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Like my friend, Stilgherrian, I am pretty excited that educator and journalist, Francis Pisani has chosen to highlight our analysis of the Future of Media Summit in his piece Blogalaxie/4: “futur des médias” et “rumeurs”, for his Le Monde blog, Transnets:

Ils ont parlé de la “tension artificielle” blogueurs-journalistes qui, selon Stephen Collins occupe trop de place (voir ce qu’en ont écrit Narvic et Éliane Fiolet sur Transnets).

J’ai bien aimé cette phrase du blogueur australien Stilgherrian : “Ce qui est fatiguant dans cette fausse dichotomie c’est qu’elle compare les idéaux les plus élevés du journalisme et le degré le plus bas du blogging personnel.”

Et ce petit avis aux journalistes traditionnels: “La forme de votre métier et la forme de vos articles était déterminée par la technologie pour les distribuer.” Aujourd’hui “nous avons tous des claviers, nous avons tous des téléphones mobiles avec des caméras ou nous les aurons bientôt. Nous avons tous des outils de publication et de distribution” comme WordPress ou YouTube entre autres.

Despite speaking no French whatsoever myself (je suis un barbare), I think Stil and I come off rather well (thanks to Google Translate). So, no regrets at all that Hugh Martin considers me a lazy, uninformed generaliser…

Hugh Martin of APN Online has commented on the ongoing artificial journalist vs. blogger thing. His post seeks to establish him as both experienced professional journalist and experienced “online guy”. I’ll pay him on both accounts.

However, his post exhibits some of the worst traits he and the other professional journalists have accused bloggers of perpetuating - failure to research adequately, failure to contact the subjects of criticism for comment and unsubstantiated op-ed. As far as I know, Hugh didn’t contact any of the people he criticises - me, Mark Pesce, Stilgherrian and Chris Saad. He accuses us of generalisation, laziness and, remarkably:

… not to have the first clue about the way MSM actually works, and [clinging] violently to a set of pre-ordained notions about said MSM.

I say remarkably as at least three of us have mainstream media experience of some significance - Stil is an experienced journalist and broadcaster, Mark an often-published author and my background is as a tertiary-trained journalist who hasn’t worked in the industry for some years (I didn’t enjoy the grind enough). If Hugh had called, emailed or researched any of us properly he’d have known that. I think it might have put quite a different spin on his post.

Certainly, I think my post responding to and commenting on the Future of Media Summit was reasonably balanced, so to be accused of laziness, generalisation and not having a clue kind of annoys me.

What bugs me most is the ongoing, patently ridiculous, artificial dichotomy, perpetuated by individuals on both sides of the argument that journalism and blogging are diametrically opposed. The attitude exhibited by both Jane Schulze and Stephen Quinn on the panel; an attitude that suggests a belief that true journalism can only be done by those properly trained, vetted and edited by their publishers is patently rubbish. Equally, the hard line taken by some bloggers that all MSM is evil and a dead medium is ridiculous.

My position, as:

• a trained journalist and reasonably successful blogger (in terms of readership)
• someone who who consults on issues around corporate comms, social media and social networking and connecting with stakeholders by using these tools
• someone who is sought out by journalists for expert comment or covered by them based on my public speaking on this stuff, and
• someone who researches, interviews and comments (sounds like journalism to me) in his field of expertise

is that there is a place for both professional and amateur, journalist and blogger, new and old. What there’s no place for is bigotry, elitism, low quality, sensationalism and unprofessionalism on either side; and both sides are lousy with each. To say otherwise is to be disingenuous at best.

I don’t know why Hugh’s research didn’t extend to flicking a quick email to some of us, but I don’t think he’s done himself any favors with this piece.

A comment from PWC’s Tim Bull, on my summary of The Future of Media Summit prompted a lengthy reply from me. Tim argues for easy, usable media formats for non-early adopters. I agree. I think the issue of early adopters seeking data freedoms that aren’t needed, wanted or even cared about by later adopters that Tim raises is important, although I don’t necessarily agree with all he’s said.

I think my views are worth jotting down here for the sake of my memory, so here goes. This post is effectively a lengthy re-edit of my response in the original comment.

First, there are those, particularly among the technically adept, who would argue for completely open platforms and formats. While I have some significant sympathy for this argument, and it reflects a worldview I certainly agree with, I’d argue that it’s utopian. As Tim rightly suggests, there are many users that exist who simply aren’t in a position to understand or care about the format of their media, documents, spreadsheets and the like. While I certainly do, I accept that others don’t.

I think that the popularity of the BBC iPlayer and similar tools from other media distributors (the ABC is developing such a player) is simply because no effort is made to distribute using open (or at least, more ubiquitous, i.e. iTunes) platforms and formats. Not exposing people to the wide availability of more open or easily accessible formats for their media because they aren’t early adopters is no excuse. Creating walled gardens around your content is simply denying the audience choice.

