May 25, 2006

The Miami Herald’s Rick Hirsch on the Newspaper's Bloggers

Since I had received no response from Tom Fiedler and I had read Bob Norman’s blog post about the Herald’s new feedback option on some of its news stories I thought I’d try to get in touch with Rick Hirsch who is the Herald’s Managing Editor/Multimedia. Hirsch had talked with Norman about the feedback feature and I thought that perhaps he’d answer my questions regarding blogs. I sent him the same email I sent to Fiedler and he responded by asking that I call him. One can read a lot of things into that, like perhaps he didn’t want anything to be in writing. So I called him and left a message for him and he returned the call promptly.

I’ll hand it to him; he chose his words very carefully. In the discussion he certainly acknowledged that the standard for what straight news reporters can and can’t say on their blogs is different. But he never really answered the question as to whether these standards for Herald bloggers exist anywhere in writing or whether the bloggers themselves have to determine what is appropriate, knowing that a faux pas can be damaging to their careers. My distinct impression was the latter. I received a comment from Matt Pinzur who is a Herald reporter and blogger in response to this post and I think it backs up my theory that it’s basically a wild west scenario where each person is living by his individual code.

Many thanks for the mention and the link. Our education blog is pretty new - just a few weeks now - so I'm still trying to set the right tone. I've tried to be careful to provide some analysis without inserting my opinion. I don't think that line is always entirely clear, but I try to think of it this way: as a reporter, I don't think it's OK to say I like a certain idea or oppose a particular plan. But I do think it's OK to point out background or other information that helps shine light on the motives or context behind an issue. For example, I've written often about the political risks that School Board members will face when voting about Vamos A Cuba, the controversial children's book, and about why certain board members are more likely to vote a certain way. But I would never opine on whether I think the book should be kept or removed.

I'm really happy to see this discussion taking place, though, because it's new territory for the Herald (and most newspapers), and the perspectives of thoughtful people will help us find our way.

During our phone call Mr. Hirsch mentioned that there are “many different types of blogs” and that some are very opinion driven while other serve as “connective tissue” that “connects the dots” on a particular subject matter. I think he was trying to counter the argument that I didn’t make to him but have made in writing, that a blog without opinion is not really a blog. But he also said that some of the Herald’s blogs will be successful and others won’t. He defined success as large readership and said successful blogs are prolific and allow engagement with readers.

I moved on the topic of comment moderation. I asked specifically about any guidelines for Herald bloggers with regards to removing comments that might include hate speech or false information. Again the impression that I got was that there is no set policy. He mentioned that the feedback mechanism in herald.com’s news items allows for readers to “sound and alarm” if they deem a particular comment inappropriate. Then and only then will a Herald employee look at the comment and determine whether or not it needs to be removed. He said “we don’t and can’t monitor” comments posted readers 24/7. He acknowledged that this may result in objectionable comments being allowed to linger for longer than they would like. Mr. Hirsch mentioned the ownership transition at the paper and that because of it, the blogs are not uniform. Some use Typepad and others use Blogger. But he said he would like for all the blogs to have a mechanism similar to herald.com’s for alerting Herald staff about potentially offensive or inappropriate comments from readers.

I asked him he envisioned a future where reader feedback would become so important so as to create an editor to do this job full time. I mentioned that letters to the editor of the newspaper are chosen and edited. He pointed out the Internet is a different medium without space limitations. He feels that it’s “the public’s discussion” not the Herald’s. I expressed my belief that blogs are like talk radio. Highly opinion driven with limited audience participation; the callers are a miniscule percentage of the listeners and so it is with blogs and the people that post comments but that the Internet can draw certain types of people who want to dominate the discussion. He agreed with this, but it sounded like he viewed this as a necessary evil, the price that has to be paid to have the interactive element in a blog sponsored by a MSM outlet.

In short, Mr. Hirsch was very nice and I appreciate his taking the time to talk to me but a million question marks remain about the Herald and its blogging future. Time will tell which blogs succeed and which will fail.

Posted by Henry Louis Gomez at May 25, 2006 10:08 PM



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Comments

It's gotta be tough for newspapers in the msm to get the hang of blogging. I have no use for dull blogs that just post different stories, which is what some of these newspaper blogs are. They don't connect anything, I don't know what they do - all I know is, I don't want to go there if I don't trust them.

I think blogging is all about opinion, personality and criticism. It's about getting readers to trust you because of who you are, what your personality is, what your views are. For reporters, that's hard.

Reporters often have to talk to all sides in an issue, so it's their job to keep their opinions to themselves. Often, if they do their jobs right, they can't even write opinion about it. It's like a different part of the brain is used. But being human, sometimes after doing even the most straightforward new story, a reporter wants to explode with opinion afterward - as someone who's in the msm, I know. But if reporters do this, some readers will no longer trust them because they don't agree with their views.

So, some do different things than merely express opinion - like become participants in political skulduggery while pretending to be disinterested observers, trying to fool us. Dana Priest is a perfect example of this. Guess what - with real blogging out there, they don't fool us.

In fact, they are likely to be held accountable by bloggers, something they don't like.

Here's my take on this: I don't think there is a such thing as an unbiased reporter. I think many try to be fair - myself included - when I report about Chavistas, I am always excruciatingly fair to them in print. But I still have biases. I think every reporter, left, right and center, ought to be free to have his biases out in the open. There are still liberals I would listen to so long as I think they are open liberals. There are still conservatives I would listen to, too. But it might end the political skulduggery of people like Dana Priest if every reporter were allowed to wear their political orientation on their sleeve.

I think the reason it's not done is that the truth would come out about how ideologically unbalanced the news media really is. It's a real monolith, there is no ideological diversity, despite the fact that over half the nation voted for George Bush. Already, flaming leftists call themselves 'moderates' - proof that they think their crazy views are mainstream - for the simple reason that they never meet anyone with different views. That's how monolithic it all is out there. The msm would hate to have to hire conservatives to balance out their orientation and provide fairness as a group.

Posted by: A.M. Mora y Leon [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 26, 2006 03:40 AM

Look, this isn't rocket science, or like my mother says, NO hay que darle tanto coco a eso. After reading a couple of existing blogs from a couple of Herald writers/reporters the last 2 weeks, here's my prophecy:

If you dare insert your opinion on your topic and it drifts a little to the right of center (that elusive place), your career feathers will get warm. If you keep it up, they'll surely burn.

On the other hand, if you toe the expected yet unspoken, unwritten (a la Rick Hirsch) line that is vogue and staple at the Herald, you will probally remain on the payroll, EVEN IF your blog bombs, crashes and burns .... only your feathers will remain intact.

The Herald doesn't understand, because of its ingrained bias, that bloggers who can't be themselves don't succeed. And there aren't that many interesting newspaper bloggers around, precisely because they work under the specter of a potential pink slip.

Posted by: Gigi [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 26, 2006 10:36 AM

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