TIME Blogger: The Politico Is Transforming Our Approach To News
I woke up Sunday morning to watch John King's Dick Cheney interview on CNN. As the two men finished, I began to write a blog post about Cheney's comments on Iraq, which seemed to me both overly rosy, and unfair. ("We did, in fact, accomplish what we set out to do," Cheney said, at once overstating the long-term stability in Iraq, and cynically handing ownership of any future setbacks to Obama.) But, because of a previously scheduled TV hit, I never had time to finish the post.
Later in the day, I went online to find a transcript of the CNN interview, and came across a Politico story by their ultra-productive reporter Mike Allen, titled "Cheney: U.S. 'succeeded' in Iraq." A few more clicks, and I discovered that Allen had in fact written two other stories on the Cheney interview. One was called "Cheney: Obama wants 'massive expansion,'" which included the comments about success in Iraq, in the form of a transcript. Another was called "Cheney says Obama endangers U.S.," which focused on another part of the speech. Another Politico reporter, Carrie Budoff Brown, wrote six other short pieces on the Cheney interview in a blog called Politico Live. One was called, "Cheney: Hill is no Crocker." Another was called, "Cheney: We left Scooter 'hanging in the wind.'" Each story was, like Allen's three, short and focused on a single quote. In other words, a Politico reader who wanted to know what happened during the Cheney interview on CNN would have to read as many as nine different stories on the site.
What struck me about all this was not just that Politico had created a hassle for me, the reader. It was that they were doing news online smarter than the rest of the old-school organs of print journalism--from the New York Times to TIME magazine--and that Politico's insights about how the web works could have ill effects for the future of my profession, political journalism.
Here's why: The Internet has changed the incentives for news producers. Once upon a time, the incentive of a print reporter at a major news organization was to create a comprehensive, incisive account of an event like Cheney's provocative interview on CNN. (Open the New York Times or the Washington Post tomorrow, and you will still be able to read versions of this story.) That account would then be packaged into a container (a newspaper, a magazine, a 30-minute network news broadcast) and sold to the consumer. In the Internet-age, by contrast, what matters is not the container, but the news nugget, the blurb, the linkable atom of information. That nugget is not packaged (since the newspapers, magazine, broadcast television structure do not really apply online), but rather sent out into the ether, seeking out links, search engine ranking and as many hits as possible. A click is a click, after all, whether it's to a paragraph-length blog post or a 2,000 word magazine piece. News, in other words, is increasingly no longer consumed in the context of a full article, or even a full accounting of an event, but rather as Twitter-sized feeds, of the sort provided by the Huffington Post, The Page, and The Drudge Report. Each quote gets its own headline. Context and analysis are minimized for space. The reader, choosing her own adventure as she clicks, creates her own narrative of the world, one that is largely dependent on the aggregators she employs. (More after the jump. To keep reading, click below.)
Because more and more people are getting their news online, this shift is not isolated to online-only publications. It effects all print media, since publications like TIME magazine, and the New York Times, are increasingly emphasizing their web presence, and wrestling with the physics of the Internet. That means this new Twitter-sized view of political news will increasingly dominate. Even if I am not being asked to do this sort of journalism now (I only write one story about the events I cover), more reporters like me will certainly be imitating the Politico model in the future, because it works, generating more hits, more links and a more immediately digestible reading experience than the classic 1,000 word newspaper analysis. (As can be expected, one of Allen's three atomized stories got a Drudge link. Huffington Post, meanwhile, acted in the same way as Politico, creating at least three different stories out of the Cheney interview.)
