Mar 12th, 2009 at 10:01 am
No, Fuck You
Ladies and gentlemen, the nation’s top journalism school:
But the push for modernization has also raised the ire of some professors, particularly those closely tied to Columbia’s crown jewel, RW1. “Fuck new media,” the coordinator of the RW1 program, Ari Goldman, said to his RW1 students on their first day of class, according to one student. Goldman, a former Times reporter and sixteen-year veteran RW1 professor, described new-media training as “playing with toys,” according to another student, and characterized the digital movement as “an experimentation in gadgetry.”
This is like saying that writing books is an experiment in playing with printing presses.
50 Responses to “No, Fuck You”
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March 12th, 2009 at 10:03 am
Them newfangled horseless carriages will never catch on. Now, let’s get back to Buggy Repair 101.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:11 am
A dead tree journalist wants to get into a swearing contest with bloggers?
Good luck with that, fucko.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:11 am
Hilariously enough, not only do we not need Old Media, we don’t need Old Media brick and mortar journalism schools either. ha ha
I got an email the other day from the Poynter Institute informing me of their online News University — i.e., online courses in journalism. Which you can take at your own pace and schedule. See http://100k.newsu.org/
You might check it out, Matthew. But don’t let them beat the typos out of you.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:21 am
Matt talks pretty tough for a guy that doesn’t know the difference between Germany and Denmark.
But I guess basic accuracy is an ideal of ‘old media’.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:22 am
“Nobody’s gonna pay to hear pictures talk.”
March 12th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Oh, come on. More context here is needed. Goldman may be making the obvious point that the internet has added nothing positive to journalism except greater accessibility.
No advances have been made in the types of journalism most needed – i.e., long form, investigative and/or explicative stories that could have, for example, shown that most of the economic growth of the last thirty years was based on artifical inflation of paper assets and an unsustainable housing bubble, or that there was strong evidence that the arguments in favor of Iraq were almost all lies.
Every significant story uncovering goverment/corporate malfeasance still originates in “dead tree” media. Until someone funds an internet enterprise committed to this type of reporting, all your going to continue to get is thrice digested takes on the conventional wisdom and newspaper headlines.
And your not really touting Twitter as an advance of anything other than the increasing attempt to turn the level of discourse in America into that of a suburban teenager, are you? Twitter makes TMZ look like Masterpiece Theatre.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Every significant story uncovering goverment/corporate malfeasance still originates in “dead tree” media.
B-b-but Talking Points Memo links to them! And puts up videos! That’s the journalism of tomorrow!
March 12th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Josh Marshall’s TPM broke the US Attorney firing story, which the trad med had been completely ignoring.
Yes, viable business models for true online reporting will have to be invented. But that’s the point- they will HAVE to be invented, because newspapers have lost their economic function and their demise is beyond anyone’s power to prevent. (Of course, for some reason they seem bent on accelerating it by putting out crappy product.)
March 12th, 2009 at 10:41 am
“Oh, come on. More context here is needed. Goldman may be making the obvious point that the internet has added nothing positive to journalism except greater accessibility.”
Or he could be making the point that online journalism, whether blogs or websites, is no different than any other kind of journalism, that it should be guided by the same ethics and standards (not that newspapers or TV have been abiding by those standards).
Mike
March 12th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Yes, viable business models for true online reporting will have to be invented. But that’s the point- they will HAVE to be invented…
The people in charge of inventing better get on the ball—because I don’t see even the slightest glimmers on the horizon right now.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:48 am
B-b-but Talking Points Memo links to them! And puts up videos!
And wins Polk awards for putting together the big picture on a really important story that wound up bringing down at least one senator. Individual print reporters had reported pieces of the story, but it would’ve gone nowhere without Marshall & co. putting together the long form version of it.
It’s certainly true that print media provide the vast majority of the indispensable reporting that lets blogs do their thing, but don’t overstate the case. TPM does real reporting, and it’s in our interest to hope they can keep it up.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:48 am
I’m worried too. Very worried, in fact. Precisely because of the observable fact that newspapers are on the way out much faster than alternatives are being developed. Denial, though, is not a constructive way to deal with this reality, so I hope that’s not all Prof. Goldman has to offer.
March 12th, 2009 at 10:59 am
Breewm, I could care less that sometimes reporters write a good story and have it buried deep in the bowels of their paper while sycophantic corporate cheerleading gets all of the prominent places. But what you’re doing is really no different than when the Iraq War went south and reporters started pointing to obscure lines within paragraph 8 of a story written three pages from the fold to claim that the media displayed tough journalism in dealing with the run up to the war; while ignoring the ‘OMG YOU HAVE TO INVADE!!!!!’ headline stories.
