Boston health journalists have little use for social media
January 18, 2010
Much enjoyed hearing members of the Boston health care press admit (boast?) that they have almost zero use for social media.
Speaking on a panel at last week’s meeting of the Publicity Club of the New England, journalists from the Boston Business Journal (BBJ), Dow Jones Newswires, the Boston Herald and WBZ-TV) said they don’t “get” Twitter--don’t have time for it, and can’t see why anyone would want to use it.
Jon Kamp, who covers medical technology and energy for Dow Jones said, “I’m 35 going on 100. I don’t get it; I don’t know what to do with it. When I’m 100, I hope I’ll be saying the same thing.”
Brad Perriello, executive editor the year-old MassDevice.com, an online business journal covering the device industry, said he mainly posts news feeds to attract readers to the publication’s Web site.
Ryan McBride, a correspondent for Xconomy, a national online publication with bureaus in Boston, Seattle and San Diego, said he follows certain industry leaders on Twitter but rarely contributes, himself.
Several said they have linked-in accounts that they barely use and and none use Facebook professionally.
” Facebook is to show people pictures of my kid,” Kamp said.
McBride described Linked-in as “an online Rolodex that’s full of people I don’t talk to much. Facebook is friends and family and all the people in high school whom I didn’t know were my friends.”
Julie Donnelly of the BBJ can’t see the point of posting on Facebook. “I’m not that interesting,” she said.
Debbie Kim of WBZ-TV said she doesn’t have time and Christine McConville of the Herald, said that, as an investigative reporter, she doesn’t think it’s a good idea to make public the details of her life. Plus, “I can barely return my emails, get enough exercise, see my friends. I certainly don’t have time for [Facebook]. “
She does, however, enjoy contributing to videos that appear online every three weeks or so.
The conversation was moderated by Michal Regunberg, vice president of Solomon McCown & Co, a Boston public relations firm. Regunberg’s questions focused on the ways in which cutbacks and other changes in the media are affecting coverage.
All of the journalists agreed that the national debate over health reform has been the focus of their coverage in recent months (and that they’re tired of it).
All said they are working with less time, fewer resources and greater demands to produce more. As a result, they have less time for research or feature writing.
McConville said she must write two stories a day for the Herald. McBride covers two different beats for Xconomy. Donnelly writes for both the Boston Business Journal and Mass High Tech and is responsible for breaking stories on line as well as in print. Debbie Kim, medical producer for WBZ-TV, must sometimes produce as many as four pieces in a single a day.
Kamp mentioned that in the past, Dow Jones’ headquarters was relegated to offices in New Jersey but now shares the New York City newsroom of the Wall Street Journal–and that, in many newsrooms, there is tension over which stories should be posted online immediately and which should be held for the print version of the paper.
All of the above means that anyone trying to get coverage faces huge competition for reporters attention and must provide information that is extremely clear and to the point, the journalists agreed.
The discussion made me glad to be out of the pressure cooker journalism has increasingly become–but happy to see a high level of competence, dedication and concern for truth in the Boston press corps.
——-Anita M. Harris
HarrisComBlog is a publication of the Harris Communications Group of Cambridge, MA. We also publish New Cambridge Observer and Ithaca Diaries Blog.
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Tags: BBJ, Boston Business Journal, Boston Herald, Brad Perriello, Chrstine McConville, Debbi Kim, Dow Jones, Jon Kamp, journalism, journalists and twitter, Julie Donnelly, Mass Device, new media, Publicity Club of new England, Ryan McBride, social media, Twitter, Wall Street Journal, WBZ-TV, Xconomy
Comment on Doug Bailey’s call for no comment
July 16, 2009
On Wednesday, July 15, 2009, media consultant Doug Bailey wrote in an op ed column entitled ”Got a comment? Keep it to yourself” that space for comments at the end of online newspaper articles should be eliminated because they downgrade the quality of news.
Bailey, who does not disclose that he’s a former Globe editor, suggests that rather than enhance communication, newspapers online forums are “insidiously contributing to the devaluation of journalism, blurring the truth, confusing the issues, and diminishing serious discourse beyond even talk radio’s worst examples.”
He points out (without naming names) that the comment sections allow ”anonymous”, “unverified,” “agenda-driven” ”boneheads” to post inaccurate information that can be picked up by bloggers and then by legitimate traditional reporters who publish “missives” –unaware that the bloggers’ information came from their newspapers’ own Web sites.
Yes, this is a problem–and it is, as Bailey puts it, a bit ”insane”. But rather than ban readers’ comments, wouldn’t it make more sense for reporters to verify all sources? Certainly, real reporting takes time–and traditional journalists are increasingly harried in these days of cost-cutting and layoffs.
But it is verfication and objectivity that separate independent journalism from disinformation. And, it is truth, and allowing readers a stake in it–that, in the end, will give us a reason to pay for news.
Bailey ends his column saying, “By the way, don’t bother posting any comments directly to me when this article appears on the Web. I won’t see them. Instead, go start your own website or blog or buy a legitimate newspaper or write a letter to the editor, or an op -ed (and sign your own name to it). If you really have something interesting to say, I’ll find you.”
(I was amused–and glad–to see 168 comments after the online posting.
- “Kachunk” says he’s posting for “the irony”
- “Oldpink ”says it’s “ nice for ordinary citizens to be given an opportunity to add something that should have been in the original column, while allowing others to rebut.Messy? Often a bit mean? Commonly inaccurate? Absolutely. Isn’t democracy grand?”
- ”Sensibleman,” writes that he’s using the first amendment to tell Bailey “to stop submitting articles so if intelligent life ever scans our internet to determine how critical it is to stop at Earth they don’t pass over us due to stupidity.”)
I read Bailey’s column in the print edition–which is delivered to my door (late, but that’s another story) every day. But the Globe allows almost no print space for letters to the editor which, in days past, might have helped keep reporters and columnists on their toes. Hence, this posting–and comment #169 after Bailey’s piece, online.
But if I did write in, I’d include my name and prior affiliations– and make clear that like Bailey’s, my not-so hidden agenda is to attract customers to my consulting business.
Hint, hint: Anita Harris, a former national journalist, is president of the Harris Communications Group, of Cambridge, MA.
PS Comments welcome!
Filed in media, new media, newspapers, social media
Tags: Anita M. Harris, Boston Globe, Cambridge, Doug Bailey, got a comment, Harris Communications Group, HarrisCom, journalism, media, new media
