This post is my contribution to this month's Carnival of Journalism, hosted by Innovation in College Media.
I think it's fair to say that the Max Gogarty blog story which I blogged about on Thursday has gone viral. The story has spread over the internet like a rash, and it has brought a whole load of discomfort for journalists with it. In fact, it's shaping up to be a textbook case of how traditional media people can get the new social media almost 100% wrong. And, because of that, it bears a little bit of more careful examination.
I said in my last post that the blog-reading world hold blogs from existing publishing brands to higher standards than those from individuals - and I stick by that. Max's work was compared against both the standards and ethos of The Guardian, and those of blogging in general. And many of the readers found it wanting. And certainly, as a piece of blogging, it makes a great bit of Sunday supplement colour text.
If you take the time to read Max's piece, fundamentally, it's a writerly article. What he's not doing is talking to the audience, he's talking at them. He's building a character for himself and setting the tone for his later pieces. You can almost see the scaffolding in place in the sentence structure. And, in all honesty, if this had been in print, it would probably have worked fine.
But it's not in print. It's on a blog. And he's an occasional scriptwriter whose Dad is a journalist (who makes the classic old media mistake of calling posts "blogs" in a quote in a news story). Max doesn't appear to have shown much of an active interest in social media, before now, based on a few Google searches.
All of which leads us to one conclusion: he's not blogging, he's writing. And therein lies the problem. It's the other classic old media mistake of pushing an old media concept into a new media format without really understanding it.
So who's to blame here?
The writer? Certainly. It seems clear that he jumped into this without really understanding what blogging is about - or, indeed, the nature of the audience he was writing for. And, frankly, that's just bad journalism. Writing a blog post a bit like a humorous sidebar in a travel feature is as unforgivable as writing a 2,000 word feature in the style of a news story. Know the medium you're using, and use it well.
The editors? Oh, yes. It doesn't take much more than a cursory look at the copy Max produced to see that it was faintly embarrassing, especially in the context of a blog. The problem is that anyone who is reading blogs regularly has seen good travel blogging, be it from travel specialists or not. This was not good travel blogging, and the ill-starred trio of it being in a national newspaper, by the son of an established journalist and a writer from a popular "youth" TV show just aggravated what would have been a bad situation anyway. And, to the credit of Emily Bell and Andy Pietrasik, they have accepted responsibility for the error of publishing it in the way they did.
This was six hundred words which was aimed at adding variety and colour to the travel site. Maybe an open blog post was not the best place to publish it, but the joy of evolving websites is that we learn on a daily basis.
And that was the fundamental failing here - not truly understanding the nature of the work they'd commissioned and the style of medium they published it out in. This is a rare mistake for The Guardian in social media, which is why it sticks out so badly. But it's a common one amongst journalists, including the ones I work with. It's all too easy for them to perceive blogging and other forms of social media through the lens of their existing understanding of journalism. But as the audience grows ever more savvy in this area, mistakes will be less and less forgivable.
And we need to stop cargo cult blogging, and start genuinely joining in the conversation.
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I think the fact that it was in The Guardian was instrumental to the storm.
1 - The Guardian has fake columnists - for example Will Duguid, the environmental writer - and many people initially thought Max was another one of these, then went ballistic when they realised that it was 'real'
2 - Guardian readers are very hot on nepotism and injustice. In other broadsheets it's a lot more common (I believe) for writers to be the son of someone else and the readers don't care; in the Guardian they do.
3 - The text was very off-message for the Guardian. That stuff at the end about nurses - jeez. But again, in another broadsheet it wouldn't have been such a problem.
I'm quite willing to believe that Max is a talented blagger who arranged this off his own bat, but he picked the wrong medium for it. Pooer bloke, but get back in the saddle Max, and continue with the writing.
Interesting stuff. Established media blogs work best if they are linking and/or making comments.
Hi Adam...
The thing is, most media outlets are afraid of conversation--not just receiving comments on their site, but on conversational writing style..
For instance, I've been told by readers that one of the reasons they *love* my blog (and yes, some do) is that it's like I'm talking to them. My writing style, with ellipses and no whit for Who What Where, etc., is *not* journalistic.
When I have to write for a "formal" blog that's part of a network or other venture, I cringe. At times I've been hired for my conversational style, only to be told by whomever's editing the piece that it's a little too "casual" or that it needs to be "tighter" (read: like an article.)
IMO, it takes awhile to write in good conversational style. It takes time to get good at. And getting good at it means taking the editor out and risking negative feedback (mostly of the "that's unprofessional!" variety) But right now, I don't think that's possible. Newspapers have too many people to please and in the process can't have a simple conversation. Very sad, when you think about it...
Hmm somewhat scandalous. I blame the editors more than the writers. But whats the real problemm here...the nepotism or bad blogging? both? But whats worse?
You hit the nail on the head with the idea of sentence "scaffolding", which delivers a cringeworthy experience for the reader of a blog. But even if this piece had been commissioned for a printed travel piece or Sunday supplement, it would still have been a pile of embarrassingly awful rubbish. "I live on top of a hill in North London... food and skinny jeans... kinda shitting myself..." Fair enough, he's 19, but it's just drivel, isn't it? No wonder people thought it was some sort of marketing stunt.
But even if this piece had been commissioned for a printed travel piece or Sunday supplement, it would still have been a pile of embarrassingly awful rubbish
True enough, but that's why I thought it'd fit right in…
Interestingly - Max's post was one of three sample blog posts I pasted as plain text on plain paper, no dates or sources and handed out to a very experienced social media team and some journalists yesterday as part of a training session. They had no problem with the piece. Thought it might sit well in a Livejournal page, 'friend's blog' or an email home to friends. They didn't find it very interesting, but they all thought he was a very good writer. In fact they didn't quite believe he was just 19. However, there was noticeable cringing when I revealed where the piece actually appeared.
Nail -- head. Thanks for hitting it. Sorry I'm only just catching it now.