Most people I know have either iTunes or Windows Media Player on their computers. They aren’t necessarily ideal (particularly in the case of WMP), but these tools are perfectly adequate for playback of movies, TV shows, music and any other media for the average user. To force users to download and install (a task many non-early adopters are significantly challenged by) yet another player in order to watch their favorite TV shows, or listen to their latest favorite song, is an unnecessary impediment on their time and frankly just pollutes their (often already polluted) machines.

Looking only at non-early adopter formats; those for which many tools and players exist, .mp3 is not a complex format to deal with for most (my 62 year old Mum can deal with .mp3 files, but there’s no way she’d download and install a new player). In the case of video, neither is .mov, or ideally, .avi. While these formats aren’t necessarily open, they are relatively well known and many tools - hardware and software, open- and closed-source - exist for their playback.

So, another reason not to force another player down the throats of the audience. The tools already exist.

Availability is not a major issue. Most material is obtainable, legally or otherwise, hours after first broadcast and viewing it doesn’t require technical expertise, and doesn’t require me to view it in an artificially imposed seven-day window. The hugely popular Heroes is a prime example. Its episodes are viewable online at NBC, for US viewers (broadcast markets and concurrent availability is another, arguably more complex issue that needs addressing, but not in this post) for an extended period shortly after primetime broadcast. Not long after that, for a nominal fee, the same viewers can download a higher quality version from the iTunes Store and keep it forever.

In Australia, we’ve recently seen the release here of TV shows on the iTunes Store. Personally, I’d be more than happy to pay for episodes of shows I really want, if the pricing was appropriate. However, yet again, Australian audiences are gouged on iTunes with pricing (audio and video) that reflects a US$:AU$ conversion rate somewhere around 1:0.60, which it’s not been near any time in relatively recent history. Today, the conversion is remarkably close to 1:1.

I currently pay iTunes for my music, as it’s convenient and pricing is competitive with CDs (for which I have no more room), but I balk at $2.99 for a TV episode when something around $2-2.20 seems more appropriate. Equally, I’d be willing to pay for long-form video material (including extras) at a price competitive with DVDs. But it’s just not there.

BitTorrent, while immensely popular and the source of petabytes of ‘Net traffic, isn’t a trivial tool to understand and I don’t propose people ought to have to use it unless they choose to. With combined player/download tools like Vuze (formerly Azureus), though, it is approaching commodity usefulness.

Sites like Hulu too, although still addressing issues of broadcast market availability, has a significant and growing library of recent and historical film and television available in high quality for free through an ad-supported model.

I digress.

What I want, and what I believe would be good and appropriate for consumers is made up of several factors:

• an infinite time window on my watching of post-broadcast material - a 7-day window is nothing more than an annoyance and an excuse for user lock-in;
• to be able to play back on any appropriate device at any time - it shouldn’t matter that’s my Mac Mini and 42” plasma, or my iPhone, or that I stick it on a USB key and take it to a mate’s place to watch; and
• material available in a format that doesn’t lock me in to any particular vendor - I should neither have to, nor should anyone require me to download additional, proprietary tools. However, I might do that by choice to get an HD version, for example.

I don’t believe this is a big ask, and nor do I believe that it prevents media creators from making a reasonable, if not profitable, return on their investment. I am prepared to pay a fair sum for the privilege of having these choices, or be subjected to advertising of an appropriate type, as delivered on Hulu.

Does this not sound reasonable?

If you attended Ross Dawson’s Future of Media Summit in Sydney or Silicon Valley yesterday, there are a few core take-aways you might have been left with:

• the artificial split/war between journalism and new media prevails
• everyone - PR, journalism, advertising and broadcasting - is trying to figure out this social networking and social media stuff (and I guess that’s good for people like me who can help with that)
• old media is changing and coming into the new world, although the old “pump it out and they will consume” attitude still persists
• closed formats and limited availability are still seen as viable business models
• what to do with and how to manage participant created content (rather than user generated content. Thanks, Chris Saad) is a puzzle many organisations are struggling with.

There was a lot more, but these were certainly the most striking to me. I’ve summarised my thinking around each of these issues below.

We don’t need no blogucation

The false dichotomy of the schism between the professional journalists, journalism educators and academics one one side, and the world of new media, particularly as embodied by bloggers, on the other, prevails. It seems largely perpetuated by a somewhat chauvinistic attitude on the part of some professional journalists who cling to the notion that a blogger, no matter how good a writer and reporter of information that they might be, is still something to be looked down upon as a non-professional by the profession of journalism.

This attitude was brought home particularly strongly by The Australian’s Jane Schulze who evidenced a particularly disdainful attitude towards bloggers, and Deakin University’s Stephen Quinn, who was surprised when I exploded from the audience with a vehement “yes” to his question whether, if an “amateur”, doing the same work and equipped with the tools of a journalist, ought to be considered to be doing journalism without having been properly trained, authorised and edited.

