Neither fish nor fowl
Posted By Mike Orren in Square Pegs on January 30, 2007
We're in an odd spot right now -- as more and more people find out about us, they're learning that we're neither fish nor fowl and having a hard time figuring out what this Pegasus News thing is all about:
"They do lots of news stories, but they talk like a blog."
"They link out to news sources all over town. What's up with that?"
"They call themselves a news site, but then there's all this entertainment data."
I sat on a TV panel the other day and there's something I wanted to say, but didn't get the chance:
Our uncles in Traditional Media want to call us a "blog." Our readers want to call us "the newspaper."...I'm not really comfortable with either.
We've been talking to a lot of people about who've approached us about partnering up (collaboratition, we call it). Some really get what we're about, and we're going to do some cool things together.
Others say things like:
"If we work together, you're going to have to stop linking to our competitors. Even if they have something that we don't."
"You can't make fun of [insert sacred cow here]. You'll never be taken as a serious news source if you do all that Daily Show stuff."
"You're just a blog. You should be happy to get a text link on our Mainstream Media site that gets 1/10 your traffic."
And our staff, freelance contributors and amateur content partners are getting some firsthand lessons about how the rough and tumble business of local news works. They're not only reporting -- they're justifying at every twist and turn why they should even have access. (Alan has a great piece on this struggle coming up later this week.)
This morning, our youngest staffer (who is carrying a full beat and then some) said to me:
"When I was growing up I wanted to be a journalist. But, thankfully, I never became one."
I was sad and proud at the same time.
What has he become? What are we?
Hell if I know. But we're working it out, slowly but surely. And the end result should be more information and transparency with a wry wink on the side.
lynxears, says:
But, you know, transparency is just what 'the people' are clamoring for...believe me, as a journalism student, all I ever hear is how the industry is running as fast as possible downhill and how I'm not going to get a job. Granted, j-school is a bit of an ivory tower and they like making dire pronouncements, but people want transparency.
I read the "real" papers, and some blogs. At least one of my professors has a name for y'all: community journalism... Maybe you are the verbal sort of "http://spotted.lubbockonline.com/" I'm not trying to toot their horn; the point is, you're something different.
And that's not bad. Everyone likes the flying fish.
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Mike Orren, says:
Thanks, Lynxears. We certainly hope that's what people want, 'cos that's what we're serving. :)
And I like the Lubbock site, except that it has the same problem I have with most newspaper run "community journalism" sites -- Yourhub comes to mind.
http://spotted.lubbockonline.com/
Why do we have to segregate the community journalism in a ghetto apart from the "real" journalism?
I touched on that problem here: http://www.ojr.org/ojr/stories/070117...
But the gist is this: If only x% of people read local period AND only y% of those people are going to take the time to seek out community and neighborhood journalism, why, other than sheer hubris, would you bifurcate your audience?
Every day there are more media outlets and fewer journalism jobs. I hope it's the flying fish who are going to thrive.
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lynxears, says:
Well, that's why I'm interested in PegNews... You seem to have elements of everything we talked about in a classroom theoretical setting.
We talked about the "glass wall" you mention, there, too... I think the biggest motivation is fear. (and a little pride, too). I'm not sure I totally disagree with that fear -- if we let anyone do journalism, won't they? And if THEY get to do journalism, what are we here for? Maybe they'll just ax us all! paranoia
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