NYT’s Keller Warns On ‘Unreliable’ News From Google, Others
From our sister site paidContent:UK: New York Times (NYSE: NYT) executive editor Bill Keller has warned the news business is falling victim to the “media tsunami” of the internet world - and taken a swipe at Google. Speaking in London at a memorial lecture for late columnist Hugo Young, he condemned the “unreliable” information readers are assaulted by through a blitz of blogs, Google (NSDQ: GOOG) News, RSS feeds, social networks and video sharing sites.
He urged the audience of journalists to keep faith in the newsgathering cornerstone of accuracy over speed, The Guardian reports, adding: “Google News and Wikipedia don’t have bureaus in Baghdad, or anywhere else. With a few exceptions, they do not - in the cold terminology of the 21st century media business - ‘create content’. Wikipedia and Google aggregate information from, well, from us. From the Times, from the Guardian, and from a lot of less dependable sources.”
If that sounded like a contradictory argument, then, as Keller himself noted, The Times site publishes more than 30 of its own blogs and aggregates material from several others to its own pages. Digital income from the paper, which owns Blogrunner, rose to 10.6 of overall revenue and helped improve the bottom line in Q3.
Keller conceded blogs “can swarm around a subject and turn up fascinating tidbits, they allow you to follow a story as it unfolds”. And he accepted that there are even bloggers who file “enlightening” first-hand reports from places such as Iraq, but: “Most of the blog world does not even attempt to report. It recycles. It riffs on the news. That’s not bad. It’s just not enough. Not nearly enough.”
Staci adds: Keller also called out his “friend Jeff Jarvis” in, well, a condescending manner that misrepresented Jeff’s position, saying he “refers to news bloggers as ‘citizen journalists,’ which has a sweet, idealistic ring to it. Jeff, like many of the most ardent true believers in the blog revolution, suggests that the mainstream media can be largely replaced by a self-regulating democracy of voices, the wisdom of the crowd.”
Be sure to read Jeff’s response.
Posted In: Media & Publishing, Newspapers, Social Media, Nanopublishing, Companies, New York Times, Countries, Europe
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Comments (4)
Dec 1, 2007 10:06 PM
Does Bill Keller mean “unreliable” reporting like that of The Times’ Judith Miller on Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, or the paper’s coverage of American scientist Wen Ho Lee, or the Duke rape case, or the controversial Atlantic Yards development in Brooklyn?
He ought to get his own house in order before he starts worrying and opining about other outlets being “unreliable.” It’s just this kind of unjustified arrogance that continues to get The Times in trouble.
Dec 2, 2007 1:04 PM
When the free press was indeed free and took its role as a source of information seriously, the credibility of Google or Wikipedia would be fair game. But the fact is, every major American newspaper manipulates the news for the convenience of corporate totalitarianism.
If a whore says your wife is sleeping around, consider the source.
Dec 3, 2007 4:43 PM
I commented on Jeff’s blog already, but it really never ceases to amaze me how the views of some of the mainstream media vanguards seem so defensive. Good journalism has never been more in demand. Its just a question of who will deliver it - the opportunity exists for those who want so seize it, whether its bloggers or ‘mainstream’ journalists. Content will always be king, and readers will go to wherever they can get the highest quality, most credible news. Instead of competing with each other, bloggers and journalists should just focus on reporting to the best of their abilities.
Shafqat
blog.newscred.com
Dec 3, 2007 10:04 PM
The late, great , re-running somewhere “Northern Exposure” had a wonderful fever dream of an episode in which one character - literally—wrestled with his personal demon who called in Corbin Bernson playing External Validation.
The topic is still, well, hot. “Wisdom of the crowd” as Jeff puts it, is on display for anyone who’s ever seen the after effects of a lynch mob. Or the leftovers from Krystal Nacht. Mob rule does not = democracy, just volume.
No, the NY Times reporters may not be all getting straight A’s from Viv Schiller’s (sp?) classes in basic camera work and sound editing as they try to reinvent themselves as TV people.
But those unsung sloggers who shame bloggers, the editorial staff of papers like the NY Times sign off on a story before it goes out. Reporters gotta get their stuff by that bunch. Bloggers self validate after they aggregate.
The blogosphere is chockablock right now wlth a lot of “12th monkeys” who endlessly twitter (sorry) and chirp about things they may never have experienced, researched or rigorously investigated. They just want you to believe them on faith or self-referenced logic.
Sometimes they’re right, more often not.
Telling the difference is something that’s going to take a lot of sorting out.