Corporate media is useless. You can strain yourself squinting for that silver lining all you want, but it’s just a pile of BS propaganda to me.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:02 am
Yes, what would all of us do without the “journalism” of the New York Times and the Washington Post? We’d probably end up in a few illegal wars with war criminals in the White House or something.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:03 am
Re brewmn at 8: “Every significant story uncovering goverment/corporate malfeasance still originates in “dead tree” media. ”
—————–
This, of course, is utter bullshit. There are many major stories on the blogosphere that Old Media won’t acknowledge because doing so would upset the wrong people.
The Israel Lobby, for one. Professors Mearshimer and Walt had to go to Britain to get that one published. And the New York Times mentions Haim Saban only when it wants to suck his cock.
Anyone who really follows events can not fail but have deep contempt for the Mainstream Media — they deceive more than they inform and they deceive as much by what they refuse to report as by outright lying.
By the way, has Judith Miller found those nukes in Iraq yet?
March 12th, 2009 at 11:17 am
Reminds me of those obnoxious NYT “Weekender” commercials where one of the self satisfied yuppie customers intones “The Times has the best journalists in the world. And there’s no debating that.” Flat declarative. Always makes me chuckle.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:18 am
No advances have been made in the types of journalism most needed – i.e., long form, investigative and/or explicative stories that could have, for example, shown that most of the economic growth of the last thirty years was based on artifical inflation of paper assets and an unsustainable housing bubble,
Calculated Risk?
March 12th, 2009 at 11:19 am
Really surprised to see so many old media boosters here. It’s pretty clear that the economic model for old media is deeply corrupting to the goal of democratic journalism. It would be great if we could get similar levels of funding for alternative modes or organization, but that is unlikely to happen. But what we do have is a developing infrastructure that is capable of taking the raw information generated in large part by these old media organizations and actually filtering and distributing it in a socially usefull manner. I am pretty confident that the further we move along this process the better off we’ll be on net. The investigative function needs to be replaced, it is true, but the biggest scandals in our society don’t even require any real investigating to find out about!
March 12th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Perhaps a better term for “new” media is “decentralized” media. The big question is, as I see it, can we the people outside the Beltway or other centers of power glean enough information to maintain a functional democracy? After all, the brick-and-mortar boys, for all their resources, have clearly dropped the ball.
That leaves only outside, independent media. They’ve existed for much longer than the Internet, but thanks to the Internet, their influence is broader than ever. Clearly the two were made for each other. And their success is due in large put to its rejection of the mantra of access uber alles.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:26 am
I’ll second the Calculated Risk, and raise you a Naked Capitaliam and The Big Picture. The economic blogs manage to put out better stuff than anything outside of the FT, and even the FT is slipping sometimes.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:34 am
I’m a graduate of the Columbia Journalism School from several years ago and now an MSM reporter, which is why I’m ducking behind anonymity (sorry). The school has a few virtues, but it’s been woefully behind in new media developments for some time, with its dean, New Yorker staff writer Nicholas Lemann, only realizing a couple of years ago the degree to which things have changed in the industry.
I remember how the professors in the core first semester classes regarded us new media majors as fringe guys who needed to get the “basics” down before venturing off into funky new formats like blogging and podcasting and the like.
But that’s the fundamental problem with journalism school in the first place. The “basics” mean little more than knowing whom to call and how to ask the right questions, be persistent, find a document, not be a dishonest prick, and write clearly. That’s about it. But you get much better at that by reporting a lot than by sitting in a classroom and having a teacher tell you about it. If journalism school doesn’t also teach you how the industry is evolving and how to evolve with it, then it’s like than studying for a master’s degree in phone-calling. Michael Lewis wrote something similar to this in his classic article “The J-school ate my brain”. Wish I’d read it prior to enrolling.
Anyway, the faculty is indeed old-school, as the New York Mag article points out, and many of these professors are tenured. Good luck to Grueskin, who sounds like he knows what he’s talking about, but I can’t imagine the bureaucratic resistance he’s encountering right now.
(To be fair, I’ll add that although I don’t think you learn much of actual substance in journalism school, the students are bright and serious and they help each other break into and get jobs in the industry. Kind of like an MBA minus the big earnings potential.)
March 12th, 2009 at 11:38 am
Fuck color photography.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:39 am
Re brewmn at 8: “Every significant story uncovering goverment/corporate malfeasance still originates in “dead tree” media. ”
————-
As I said, bullshit.
For a small example, consider my post at Yglesias’s former Atlantic blog, dated Dec 2006:
————–
“Ah, Matthew. You don’t realize the evil genius of Karl Rove.
When the bill for 6 years of corruption, venality, and economic incompetence comes due, someone has to be the designated scapegoat. And if Nancy Pelosi doesn’t make sure that it’s the Republicans, then it’s going to be her.