Already this taste for atomized news nuggets has changed the way people understand Washington politics. The news is increasingly reduced to its most elemental form, a series of instantaneous, always new, constantly updated, transient and often superfluous information bites, which preferably jolt emotional reactions and can be sold to a particular affinity group, thus garnering links and attention. Just look at how we have digested some recent news cycles over the past few weeks, and how the nugget format has bled away context or meaning. There was, for instance, the oft-repeated fact that Rush Limbaugh said Obama should fail, which is repeated often without clarifying Limbaugh said this in the middle of a discussion of Obama's policies, not the nation's future. There was the Republican Senate claim that Congress has spent $1 billion an hour in the administration's first 50 days, a talking point peddled by the GOP, which does not mean what it seems to mean. There was also the endlessly repeated question of whether or not Obama was doing too much at once. Having spent several days reporting out this latter question last week for a magazine story, I can assure you that it does not lend itself to a bite-sized discussion.
These nuggets are then consumed by the rapid-fire cable news shows, reacted to by bloggers and commenters, and spit back out at us in the online echo chamber, which in turn is used by cable news producers and assigning print editors as a way of deciding what should be covered next. Without context, the nuggets drift further from the original event. Is it okay for Rush to want Obama to fail?, asks the cable host. Is Obama trying to do too much at once? You have 10 seconds to respond.
Don't get me wrong. The sky is not falling. There are also clear benefits to this shift. As we move to smaller and smaller bites of news, we are also becoming smarter news consumers, able to consume more information in a shorter amount of time than ever before. We also have more control, and more potential information available at our fingertips, at least as long as the economic model for journalism continues in some form. This is the marvel of the Twitter feed, of which I am a recent, if reluctant, convert: We have a constant stream of any information we choose, in an instantly digestible form.
But I do wonder where it all leads. I wonder how long it takes before people view a 600-word web story as too long? What about a web story that is longer than 140 characters? What about this very blog post, which is now more than 1,000 words, two or three times the length of a proper blog post? I am sure most of you have stopped reading. I had originally titled this post "More On The Internet's Distorting Effect On News." But that does not play well enough to the ether. I should have just posted this as a Twitter feed: "TIME Blogger: The Politico Is Transforming Our Approach To News." You probably would have clicked on that off Huffington Post or Drudge, right? So why not play the game?
That's why I am changing it. The new headline does not really tell the whole story, or explain my entire point. Politico is not the villain here. It is just among the smartest early adapters. The Internet is changing news, not Allen. And the truth is I am just like him. I want your clicks. I want to give my readers information they can use, in the forms that they want it. As time passes, I will worry less and less about whether you read to the bottom of my longer stories, as long as you keep clicking. Please.
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Matt Drudge rules Mike Allen's world. Politico gets linked at Drudge from day one. Politico rules TIME's world.
It's all very cozy.
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It is not the length that keeps people from reading, it is the batting average. -
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their ultra-productive reporter Mike Allen
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I guess if you define "reporting" as uncritically repeating the words of a generally despised and mistrusted politician, a repeatedly proven incompetent and probable war-criminal as "news", Mike Allen could be considered a "reporter". My question was why John "Is My Hair All Right?" King was asking the walking Constitutional disaster that is Dick Cheney questions about the Obama presidency.
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The fact that Politico is now imitating Drudge in form as well as function comes as no great shock. I don't know if the internet is really changing political news. We've been dealing in sound bites and bumper stickers for years, probably longer than there have been audio technology and car bumpers. Don't more people, even now, get their news from the nightly network news than the internets? Brian Williams plays, without comment or context, a clip of John Boehner spewing his nonsense, Mike Allen quotes it uncritically in pixels. I don't see a huge difference. People who want to know more will look for more. What the internet does do that print and TV can't do is immediately expand the field for the genuinely curious. You can't click from the dead tree NYT to a more in depth discussion in The New Yorker or another paper. If Katie Couric says "For more on this story, go to www. etc", how many people are going to go from the TV to the computer. Especially from CBS. -
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The problem is, clicks can later become votes.
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The biggest omission might be what media is doing about deliberate revisionism in order to attract clicks (and votes). In an internet world, I had hoped that revisionism would be impossible, because truth would prevail, somehow. I was wrong, and wrong in a big, big way.
