BuzzMachine

The media pundit's pundit. Written by NYC insider Jeff Jarvis, BuzzMachine covers news, media, journalism, and politics.

Aspen

15 comments on Aspen

Aspen

: Through no good work of my own and sheer dumb luck, I find myself in an august group of leaders in journalism at Aspen, including Kevin Klose, head of NPR; Steven Erlanger of the NYT; Lawrence Grossman, former president of NBC; Walter Isaacson, former editor of Time and CNN; Rob Prichard, president of Torstar; Norman Pearlstine, editor-in-chief of Time Inc.; Andrew Tyndall of the Tyndall Report on TV news; Frank Blethen, publisher of the Seattle Times; Merrill Brown, founding editor of MSNBC.com; Chris Dixon of Gabelli; Esther Dyson; and more I’ll meet.

Damn, I hope I don’t embarrass myself.

I probably won’t blog too much from the session until it’s over and then I won’t bore you with the details. Tonight was just the get-to-know-you dinner and it yielded good conversation at my table about the future of media. Before we started arguing micropayments and such, the get-to-know-you question was whom do you trust in media today (other than your employer)? There were many votes for NPR, the NYT, the improving LAT, with nods to the Internet and — surprise, surprise — not a single vote for FoxNews; interpret that as you will, and I know you will. My answer was, for me, predictable: I said I have learned to trust the voice and judgment of my fellow citizens.

Saturday morning, I’ll give a brief spiel on technology and the newsroom and I plan to concentrate on citizens’ media; the new speed of receiving and delivering news; the ubiquity of the distribution of news (read: rss, mobile, broadband); the new architecture of information (namely, we now search and link; we used to wait for the news to come to us and now the news waits for us to come to it); and, most important, the new culture of transparency that demand transparency from media. I’ll let you know how it goes.

If you have words of wisdom for this group — be nice! — then leave a comment.

15 responses to “Aspen”

  1. Dexter Westbrook Avatar
    Dexter Westbrook

    With the names you mentioned, it’s hardly surprising that none of them mentioned Fox News, the apostate in the NYT/LAT/NPR media world. In any case, does any media-savvy person rely mostly on any cable news channel? Reading newspapers and the Web is much more efficient.
    I’d like to know what evidence you’re thinking of when you make the statement, “the improving LAT.” The paper is in its own universe, and its attempts to interpret the outside world (e.g. Gray Davis has a shot at avoiding the recall, Bremer never gave a farewell speech in Iraq) provide ample evidence that it isn’t to be trusted. Kausfiles has periodic examples of this. Plus, the paper is horribly written, with 50-word ledes and turgid story structure.
    Suggestions:
    Have reporters list their e-mail addresses, and those of their supervisors, at the end of stories.
    On Internet editions, have them prepare a short summary of how a story was reported. “I went to a news conference at which so-and-so spoke, I called X, Y and Z, I looked up data at X, Y and Z sites.” This summary doesn’t have to be long, and it would give some insight into the reporter’s thought process, and the range of opinion he/she sought out.

  2. HA Avatar
    HA

    My advice for the media is that they should they should remember they are American citizens, not UN citizens. FOX is successful because it is the only pro-American news outlet. If I want to watch anti-American propoganda, I can watch the BBC or Al Jazeera. I don’t need the undifferentiated NYTimesLATimesCNNCBSNBCABC for that. I’ll exclude MSNBC because of Joe Scarborough.
    I want them to report about how the UN is a corrupt and failed organization that needs to be shut down.
    I want them to report about how France is an enemy not an ally.
    I want them to report about the apalling things Kerry has said and done over the years.
    I want them to report how corrupt Arab society is.
    I want them to report that maybe, just maybe, Islam is NOT a religion of peace.
    I want them to report about Joe Wilson’s lies.
    I want them to report that every leading Democrat supported regime change in Iraq until Bush changed the regime in Iraq.
    I want them to acknowledge their Democratic bias.
    I want them to acknowledge their post-nationalist, post-capitalist transnational socialist bias.
    I want NPR cut off from government funding.
    I want them to report that our national sovereignty is being undermined by Supreme Court judges that cite foreign laws in their opinions.
    I want them to report corrections with the same prominance they give the mistaken reports.
    I want them to be more sceptical of anonymous sources.
    I want them to show some humility.
    I could go on endlessly, but what it boils down to is that I want them to report facts and truth instead of propaganda.

  3. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Amen to that. I want HA in government.

  4. Patricia Avatar
    Patricia

    “There were many votes for NPR, the NYT, the improving LAT…”
    Once again, it shows that the media are as dismissive and ignorant of the people they rule…er, serve as any 17-century European aristocracy.
    To add to HA’s list, I want to see as thorough investigation into the sex lives and financial dealings of editors as of the politicos they examine.

