Catch up to what? Expertise? - Bora Zivkovic

LOL Where Rosenthal is coming from he states explicitly: "Yes, we sometimes take positions on issues that have not been reported in the news pages. Those editorials are based on our own enterprise reporting." Problem is, some bloggers have the same access and have no problem reporting on things the Times decides isn't newsworthy. When more bloggers pick up on it, it forces their hand. They either have to admit to sitting on a story or admit to not following up on a thread. Either way, they lookout of touch. - Anika

I actually agree with them. Bloggers are very unprofessional. They do a great job of coverage and monetizing the web, but the content is usually amateurish. I would much prefer NY Times reporter blogging than a blogger in a newspaper, if you see what I mean. - Andrew

Andrew, are you reading the right bloggers, the people who have real life expertise in the topic they write about, e.g., legal scholars, scientists, physicians? Journos may be (sometimes) better at constructing English sentences, but cannot come close to real expertise on the topic unless they spent decades studying it. - Bora Zivkovic

Have you read the New York Times? With some of their inaccuracies I'd rather read nearly any blog - though I certainly wouldn't lump all blogs together. - Richard Lawler

And even then (journos who spent decades studying a topic and are thus quite expert themselves), they are forced by editors to conform to journalistic traditions of form, that often render the expertise moot (as in: false equivalence when none really exists) - Bora Zivkovic

Bora - I don't know if I am reading the right ones or not, but I'm usually reading quite a few of them. It's not just the english that I don't like (though it can be pretty bad), it's the gimmickiness of a lot of it. And the embracing of silly buzzwords. I just think that a NY Times writer wouldn't go that route. - Andrew

What Rosenthal meant is that the blogosphere has to catch up with Bob Herbert, Maureen Dowd, Gail Collins, David Brooks, Thomas Friedman and the New York Times editorials, rather than the New York Times opinion writers having to catch up with the blogosphere. The superiority of the New York Times reporters has nothing to do with it. - Jay Rosen

This is quite silly. Opinion writing that good is ubiquitous. - j1m

You mean 'keep up" with those? They produce so much crap that bloggers (with day jobs) have to debunk every day. ;-) And for Andrew and language - read this, think and learn: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... - Bora Zivkovic

Did you read Dowd's last column. I got the impression she was finally getting a little glimpse at the real picture -- but only because they're fixated on Google and can't see that it's just a search engine. It's like thinking the value in the NY Times is in its index. Sure *some* of the value is there. But even more of the value is in the sources. - Dave Winer

To put a finer point on it, while other readers might value each of the Times opinion writers differently, I -- and I suspect most of us -- have multiple friends whose expressed opinions are more worth listening to than those of Herbert, Collins, Brooks, Dowd (obviously), and even Friedman. This is commodity-quality opinion writing, and detailed opinions of high quality are available from literally millions of Americans. - j1m

What he's really saying is: the bloggers have to catch up to us because... we have elite credentials and reporting experience. "Our board is staffed with people with a wide and deep range of knowledge on many subjects. Phil Boffey, for example, has decades of science and medical writing under his belt and often writes on those issues for us. Robert Semple, similarly, is a Pulitzer Prize-winning writer on environmental issues. Our foreign affairs writers, Carol Giacomo and Deputy Editorial Page Editor Carla Robbins, have decades of experience in those areas. Carla was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning team when she was with The Wall Street Journal. - Jay Rosen

that is a silly statement. good writers are good writers, the platform is irrelevant. - Adam Singer

Sure, but why are we never reading (or even recognizing the names) of these? What are the expertise of Dowd and Brooks apart from bloviating? Why are they famous and get all that print real-estate instead of NYT expert writers who nobody ever heard of? - Bora Zivkovic

let's also not forget that they never, ever link to anyone outside their online walls :) - Valeria Maltoni

Here is what Rosenthal says he looks for in an op ed columnist: http://tr.im/jbXW - Jay Rosen

they wrote: "It’s a lot easier to do online, where there’s lots of room and it is much easier for people to come and go. Giving someone a regular spot on the print Op-Ed page is another thing entirely." because it is printed? i don't understand how words or content magically changes if you print it. these guys think that printing something somehow makes it more important or valid...logically that makes no sense. - Adam Singer

Andrew, I don't know what topic you focus on, but for my reading of blogs (political-liberal, african-american, women's issues, LGBT issues) most of the bloggers I read are former journalists like myself. I agree whole-heartedly with Adam. The platform is irrelevant from a reader's standpoint. It's these old media gatekeepers who have made it a battle between bloggers and MSM. Valeria makes a point. All of the bloggers I know, link to sources. The MSM will rip stories and test from bloggers with no link. - Anika

Adam: I think he's saying: more has to go into it, because it has unique authority and expense and value to us. Not that print confers on it more authority, although it sounds that way. - Jay Rosen

