Journalism, Big Media, Objectivity, etc.

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There was an interesting email exchange between between a couple of our reporters this week. David Brazeal’s comments seemed…sponge-worthy.

I think more likely we’re seeing is a gradual destruction of the great farce of 20th Century elite journalism–that we can do our jobs objectively. Dan Rather thinks he’s objective and Fox News is not. Fox News thinks it’s objective, and Dan Rather is not. The fact is, neither of them is objective. We might very well try to be objective, but it’s impossible for anyone with an opinion.

The problem for big-time journalism outlets is that people have figured this out. Most people don’t fault Dan Rather for being a liberal; they fault him for acting like he’s not. And the more these big institutions cling to this faade of true objectivity, the more obvious it will become to more people. As consumers get more sophisticated, they’re going to demand more source material, more first-person accounts, more access to opposing viewpoints. And they’re going to want it without the filter we’re used to providing. The question is whether we figure out a way to give it to them, or we go down with the ship.

How do you build web traffic?

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1. You can buy ads in the Super Bowl. You can rent billboards on the Interstate. You can trade links with a thousand websites nobody gives a shit about.

2. Or you can create unique, compelling, relevent content. People interested in that content will tell other people interested in that content and on and on.

If you can’t do #2, it doesn’t matter if you can do #1. And the music comes out here.

If you watched any TV news (CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, Fox) during the past 24 hours you might have seen the story about Laura Bush commenting on The Memos. The audio was from an interview the First Lady did with Kay Henderson, the news director of Radio Iowa, our statewide radio news network headquartered in Des Moines. Apparantly, this was the first comment by someone in the Bush camp on “the documents.” Just about every news organization in the country picked up Kay’s piece. And she had the savvy to send them all to RadioIowa.com.