A Matter Of Trust
What do you get when you put newspaper editors, television executives, bloggers and critics in a room for four hours to talk about the “blending of news and views?” You get a whole lot of opinion about opinion, for one thing. I took part today in a “dialogue” sponsored by The Museum of Television and Radio which sought to discuss the increasing amount of “opinion” in media coverage, whether it’s healthy, necessary or unavoidable and what it means for the media of the future. Buzz Machine’s Jeff Jarvis and CNN/US President Jon Klein served as “conveners” and former CBS News President Andrew Heyward moderated the discussion.
Joining in the mix were the likes of Washingtonpost.com Executive Editor Jim Brady, blogger/radio host Hugh Hewitt, semi-retired anchor Aaron Brown, “Colbert Report” producer Emily Lazar, New York Times Deputy Managing Editor Jonathan Landman, PressThink’s Jay Rosen and many more. Jarvis, as usual, live-blogged the event and I’ll let his accounts serve as the rough fist draft.
But allow me a couple general thoughts: What was billed as a discussion about the intersection of opinion and news really boiled down to a discussion of “trust” and “transparency.” I felt there was universal agreement that the idea of transparency is one that has become accepted as essential, in one form or another, to journalism. Largely (though not totally) gone from the discussion was the all-too familiar blogger v. MSM tension. Perhaps it’s because there was familiarity among the participants but the level of the discussion was a pleasant surprise. Not so surprising were the partisan arguments of media as either spineless apologists for the right or complicit dupes of the left.
Mainly missing were any tangible answers to the sticky problem of trust, but I felt the discussion transcended the usual defensive posture so often taken in this big discussion of what everyone now recognizes as a new media landscape. That’s progress. Enough of me, here’s Jeff’s take of the first part of the discussion, check his blog out for the full treatment (click "read more" for Jarvis' take):
Joining in the mix were the likes of Washingtonpost.com Executive Editor Jim Brady, blogger/radio host Hugh Hewitt, semi-retired anchor Aaron Brown, “Colbert Report” producer Emily Lazar, New York Times Deputy Managing Editor Jonathan Landman, PressThink’s Jay Rosen and many more. Jarvis, as usual, live-blogged the event and I’ll let his accounts serve as the rough fist draft.
But allow me a couple general thoughts: What was billed as a discussion about the intersection of opinion and news really boiled down to a discussion of “trust” and “transparency.” I felt there was universal agreement that the idea of transparency is one that has become accepted as essential, in one form or another, to journalism. Largely (though not totally) gone from the discussion was the all-too familiar blogger v. MSM tension. Perhaps it’s because there was familiarity among the participants but the level of the discussion was a pleasant surprise. Not so surprising were the partisan arguments of media as either spineless apologists for the right or complicit dupes of the left.
Mainly missing were any tangible answers to the sticky problem of trust, but I felt the discussion transcended the usual defensive posture so often taken in this big discussion of what everyone now recognizes as a new media landscape. That’s progress. Enough of me, here’s Jeff’s take of the first part of the discussion, check his blog out for the full treatment (click "read more" for Jarvis' take):
How gold pays for 