@Jay I disagree that it has unique authority and value. Just because they ship it to you on paper means nothing. The one thing it has is more expense. Print wins there. I guess if it makes them feel superior, great...but content is content. It's the message, not the medium. Again, from a logic standpoint (remove any emotion) words are words. - Adam Singer

They are selling a brand. Not aware that their brand is falling speedily into disrepute because some other people have built new brands based on expertise, honesty, transparency, link-generosity and, yes, excellent command of language. And yes, paper is expensive real-estate: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... and yes, the whole bloggers vs. journalists trope is wrong: http://scienceblogs.com/clock... - Bora Zivkovic

Let me repeat what I said: I think he's saying: more has to go into it, because it has unique authority and expense and value to us, the New York Times. We spend more on it, so it better have unique authority, in other words. - Jay Rosen

Yes, from their perspective, that is how they almost have to think. - Bora Zivkovic

To ignore the topic again :) Anika - I don't read LGBT blogs. I typically read either tech or political blogs. Tech blogs tend to be buzzword laden and sensationalistic. Most of that has to do with the lack of actual goings on to talk about. The political blogs I seperate between two categories: Andrew Sullivan and the partisan folks. Andrew Sullivan is quality on every level. Everyone else seems to be so partisan that I can't see through the agendas to the stories. At least the NY Times let's me see actual information while giving me sensational spin. - Andrew

Oh FOH. At least with blogs you generally get to see how much of what you just read was parroted from the original press release. It's incredibly rare that I read an article, specifically in the NYT, that contains "actual information." - Richard Lawler

I guess if you mention "New York Times" that's just a big 'ol sign that says: dump on or defend the reporting of the New York Times thread. - Jay Rosen

Jay, I see your point, but the face remains that those writers don't often adhere to high standards as their background would imply. These are opinion pieces, so they get away with playing fast and loose with facts for partisan reasons. They omit some things, linking a statement from "a senior official" to their final conclusion. They don't have to back up what they say because they know the editors and ombudsman will say, "These are op-eds." Otherwise, Dowd would have been put out of our misery years ago, - Anika

I just meant Rosenthal is the editor of the opinion section; that's all. He has nothing to do with the reporting staff of the New York Times. Columnists who play fast and loose with facts, yes, that would be his domain. By the way, he also noted in the Q & A that columnists write their own headlines, a nice little fact. - Jay Rosen

It's an interesting tack. One would think the EP editor would offer a defense of the value of institutional opinion, rather than puff up board members as the best gladiators in Thunderdome. - gnarlytrombone

Catch up, it's like chasing wounded gazelle, sure it'll run for a while, but at certain point the blood loss just becomes too much. At this point new media could sit and watch old media bleed money tell it dies and not be the worse for wear. Except they are not. Its really an evolving system vs a static newspaper format. The bloggers are more knowledgeable (usually experts on the topic) and cheaper. For god sake I follow Karl Rove on twitter, who needs the opinion of journalist, when you can get thesource - Adam B

What's interesting about it, to me, is that Rosenthal works in the one area of mainstream journalism most affected by competition and criticism from bloggers, especially sources going direct. And rather than admit any of that. he just goes the opposite way. - Jay Rosen

The other thing to note here is that, if I read Rosenthal correctly, he's not even talking about any of the op-ed columnists, he's talking exclusively about the editorial board -- the gang of garlanded pros who write the unsigned editorials. So not only is there one internal institutional line, between "news" and "editorial/opinion", that the public is supposed to be able to find on its map of the Times's product, there is a second internal institutional boundary (between the op-ed columnists and the Ed Board folks) that is apparently quite important as well. Yet, as this discussion evidences, the distinction is not a simple one to discern, and probably widely misunderstood. - Scott Rosenberg

How many Americans are more qualified to serve as The New York Times editorial page editor than Andrew Rosenthal? How many Americans are more qualifed to serve as The New York Times chairman of the board than Arthur Sulzberger Jr? 10,000? 100,000? 1,000,000? Why would anyone take anything Andrew Rosenthal says seriously? If Rosenthal and Sulzberger penned blogs, would anyone read them? - Sean McBride

I don't understand - is Jay defending them or not? - Denise Young

No, I am not defending Andrew Rosenthal's statement about bloggers catching up to "us," the New York Times. I am simply asking why it is so hard to get across a simple factual statement. Here is it again, ready? Rosenthal is the editor of the editorial pages, the opinion section of the Times. He has NOTHING WHATSOEVER TO DO WITH THE REPORTERS OR THE REPORTING STAFF. And so his statement--which is well worth arguing about--does not apply to reporters at the New York Times. Too complicated? - Jay Rosen

Thanks, Jay. But why should bloggers catch up to flack-activated stuff? Odd. - Denise Young