  5. Kelty Avatar
    Kelty

    Jeff – please do bore us with the details – all of ’em! Team Jarvis-Dyson – kick some Aspen butt.

  6. Walter Isaacson Avatar
    Walter Isaacson

    I can attest that Jeff Jarvis and Esther Dyson are kicking ass here in Aspen. I am sitting in the conference room, and now I’m surfing through all sorts of blogs I had never paid attention to. Jeff has made a compelling case here for how blogs are changing the media world.
    — Walter Isaacson, the Aspen Institute

  7. Michael Zimmer Avatar
    Michael Zimmer

    “I want them to acknowledge their post-nationalist, post-capitalist transnational socialist bias.”
    You’ve got be kidding. You think major media organizations (your NYTimesLATimesCNNCBSNBCABC conglomeration) are post-capitalist?!? Their entire existence is built around capitalist practices and ideologies. That’s how they are no different from FoxNews – all are out to make a buck, Murdoch just wants to take it out of different people’s pockets.

  8. Michael Avatar
    Michael

    HA:
    You apparently have no idea how ignorant that post seemed. Besides, no one, and I mean NO ONE, cares what you want. You an ignorant loser and should be blocked from this blog.

  9. Andy Avatar
    Andy

    Rexommendation: DROP ALL Anonymous sources. If the speaker will not be cited then it is only rumor, conjecture or gossip.
    Run a “Rumor, Conjecture, Speculation, Spin” colum and list all anonymous sources plus any other insta-myths that can be created.
    Giving weight and credibility to “anonymous” skews the reporting. We have no way of knowing is the source is credible and knowledgeable or simply a vagrant with delusions.
    You are right. Trust the public. Individually we may get it wrong collectively we get it right.
    LAT, NYT, NPR have not shown that they can be trusted. They grew lazy and now make speeches, change faces and write policies as if that grants them absolution. THEY would not grant a Republican politician or agency head the same “pass”. THEY would support commissions, inquiries, and reports. Lots of reports and lots of hearings. THEY would enjoy the lazy reporting of re-writing govt efforts.
    Who do we trust? How can we trust THEM when they fool us and mislead us?
    FOX is merely better competition. To respond to FOX by bashing them politically is to admit their own weakness. To attract viewers THEY must put out a better product.
    This is not the 1960’s. This is not the Vietnam War. There is no Deep Throat with secrets. There are events happening around the world. There are people of interest doing things. We are at war with a very wiley and well funded enemy who wishes to kill Americans. These are the news items. Inside the Beltway wonkish debates about policy and personalities are not news to enough eyeballs to fund the 18 minutes every half hour.
    News = NEW information. Tell me something I don’t know. Tell me why I should care. Show me that you can be trusted. You only get one lie. After that you are forevermore a liar.

  10. Kat Avatar
    Kat

    Michael–I care. Why don’t you get a leucotomy and hopefully it results in a new personality.

  11. cpbrown1 Avatar
    cpbrown1

    HA it seems you just want a media to only report good news and things you agree with, you don’t seem to want to be informed just be told what you already think. Thats called Propaganda.
    Its sad really to see the people who are so unformed about things. BTW everything you’ve listed is just bogus.

  12. cpbrown1 Avatar
    cpbrown1

    “I want them to report about how France is an enemy not an ally.”
    They are an ally.

  13. HA Avatar
    HA

    Michael Zimmer,
    You’ve got be kidding. You think major media organizations (your NYTimesLATimesCNNCBSNBCABC conglomeration) are post-capitalist?!?
    I’ll concede you have a valid point here. That gives me a slight glimmer of hope.
    As the dominant illiberal media outlets continue to bleed viewers to Fox and readers to blogs, maybe the bean counters at corporate will finally realize that the trust-fund socialist priests in their news rooms are costing them real money.
    For example, I’ve given up my daily subscription to my local paper – the Philadelphia Inquirer. The so-called “news” and opinion it delivers no longer has any value to me. If it weren’t for the coupons, I would have cancelled the Sunday edition too. Why should I bother with Trudy Rubin’s worthless self-important gibberish when I can read Iraq the Model?
    I can only hope the bean-counters at Knight-Ridder are noticing this.

  14. HA Avatar
    HA

    Michael,
    You an ignorant loser and should be blocked from this blog.
    There’s a “chill wind” blowin’…

  15. Chris Avatar
    Chris

    HA,
    I also canceled my subscription to my local daily, the SF Chronicle. Had been a subscriber for the last decade but it was getting to be painful to pick it up. The last straw for me was the headline: “9-11 Commission Reports No Iraq-al Qaeda Connection” or something to that effect. Of course they were simply parroting the NYT and WaPo but I didn’t have a subscription to either of those publications.
    Jeff,
    This conference sounds very interesting. Sounds as if the mainstream is still in denial regarding the democratization of their former monopoly to a certain extent. BTW, I highly recommend Walter Isaacsons book on Ben Franklin.