decades. He attributed this in part to the increasingly polarized nature of the American public, who look to the press for support of their viewpoints.
“At the moment,” he said, “the major press is under attack from ideologues on the right and left.”
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.”
Let's just note a few blind spots here: First, Keller is right to note the challenge to print journalism, but the big problem is not competition, it is what Keller called "failures in credibility." The print media can't beat us and other bloggers when it comes to speed. Ultimately, news organs like the Times can only survive if people believe that their slow, ponderous pace generates better accuracy and thoughtfulness. So "failures in credibility" are crucial and must be addressed; but the Spectator's report discloses no further discussion of how to avoid such "failures." Like, for example: no more pawning off of forged documents, and no more claims that Republican crowds booed when they didn't.
Second: I'm not surprised that public confidence in the MSM is at a low ebb. But I don't think it makes sense to blame the public for this; certainly not until the MSM gets its act together. The suggestion that the Times is "under attack from ideologues on the right and left" is a familiar dodge: we're attacked from both sides, so we must be neutral. Suffice it to say that the New York Times is not in trouble because it has lost the confidence of the liberal 25% of the American population.
Third: Blogs' "inherent bias" is a problem, culminating in some extreme but unidentified case as a "one man circle jerk"? Puhleeze. I would never use such a term in polite company, but if we're going to talk about onanism, how about Frank Rich? Or Paul Krugman, the ultimate partisan hack? Is that not "inherent bias"? If not, why not? The Times is noted for its monolithic, Democratic orientation, which reflects the views of its owners. Its Democratic orientation is so blatant that hardly anyone reads its editorials, and few people read its columnists.
If Keller really believes that blogs are biased but his own newspaper is not--which I doubt--the Times is even farther gone than I realized.