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Our media still needs accountablilty because if something isn't done about the problem of revisionism, it will become progressivly harder for even the well informed to make wise decisions. The pursuit of clicks is what drives pundits, journalists, and i-reporters alike to put issues like this on 'relentlessly ignore'. -
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The news is increasingly reduced to its most elemental form, a series of instantaneous, always new, constantly updated, transient and often superfluous information bites, which preferably jolt emotional reactions and can be sold to a particular affinity group, thus garnering links and attention.
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That's why we call it the Drudgico.
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You have 10 seconds to respond.
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Wasn't that a line in Robocop?
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What about this very blog post, which is now more than 1,000 words, two or three times the length of a proper blog post? I am sure most of you have stopped reading.
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Just us dirty Internets hippies, the dwindling remnant who will actually read a New Republic story to the very end and ask, "No really. Why are we invading and occupying a country in the middle of the Middle East?" -
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I think you completely missed the point about Politico: it is old style received wisdom political reporting dressed up in new internet clothing. Their staff understand little about the technicalities of the story, and usually reports a political angle that was spoonfed them by the spinmesitersor. Rather like yourself unfortunately.
So it's pretty immaterial how quickly they get it out, or over how many articles.
Go to talkingpointsmemo.com of fivethirtyeight.com for insight distilled from the experience of an expert readership. That's the future of journalism.
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I suppose you may be tempted to believe that Politico is the be-all and end-all of political reporting, but you would be WRONG. I don't buy the notion that the vast majority wants their "reporting" in bites and snippets. Of course, i also recognize Politico as the right-wing echo chamber that it is, so I never go there. And I read long articles all the time, when I find one that actually has something to say. That never happens on Politico, and happens less and less here on Time. More's the pity, because I come here less and less also.
And the fact that I didn't read your complete posting is because it failed to capture my interest. Which is typical of everything I have ever seen that you wrote.
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…we are also becoming smarter news consumers, able to consume more information in a shorter amount of time than ever before. We also have more control, and more potential information available at our fingertips…
Lotta value judgment in that, MS. I can't see how getting less valid information in a context-shattered format, is "smarter," nor how that approach leads to consumption of more news … unless you define raw factoids as news. This seems to accept wholesale degradation of quality reporting in favor of sheer volume of something you call "information." I say it's "words," and I say the hell with it.
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I don't Scherer missed the point. His post is about atomization of content, which Politico does to a fare-thee-well. It is ONE future of journalism, and the TPM/538.com model is another future. The discussion should be about the connection between form and content (medium and message), IMHO. Is news served on 24-hour news channels different from news served in 30-minute broadcast? Yes. Is atomized news in the Politico style difference from TPM? Yes. How is it different, and why is Politico's approach so successful (so far)? If it is successful, it will be imitated.
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The primary reason I read the news is to find something interesting about reality. HotAir is more interesting than Swampland.
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That is because the writing style is more accessible and clever, IMO. It is also because a good chunk of it lines up with my beliefs. And finally, because HotAir just picks up on more striking finds in the news. Swampland tends to give me fairly predictable content: restatements about the obvious, pedestrian political speculation. When a writer like Joe Klein makes the occasional partisan condemnation (i.e., takes a side), the resultant op-ed is often bizarre.
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So I guess I read Swampland for a diversity of opinion. The whole package (including the comments) give me some idea of the other side without wasting my time like a far left blog would. -
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Politico is catnip for the ill informed
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1. I wouldn't worry about Politico too much. Here's an example of Ben Smith lying. Eventually the fact that he's a brazen liar is going to have an impact on his career and hopefully the Politico.
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2. Unfortunately, Michael Scherer is also a liar, but hopefully over time most people will realize that and it will have an impact on his career too.
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3. I try to pack as much info into as few words as possible because I realize others have things to do. -
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This is pretty funny - but trite. Politico is hardly objective, although I always look for Jeanne Cummings' byline - she is great, and a reporter! The others are not balls of fire, and in fact, seem a bit compromised.
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MS: I began to write a blog post about Cheney's comments on Iraq, which seemed to me both overly rosy, and unfair.