Andrew Rosenthal and the decline and fall of The New York Times: topics: A.M. Rosenthal, Arthur Sulzberger Jr., David Brooks, ethnic cronyism, Iraq War, Judith Miller, Likud Zionism, mediocrity, neoconservatism, neoliberalism, NEPOTISM (make that caps), Thomas Friedman, William Kristol, William Safire. Put another way: Google: Brin/Page, meritocracy, competition, talent, success; The New York Times: Sulzberger/Rosenthal, nepotism, cronyism, mediocrity, failure. The New York Times is leading absolutely nothing these days. I can easily think of dozens of bloggers who outshine the entire New York Times crew. - Sean McBride

Two facts that might be of interest: Arthur Sulzberger Jr. earned a B.A. in Political Science from Tufts University. Andrew Rosenthal earned a B.A. in American History from University of Denver. When they try to lecture leading-edge minds with doctorates from MIT, Harvard, Stanford, Yale, Oxford and other leading universities on anything (including politics, and technology especially), they tend to come up short. Face it: they are way over their heads. Their empire is crumbling and they don't really understand why. - Sean McBride

Thinking more about this, it seems that one mistake Andrew Rosenthal makes is this: He assumes that having a huge reputation as the brand name in authoritative and upper crust news CAN ONLY BE GOOD for truthtelling when this is not so. It can create a reluctance to go out a limb, a wiilingness to stay within bounds. Krugman has a Nobel Prize, another career, and an equally elite institution in Princeton to accredit him, so he is an exception. If Rosenthal recognized this, it would help him do his job. - Jay Rosen

Given current technology trends, will The New York Times be offering anyone a job in the future (possibly the near future), not to mention a job to Andrew Rosenthal? - Sean McBride

Perhaps the problem is with the fuzzy notion that in the nebulous world of opinion, one can reliably measure who is ahead of whom in matters that do not rest on fact, but, "in point of fact," upon the subjective core of informed discursive valuation, otherwise known as reasoned opinion. - tom matrullo

I would be far more concerned if Rosenthal were arguing that the news awareness at the Times were "ahead" of others in the discursive universe. Any glance at the home page of the Times finds a jumble of motley, outdated, poorly thought-through, and under-contextualized snippets. The Times has failed to think what news is, let alone to race ahead of anyone else. But so long as he's merely taking on opinionaters, who really f'ing cares? - tom matrullo

Oooh. Boundaries. That gets to the heart of it, methinks. It'd be fascinating to make an apples-to-apples comparison between an Ed Board's process and outcome on, say, the PPIP proposal and that of the econ bloggers (including The Krug). The latter is probably a lot less open participation- and idea-wise as we'd like to think, but still... Also, there's tremendous value in the messy, back-and-forth reasoning process that polished editorial end product simply can't capture. - gnarlytrombone

A perfect example (from today) of why the best of the blogosphere is consistently well ahead of The New York Times on every conceivable issue of significance: Glenn Greenwald: Major scandal erupts involving Rep. Jane Harman, Alberto Gonzales and AIPAC http://www.salon.com/opinion... The Times is stumbling raggedly behind the big show. - Sean McBride

As of this evening, there is still not a single word about the Jane Harman story on the New York Times or Washington Post sites. On the other hand, the blogosphere, Friendfeed, Twitter, etc. have been buzzing with the story. Is it any wonder that these dinosaurs are losing mindshare at such a rapid clip? Who really pays much attention to them anymore, especially among thought and opinion leaders? They are timid, slow and stodgy, always trying to play catch up but never succeeding. Good riddance. - Sean McBride

hear, hear, Sean. Off with their heads. - Denise Young

Donald Graham and Fred Hiatt have ruined The Washington Post: "Times Fronts AIPAC Story That Washington Post Ignores" (M.J. Rosenberg) http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2009... "Of course, this should be the Washington Post's story. On Congress and lobbies, the Post tends to dominate the turf, with the Times breathing down its neck. This time the Post is ignoring the story despite all the leads produced by Congressional Quarterly which the Times ran with and built on. Where's the Post? Nowhere. Not one word. Here's a wild and crazy guess. The Post, which under editor Fred Hiatt, has become an Iraq war loving, Israel-is-always-right, Iran-is-about-to-strike neocon paper just doesn't want to touch a story like this. It would rather be scooped in its own backyard then go with the biggest news story of the day." - Sean McBride

I would love to see Andrew Rosenthal make a useful contribution to this discussion (not just here on Friendfeed; anywhere) -- ain't gonna happen. He's not up to it. - Sean McBride

RT @buzzflash: NYT Shows Why Print is Dying: Blogs beat it to number of waterboards and it didn't post Jane Harman bombshell until Tuesday!about 6 hours ago from Tweetie http://twitter.com/pixelsr... - Sean McBride