Later in the day, at the Future of Journalism round table, several of us opened the eyes of some of the journalism types there when we revealed that yes, we do take ourselves seriously, we do fact-check, we do seek to interview serious experts for appropriate writings and we weren’t just shooting off at the mouth in an unfiltered op-ed manner. I don’t know whether Stilgherrian, Chris Saad and I moved any mountains, but we certainly seemed to chip away at some of the ivory in the tower.

It bothers me that a good proportion of the journalism profession appear threatened by the new media, especially powerful and high-reputation bloggers. I believe there is a place for journalists and bloggers and that their aims and outputs, while often sharing similarities, are different. There will always be a place for good, well-researched journalism; whether it’s long form features or punchy news. The same goes for quality blogging. What there isn’t a place for is low quality in either camp. Rubbish is rubbish wherever you find it.

Bloggers too, however, are not blameless. There are some in the blogger community who seem overly sensitive to the attitude of the journalism half of the equation. This feeling of being challenged, and the precious sensitivity evidenced on both sides needs to be swept away. Bloggers and journalists both have their place and both have value in the world of new media.

New and scary (and largely ignored)

Everyone seems to realise that social media (that created by participants) and social networking (the connections between participants) are important. But still, they remain clueless (not in a pejorative, but rather a factual sense) as to what to do about it. As much as the use of social tools within organisational walls remains a challenge (and it is a huge challenge for most organisations), the issue of the informal organisation, social networking within and across organisational walls and in particular, participant generated content - what to do with material related to your brand that was generated in an unofficial capacity - is a major hurdle.

Whether it’s brand hijacking by ad mashups, negative publicity in an uncontrolled space like GetSatisfaction or the issue of how to communicate with mavens for your brand, most organisations haven’t yet dealt with the issue and are baffled as to how to do so. These organisations have a lot of work to do, and the idea of an uncontrolled, open and honest conversation about their brand, free of spin, is a terrifying thing. Equally the PR, creative and ad agencies these brands are talking to are just as challenged when it comes to building strategies around social media.

In talking to people from several creative agencies yesterday, they revealed that when these ideas are presented to clients, they are often dismissed out of hand as something the brand “just doesn’t do”. Risky. Wouldn’t you rather be a part of the conversation than the subject of it (yes, Gavin, you can borrow that)?

Our model is firehose

I was particularly bugged by Mark Antonitis of San Francisco’s KRON-TV. Much of what he said resonated with me; he wants relevance in his programming, local focus, and an open market, but still believes that TV is going to win the content war by simply producing sheer volume of material that we, the audience, will passively consume, slouched on our couches. Obviously, he’s not talked to Clay Shirky recently.

He is so wrong. What will win, ultimately, is well-produced informative or entertaining media. It won’t matter whether it’s in full-1080p HD, ready for watching on your 50-inch plasma. What matters in an increasingly fragmented media marketplace is relevance, interaction and content quality.

Closed is broken

The ABC’s Mark Scott lauded the efforts of the BBC in producing a closed format, limited viewing window (seven days) media player that needed to be downloaded from the BBC site. The ABC, apparently, is producing a similar tool.

When questions from the floor were asked for, both Chris Saad and I asked why this sort of wastage was occurring, when rather than a proprietary format, limited tool, an open format usable on any device at any time and place wouldn’t be a better option. Scott avoided answering the question. Obviously, he’s never heard of Hulu and doesn’t get BitTorrent.

You want to do what with our brand?

The resounding success of something like The Gruen Transfer, both in terms of its ability to explode the myths around branding and advertising and to generate massive participant uptake (there are many thousands of mashed up, user-made fake ads on the Gruen site, made with collateral provided by the show’s makers) should have ad-men, PR flacks and brands themselves quaking in their proverbial boots. Yet, more than anything, there is denial.

That participants could be more than passive and could be a powerful aid in generating and distributing brand messages, particularly when they are considered and invited to to take part in an open conversation is still largely a mystery to most Australian brands. In talking to creative agency staff yesterday, they know they want to try these things but are frequently stymied by the management of the brands, who still believe that retaining control and pushing messages is the answer for them. The brands, 10 years on, haven’t yet read The Cluetrain Manifesto. There is no conversation as far as they’re concerned.

Oops! Dear car/soft drink/shoe/beer/widget manufacturer, you are in for a rude shock. We, the participants, are already talking about you. And we have been for some time. If you’re lucky, we’re complimentary, often we’re not. You’re not in control of our conversation so perhaps it’s time you became a part of it and put in your best effort to humanise yourself. Hmm?

What now?

Overall, I came away from the day disappointed in the closed-mindedness that prevails in some parts of the media industry (and some bloggers too), but hopeful that enough voices are wanting to be heard that the switch to the future that is already here is perhaps not too far off.

You can read additional coverage at the FOM 08 blog, from Gavin Heaton, StickyAds and from Stilgherrian. If you’re especially keen, you can read the Twitter backchannel.