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And we get this whinging instead. You've just spent how much of my time with your navelgazing commentary, and you're pissing and moaning about my inability to pay attention? If your writing is relevant, Michael, and sound in reason and fact, I'll be happy to read to the end...I'll even give you the benefit of a doubt that it's sound; just cut the crap commentary.
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In the Internet-age, by contrast, what matters is not the container, but...the linkable atom of information.
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In contrast? It's always been about the number of views, whether it's dead-tree Time or time.com. News producers are just feeling the pressure now more than ever because media ownership is largely corporate - with the associated emphasis on making the quarterly earnings forecast - and the number of eyes on the page is more solidly quantifiable than before.
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The reader, choosing her own adventure as she clicks, creates her own narrative of the world..
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And I skip to the comics section of the Sunday news on a regular basis instead of wading through the obits...actually, it's harder now, because we have so many possible media outlets to choose from, many of dubious quality.
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...this new Twitter-sized view...
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Umm, yeeah. Note to the TwitterMediaSphere: I'm really not that interested in you and what you find fascinating. You, of course, can reserve the right to feel exactly the same way about me.
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Even if I am not being asked to do this sort of journalism now.., more reporters like me will certainly be imitating the Politico model in the future, because it works...
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Allen's Politico stories that you mentioned are really a single story - there was little or no analysis in the pieces - split into three parts. Nothing special, mostly a change in presentation along with slight changes in verbiage from one post to another. Allen's not really reporting, he's making quota.
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Without context, the nuggets drift further from the original event.
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Yes, and that's why we are increasingly relying on nontraditional content providers to help us fill in the context...No reason that a print news producer couldn't fulfill the same need, other than an obsession with hitting that quarterly forecast.
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We have a constant stream of any information we choose, in an instantly digestible form.
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And like my cell phone, it's a blessing and a curse; I'm always available, even when I don't want to be.
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I am sure most of you have stopped reading.
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Er, no...
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The Internet is changing news.
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Which is probably the same thing the town cryer said about the printing press. You're stuck with the new medium, Michael, but much of the change is in presentation. Reporting of the facts surrounding an event and honestly providing context for that event (i.e. 'news' and 'analysis') is still necessary.
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I want your clicks. I want to give my readers information they can use, in the forms that they want it.
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That just sounds desperate. -
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Media bukake. However you spell it. Wrong. Wrong. Wrong.
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Politico sucks at reporting the news.
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Using Cheney, whose hatred for America is matched by our hatred for him, to generate eleventeen inflammatory headlines in 45 seconds provides no useful service of any sort to anyone.
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The only people who give two sh!ts about material in Politico for anything other than anthropological interest are reporters at money-hemorrhaging print publications. It's not sustainable. -
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The most ironic phrase in your entire post:
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More after the jump. To keep reading, click below.
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What you aren't anticipating and what I think will happen is even as we migrate more and more online, advertisers will begin to realize that there are varying quality of eyballs. While you're complain about the superficiality of the short-graf coverage the sponsors will have an opportunity to complain about the superficiality of the readership they're drawing.
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No one ever accused 'The New Yorker' of having a lousy internet business model. -
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I'm going to disagree with everyone else in this thread apparently. Thanks Mike. This was a great, great post. Very Jon Stewart-ish in your dissection of the forces driving the changes in journalism and the potential (and already occured[ing]) good and bad effects of said changes.
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High content, high value, solid trend analysis and projection. Again, thanks. -
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Media Matters recently had a post about Politco's "Reshaping of beltway journalism."
http://mediamatters.org/countyfair/200903120009?show=1
Politico is beltway conventional wisdom disguised pretending to be bloggers.
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I agree Mike. The trend towards bite-sized reports on bits of stories is frustrating, but although it may generate more clicks, what about the quality of those clicks? By this I mean that if I click on a story and find a 200 word snippet with no insight and "tabloid pap" screaming from between all the (albeit limited) lines, I am far less likely to go back there at a later date. However, at the sites that I find decent reporting with indepth analysis rather than lowest-common-denominator populism, I am far more likely to return to again and again at the start of a news read. I am more likely to pay attention to the whole page, see the adverts and buy the print version.
