Is Romenesko bad for journalism?

Jim Romenesko's site harms the news media.

Let me say that again, in case any of you missed it: Jim Romenesko's site harms the news media. It's not the only negative force, of course, but that doesn't excuse it.

Let me take a step back and acknowledge that I, like everyone else in journalism today, can't help but read Romenesko's media news blog. I began in the summer of 2001 and continued for years. But I want to stop.

Here's the basic reason why:

Romenesko keeps us from doing our jobs.

That's bad, bad, bad. Journalism derives its credibility from covering the news that affects everyday people. Journalism's basic function is providing accurate information and communicating it in a pithy way. Romenesko interferes with that function.

His blog focuses on individuals who work in the media. So the focus shifts from the stories we do to the people who cover the stories. Who cares about beat reporting? Let's debate the importance of Katie Couric or Bill Keller. Self involved? Check. A distraction? Check.

Romenesko also presents the national media as an entity. If its on his blog, it's news. So a plagiarizing college reporter sits beside a disgraced media executive, a reassigned columnist and some nonprofit report.

What do these things have to do with each other? Nothing, except appearing on Romenesko. That's enough. They also divert our attention from a central point of journalism:

It's local.

If you don't work at the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal or USA Today (and that covers the vast majority of active journalists, if you can believe it), your primary job is covering your particular area. Its personalities, its disputes, its very nature.

Experts in the field say local coverage is the key to news organizations' survival, but who needs an expert to tell you that? If you purchase a newspaper or visit a local website, you want to know what's happening around you.

That also means that the business side of journalism is, primarily, a local business. Some papers and sites continue to do well in that local business. But you wouldn't know that from the constant doom and gloom on Romenesko. Yes, outside forces buffet journalism. But there have always been threats to our mission -- and news folks kept doing their jobs.

Romenesko threatens that. The blog portrays a single, monolithic journalistic entity plodding aimlessly toward its own destruction. Then it provides a forum for people to complain about that plodding. Then people complain about the complainers.

What does this have to do with journalism? Nothing.

Poynter, I'm looking at you.

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2010 update

Ha. Oh, my. I still think some of my points here stand up, but of course Jim Romenesko's site isn't bad for journalism. (It may indeed distract folks, but so does visiting YouTube.)

From a remove of three years, I'd say that Jim was, in his way, covering an important story. The news media of the time was too self-involved. That has changed. Folks are finally buckling down and doing the work of creating a new, vibrant media landscape. And that's a good thing.

Searched, Searcher, Searching

Without further ado, I'm proud to present the return of the Copy Massage - Editor Evolved search term feature. Here are the phrases and words people used to find this blog over the last month. My comments follow.

how to write a stylebook entry
good friday massege
"true massage stories"
sucker abbreviate *
run the gauntlet gantlet
tasked a verb copyeditor **
philadelphia lost my copy of my GED
new republic david sedaris entire article
efforting definition
front page quote apostrophe gripe
efforting
how can I write farewell massage
Definition of the word efforting
"In their hearts, writers think of editors" ***
editor evolved
evolvEd editor
"concord monitor" pride

* I believe that would be suc.
** This copy editor says, "No, no, no!"
*** I only wish this were the case.

Quick Jab

Headline from Romenesko:

"Shafer's surprised more journalists aren't scolding Sedaris"

My reply:

That's because David Sedaris is not a journalist. Duh.

Ridiculous

Normally, I am a stalwart defender of truth, accuracy and the American Way of Journalism. But this tempest in a teapot over David Sedaris strikes me as a waste of energy and sense.

To recap:

The New Republic reports, shockingly, that the humorist's essays are not all 100 percent true.

Slate's Jack Shafer, known for never having any fun, ever, accordingly scolds Sedaris.

The News and Observer (from Sedaris' native neck of the woods) pooh-poohs the entire matter.

The New Republic article's author then fired off a broadside to Romenesko.

So that's where we stand. And it's all ridiculous and stupid.

Anyone who has ever so much as read a page of David Sedaris knows he exaggerates. What's more, that exaggeration (sometimes fabrication) is one of the appealing parts of reading him. You constantly shift between believing and doubting his accounts. That queasy tension between the real and fabricated defines his method.

And, he's not a journalist. Let's repeat that. He's not a journalist. He's a humorous essayist. What's more, he's a humorous essayist who has constantly made it clear that his writing contains extremely exaggerated accounts of events.

So let this go, please. Go chase the next plaugurizing college reporter.

Kurt Eichenwald Speaks!

And boy, is he unhappy. Read his lengthy letter to Romenesko here.

Right now, I'll let him speak for himself. But I do find it dispiriting when a journalist -- someone committed to open, public inquiry -- talks of suing others for libel.

More on Eichenwald

In a comment below, Tom Mangan raises some good points on my post. This is what he had to say:

Clay, have you seriously asked yourself what you'd have done?

Which comes first, your " journalistic ethics" (a concept widely ridiculed as an oxymoron) or the perfectly normal human urge to protect a child from exploitation?

High ideals sound fine in theory but in reality I'm thinking I'd have done something like what Eichenwald did. He should've told his bosses and should've handed off the story and, yeah, he shouldn't have written the story w/out revealing the money issue.

But if he'd have stood aside and said he was a journalist first and the kid was just going to have to hope somebody else helps him out, he might've been an "ethical journalist" but what kind of person would he be?

Sorry, but I flat reject the notion that if you want to help people you should find another line of work. That's why most of us get into this biz.

I replied to this below, but I'll post the reply here, too. I want to make clear, for the record, that I went into journalism to help people. The issue, perhaps, is how we offer that help.

I wrote "help someone in that way." And by that, I mean a direct payment to someone you're writing about.

Most journalists, including myself, do what we do because of its public service function. I don't think that's wrong -- that's the basis of our craft.

But I do think there's a line in what we do -- the line that keeps journalists removed from the public arena as actors. And I think Eichenwald crossed it. He was doing good work as a person -- but perhaps not as a journalist.

Let's put it this way. If all he did was help the teen find a lawyer, loan him some money and otherwise help him out of the situation, that would be fine. I would applaud him. He was being a good person.

But Eichenwald then decided to write a story about it. He didn't give it to someone else on the Times to write about. He didn't tell his editors he felt too personally compromised to write about the boy. No -- he wrote the story and accepted the plaudits that went along with it.

In some ways, that was a selfish act.

This also isn't getting into some of the problems with the story itself and the associated trials and publicity around it.

I could write an entirely different post about that, but perhaps the article ran too long ago.

Folks will look at this issue in different ways. Journalism often forces us to make moral choices -- and the judgment we have to live with, ultimately, is our own.

No, No, No

No, "former New York Times reporter Kurt Eichenwald," you do not lend a source $2,000. You do not forget to mention this to your editors. You do not do it, even if, as you tell a reporter, "we were gambling 2,000 on the possibility of saving a kid's life."

It is not our responsibility to save lives. It is our responsibility to inform people, and then allow them to make those decisions themselves. We do not pay them to do so.

That this ex-Timesman feels his loan is no big deal, that he can still defend his actions --

It makes me lose my train of thought.

But it compromises Eichenwald's reporting. It compromises his story. It compromises discussion of the very real issue (teen sex exploitation) raised by his work. If you want to help someone in that way, take social work classes and look for a new career. Really.

Story via Romenesko.