The Republicans are handing the incoming giddy Democrats a big brown bag of cat manure called an “inverted yield curve.”
It’s the Fed’s job to now make sure that bag bursts.
The MOST reliable predictor of a recession is the yield curve. Normally, long term Treasuries sell at interest rates well above rates paid on short term bills. When the yield curve inverts — i.e. interest on short term bills rises above
that on long term bond — then a recession follows in 8-12 months. The likelihood of recession increases as the inversion gets steeper.
The latest yield curve model –developed by Fed researcher Jonathan Wright — indicates a probability of recession within 12 months to be around 47% –very high by historical standards. ”
Ref: http://matthewyglesias.theatlantic.com/archives/2006/12/the_sweet_sweet_fed.php#comment-119132
———-
Hee hee hee. Did you get that kind of heads up from the Washington Post or New York Times?
March 12th, 2009 at 11:40 am
What’s also odd is that the “new media” types are the first and most exuberant in promoting good journalistic work when it is to be found. What also happens is that many of us are tired of being given a shoddy, inferior journalistic product and told to be happy with it.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:42 am
I’m guessing that Mr. Goldman was having a bad day AND facing some snot nosed students singing the praises of TMZ.
I think what is more interesting in the article is the fact that training for New Media is forcing reductions in the teaching of journalism ethics, history, and old media skills, e.g. the ability to write a coherent sentence.
And before we get carried away remember that the biggest problem the old media have is one also shared but to a somewhat lesser degree (because of size and ambition) by new media: how to create a successfully monetized online medium.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:43 am
C’mon, I don’t think Goldman is a fair target here. He qualifies his point later in the article, when asked to. And this is the sort of bravado many professors use to get students to sit up and pay attention in class.
And as others have pointed out, all of his comments here could very easily be interpreted as not a dismissal of new media, but merely a challenge not to see it as demanding different fundamentals than regular journalism.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:46 am
Re El Cid’s comment “many of us are tired of being given a shoddy, inferior journalistic product and told to be happy with it.”
————
Actually, I tired of having my country destroyed by false narratives from a pack of lying, corrupt whores.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:47 am
26: Very good observation
27: Skills like writing well I’m not too worried about. Otherwise I wouldn’t be here. Regarding journalistic ethics, I don’t think that was working to begin with.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:48 am
I like Calculated Risk/Big Picture etc. a lot, but I think its important to make a distinction between highlighting and filtering publicly available data (which is what those econo-blogs mostly do) and doing “actual reporting”: i.e, going out and gathering the data through research, interviews, going to the crime scene, or whatever.
The former is in no danger of extinction (in fact, blogs has made it stronger than ever) but the latter, requiring a much greater commitment in time and money, seems to have a very uncertain future.
March 12th, 2009 at 11:49 am
This is like saying that writing books is an experiment in playing with printing presses.
As the sole other member of the Analogies Suck Club, let me say there’s a slow tear rolling down my cheek. Et tu, Matt?
March 12th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
Look, I agree that the MSM overall suck, and have dozens (hundreds?) of published comments to prove it.
But the chest thumping here over the demise of the “old media” and rise of the new seems to think that nothing of value will be lost in the transition. I think the available evidence shows that thinking to be horribly misguided, and especially rich coming from someone like Matt who does absolutely no reporting whatsoever, and while entertaining, doesn’t really offer any information that can’t be found in dozens of other locations.
For better or worse, the only real dirt that’s been uncovered in the Bush years has been uncovered by the Seymour Hershes and Dana Priests of the journalism world.
In other words, “old media.”
March 12th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
The nice thing about the new media is that when you make a flagrant error like mistaking Germany for Denmark, commenters will quickly alert you of that and you can make the correction post-haste.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:10 pm
I find the contrast between MSM and the new media rather overdone. The old medie, for the most part, reports news by relying on newsgathering collectives like the AP, or UPI, or AFP, and, indeed, by reading other media and selecting stories. I think there is approximately one NYT reporter in Mexico. What do you think, that reporter goes humming through secret documents he’s discovered from the Ministry of Interior’s department? No, that reporter watches tv, reads Mexican newspapers, and – just as TPM broadens a story developed elsewhere – develops a story that was developed elsewhere. Most of old media is not investigative journalism.
I think the way stories develop is going to change. Take the Stanford fraud story. That was not developed from the NYT. Rather, a financial newsletter in Caracas publishes a story about the appearance of fraud in Stanford Investments. Then interest was whipped up on the Internet, notably by Felix Salmon. Then the story was evidently checked by business reporters at the NYT, WSJ, etc. Their first steps are to go to the authorities – see what the SEC says, etc.