So please: Aim for quality clicks not quantity clicks. Resist the twitter.
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The bulk of news media is NOISE, and cable TV could only offer useless noise.
Ever since TV runs a 24 hour daily program, it has been full of junks. It is simply impossible to have breaking news every 5 minutes throughout the day, 24/7.
Often, views and opinions on TV are biased, up to the whims and idiosyncrasies of the producer or editor. Like it or not, the speakers or commentators are mostly less-than-knowledgeable. Yes, they talk, sometimes they talk too well (rhetorically or not) – but with little substance.
In the final analysis, never trust the media wholeheartedly; just gather the necessary information to exercise your own assessment and judgment every time, all the time.
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i can pretty much read the remainders blog post on ben smith's blog: Time Magazine: POLITICO Destroying Journalism. along with a clickable link to your post.
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Fact of the matter is, you're just looking for your own little jon stewardness. u know, taking on those big guys exploiting us. once i saw ur justification as being 'they don't report context and don't do lenghts." once i saw u use limbaugh as ur prime illustration, i switched from serious mode to vaguely entertained. are you saying that journalism was in a better shape before the internet age? you basically had 5 news aggregators. they could all agree on what to talk about and what information to withhold from readers, listeners, whomever. it was monopolized news.
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don't get me wrong, im not in the business of of defending any process, and loathe the idea of defending institutions, whichever they might be. im not defending the current model over any previous ones. im just sayingim pretty uninterested, and find your self-righteousness rather discomforting.
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you guys have made it clear that primarily, you are business ventures. so it's not about the objectivity of the content. it never was and never will be. it's about which bad option fits the audience better. n in the information age, i suspect a faster paced news rate might interest people. thats's why i have ur blog here on my bookmark list just one click away. that's why i have ben smith's too. it's why i have politico44 in there along with thepage and politicker. not because i don't sometimes read 'contextualized' (read partisan) columns about how much rush does not want obama to fail for real. it's just because oftentimes, i only have like 15 mns to catch up with the world n i wanna hit as many different sources at the same time. it's because oftentimes i just don't feel like going through all the bullsh!tting n maybe get a soundbite before i can get a good moment to sit down and read the latest White Paper from say CAP, or IEEE Spectrum or whatever substantive piece of literature i need to read to keep on top of sh!t. -
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Its no doubt that online news has taken over a lot of the traditional methods of media being related to the public, but personally i still prefer my news the old fashion way. Newspaper.....
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These nuggets are then consumed by the rapid-fire cable news shows, reacted to by bloggers and commenters, and spit back out at us in the online echo chamber, which in turn is used by cable news producers and assigning print editors as a way of deciding what should be covered next. Without context, the nuggets drift further from the original event.
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Which sums up the real problem quite nicely. The problem isn't the Politico's approach to reporting, rather its the way the rest of the media (lead by the cable news networks) uses the decontextualized "nuggets" to create the next "context" for their reporting and analysis. -
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The GOPolitico is the door to door vacuum salesman of journalism. They don't give a sh*t about accuracy or in depth analysis of any situation. They only care about how much attention their stories garner and how many Drudge links they secure. That Scherer admires them should surprise no one. That they are phucking up the world of journalism should concern us all. Once there are no papers and people actually have to turn to Politico to be "informed" we are going to be in a world of hurt. Of course at that point people will notice how many times they get it wrong but it will be too late.
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So what do you think the over under is on Scherer submitting his resume to the Politico? Id put it at two weeks ago. -
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This is an important post. g_crush called it navel gazing, but she is missing the point. What you say is, in fact, happening - and we don't yet fully understand the implications of it on news consumption, the news media business model, or the freedom of the commonweal.
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This post, along with Clay Shirky's post yesterday give some counterweight to the shrieking we have been hearing about the end of print journalism as we know it. Shirky's post is a must read.
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