If you’ve been following the Washington Post vs. Gawker story at all this week, you’ve probably noticed that it’s the same old refrain of blogs are killing newspapers, but this time with interesting characters.
Washington Post writer Ian Shapira wrote a story last week about Anne Loehr, a culture-savvy consultant who explains generational idiosyncracies to CEOs.
Soon after, Gawker’s Hamilton Nolan read and blogged about it, setting off a series of Internet pot shots that spawned its own side commentary, much like this one. (Here’s another one that’s worth reading.)
But what’s more than the pattern of this internet echoing are the respective positions Nolan (Gawker) and Shapira (WaPo) have taken up.
WaPo, whose financial woes are no secret (the paper was recently lambasted when its attempts to sell lobbyists privileged access to journalists and politicians were disclosed) have taken to decrying the practice of crib-then-comment for which Gawker has become known, charging them with being another unwitting participant in the death of newspapers.
Gawker maintains that that’s unfair, and goes on to argue that blogs are freer by the virtue of being unrestrained by “hide-bound editors.”
“A less cumbersome way for newspapers to head off the threat of blogs,” managing editor Gabriel Snyder writes, “would be to beat us to the punchline.”
Snyder’s recommendation (and response) is a flip answer for the reason that he doesn’t (ironically) give credit where credit is due.
Newspapers and blogs currently have a troubled (read: unequal) relationship. While journalists working at newspapers dig/rake the muck, chase down leads and do all that grimy reporting stuff, bloggers (by and large, there are some notable exceptions) are happy to stand on the shores of the media flow and gawk, anchoring their quips with hyperlinks.
That being said, bloggers take what is an otherwise raw, dispassionate article written in an cold, objective style (which I happen to prefer) and, in Snyder’s words, “succinctly digest it,” making it readily available for mass consumption.
The gross image of pre-chewed news aside, newspapers and blogs need to realize that this is the reality of the public’s media consumption habits. Whether or not it is sad that the public at large needs their daily news put through Gawker-esque witticisms (I, for one, find it to be a constant source of despair) is for the public at large to decide.
For now, I’ll stick to saying thanks to Shapira and Nolan, for bringing this to our attention.