So, much of the off-line media is about collecting a distributing stories – and commenting on them – that have been generated by a collective newsgathering group, or that have been generated elsewhere. Just like on-line media. What the new media lacks is precisely a AP like group. It will I imagine develop one.
March 12th, 2009 at 12:49 pm
I’ve been in the newspapers are dead as well, but the other day when talkign to someone abotu this I thought of something.
The main source of revenue for Newspapers is the local ads. Today they aren’t making any money off on-line ads. But that is partly (mainly?) becasue they are competitng with the printed versions. When the printed newspapers start dying where is the local Best Buy or Safeway going to run it’s ads?
March 12th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
But the real gold mine was local CLASSIFIED ads. And those have already been successfully replicated online by Craisglist et al. Hence, big problem. Newspapers as we know them could not subsist only on display ads from businesses.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
When the printed newspapers start dying where is the local Best Buy or Safeway going to run it’s ads?
The situation is a little more complex than that. A lot of the papers that are near death are in that state because they were bought by large media conglomerates which took on huge debt and projected overly optimistic revenues, and then got whacked by the combination of Craiglist and economic slump.
It seems plausible to me that some of the better-managed print media may survive in some form.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:26 pm
Re Analogies Suck at 32:
1) In response to Matthew’s statement “This is like saying that writing books is an experiment in playing with printing presses.”
Analogies responded:
“As the sole other member of the Analogies Suck Club, let me say there’s a slow tear rolling down my cheek. Et tu, Matt?”
——————-
2) Er.. Analogies should realize that Matthew’s comment was made by the author of the best-selling “Heads in the Sand”.
Thus,his comment was not an Analogy, exactly.
More like a blinding display of unbridled irony.
March 12th, 2009 at 1:54 pm
It’s ironic you post that, because back when I was in school in the nineties, one of my journalism professors asked Peter Jennings– remember him?– “What should we teach our students?” And Jennings said (more or less), “teach them more about what they cover. I have two dozen kids straight out of journalism school who can deliver a satellite link between Washington DC and Kosovo in ten minutes. But they can’t tell me why Kosovo’s important.”
And as far as I can tell, most journalism schools don’t follow Jennings’ advice, good as it was and is.
March 12th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
But I guess basic accuracy is an ideal of ‘old media’.
Michael – I hope you’re just being snarky about MY’s shortcomings. You don’t really believe the above statement is true, do you? It’s shocking when old media journalists write about subjects you know well how often the articles are actually wildly inaccurate and factually challenged. Science and economics are the worst.
March 12th, 2009 at 3:36 pm
Steve,
True, the newspapers really screwed the pooch by not creating a good online classified’s system. Somethign called craigslist purely through word of wouth with a rudamentary web site and pretty lousy search capability comepteley dominates local classifieds now. Sheesh talk about blowing your sored up brand equity. If local newspapers woudl have been on the ball craigslist never woudl have taken off. Sure free is better than paying, but if they had a quality online classified experience at a reaosnable price people never would have looked for an alternative.
But I think there is still a chance to save the rest of local advertising.
DuBois, no matter how much junk mail you get it pales in comaprison to what is in the Sunday newspaper.
March 12th, 2009 at 4:31 pm
Matt now attempts to imitate Jon Stewart.
Or maybe we’re in for the exchange between Omar and Tony in “Scarface”:
Omar: We are just going to do one deal and that’s it!
Tony: Ok… fuck you. How’s that?
Omar: Fuck you.
Tony: Fuck You!
March 12th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
don’t worry, none of the students heard Goldman’s rant, because they were preoccupied with their twitting and blogging and commenting and stuff. Nobody pays attention to lecturers any more.
March 12th, 2009 at 5:35 pm
and this is why Mizzou, not Columbia, is, has always been, and will always be, the nation’s first and best journalism school…instead of bitching about newspapers dying, they have created convergance and online journalism programs that train students in new media at facilities that the government would be jealous of
March 13th, 2009 at 5:00 am
For the price of a 4-year degree at Columbia you could form your own startup media venture online for $20,000 and pay yourself the median personal income of $32,000 for 4 years.
So, ah, fuck Columbia J-School. With a cricket bat.
March 13th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
READ THE COMMENTS OF THE ARTICLE
ESPECIALLY THE ONE BY THE SOURCE OF THE QUOTE, a student named Ryan Bonner
There was a class called “New Media” that was mis-scheduled, and meant that half the writing class missed the professor’s intro. He was joking and criticizing a specific logistical problem and issues relating to a particular class. The magazine, and this post, is being sensational and sloppy, and completely missing the point.
March 18th, 2009 at 5:38 pm
This is my third time here, just thought I would mention that you are doing a great job
March 19th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
That