Blogs and Stories
The Year (Ahead) in Media
Journalists will moonlight as bloggers. Bloggers will moonlight as investigative reporters. And other predictions you can bank on for 2009 — if we still have banks.
2008 was a strange, strange year for media — or what's left of it. Before all the layoffs, cutbacks, and closings in the final months, it was a year of big, overpowering stories mostly relating to one big, overpowering story: The 2008 Election. Otherwise, dominating stories included two nearly-naked men, Michael Phelps and Eliot Spitzer (what covers more, a Speedo or socks?) Oh, and also, the economy melted down.
With such a year, you could be forgiven for missing a few of the smaller but smarter media moments of 2008 — ahead-of-the-curve writing and forward-thinking strategies that not only made sense of the present, but will help shape the future. Will 2009 be better than 2008? Well, it could hardly be worse. Here's what I think we can look forward to.
If 2009 isn't the year of the black media star, then we are all doing something wrong.
The Rise of Undernews
When the first rumblings of a John Edwards affair started bubbling up in 2007, they were dismissed or ignored. No one wanted to cover a story that was equal parts dirty and tragic, which included the obligatory phrase "according to the National Enquirer." But by August 2008, the mainstream media was forced to acknowledge the story, prompting questions about why this story had been ignored for so long.
Mickey Kaus knew. The longtime Slate political blogger and author saw the Edwards affair as the dividing line between news and "undernews" — stories that percolate online, poked and parsed by the blogosphere to determine their viability. Kaus likened the phenomenon to an Off-Broadway tryout — the Sarah Palin baby-rumors swirled online the weekend after she was named as McCain's running mate, but were all but dismissed when her daughter Bristol's pregnancy was announced (except, perhaps, in the mind of Andrew Sullivan).
Expect more heavy lifting by blogs on undernews in 2009. In an era of dwindling newsgathering resources and staff, investigative reporting of all kinds will take further hits. Who will bear the cost of sitting outside John Edwards' home in a van? (When you're a reporter it's a stakeout; when you're a blogger, it's just stalking.) The news/undernews model is not limited to seamy stories; blogs fulminate regularly over this outrage or that, and some do stick (Trent Lott and Dan Rather can attest to that). But in a world where resources to cover the "real" news is shrinking, who's going to bother with the undernews? Horny politicians, get set to unbuckle.
Go Online or Go Home
Last April, New York magazine ran a cover story called "How Gossip Girl Is Changing The Way We Watch Television." Editor Adam Moss changed the way TV was covered by tapping two bloggers, Jessica Pressler and Chris Rovzar, to write the story in the same breathless, giddy fan-girl voice of their obsessive blog posts on the subject. In fact, Moss understands the free-flow between print and online so well that he even did it backwards last year, launching the offshoot print magazine Look, based on NYMag.com's wildly successful fashion week coverage.
Amazingly in 2009, so many publications still don't appreciate or understand how to use the web. While a few magazines are thriving online others are inexplicably choosing to slash web resources to save print resources. Still others are living on as scary zombie versions of their former selves.
But there is hope. Despite the general backwardness of Condé Nast online, Vanity Fair is catching on with smart online content, the New Yorker has got some of their best writers on the blog, and Glamour distinguished itself with election coverage on Glamocracy. The standout, though, is The Atlantic, which has brought the 152-year-old magazine to the vanguard of the 21st century thanks to prodigious blogging from people like Marc Ambinder, Ta-Nehisi Coates, Megan McArdle and James Fallows. Look for other magazines to blatantly rip off that formula in the coming year. If not, don't bother looking for them at all.
The Right Dumps Carrie
Jacob Bernstein is a senior reporter at The Daily Beast. Previously, he was a features writer at WWD and W Magazine. He has also written for New York magazine, Paper, and The Huffington Post.
What's Joe's Problem?
Lloyd Grove is editor at large for The Daily Beast. He is also a frequent contributor to New York magazine and was a contributing editor for Condé Nast Portfolio. He wrote a gossip column for the New York Daily News from 2003 to 2006. Prior to that, he wrote the Reliable Source column for the Washington Post, where he spent 23 years covering politics, the media, and other subjects.
Geithner's Stock Plummeting
Jeff Madrick is a contributor to the New York Review of Books and a former economics columnist for the New York Times. He is editor of Challenge Magazine, visiting professor of humanities at Cooper Union, and senior fellow at the New School's Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis. He is the author of Taking America, The End of Affluence (Random House) and The Case for Big Government.
Daily Show Co-Creator on Comedy's Gender Gap
Rachel Sklar is the Editor-at-Large for Mediaite.com and a contributor to the Daily Beast. She was formerly a senior writer and editor at the Huffington Post and is currently working on Jew-ish, a humorous book about cultural identity. She recently launched online micro-giving site Charitini, and Twitters up a storm here.
The Daily Beast Video curates the most essential and entertaining video, and brings you original and exclusive productions from our talented contributors.
Rather Sounds Off
Rachel Sklar is the Editor-at-Large for Mediaite.com and a contributor to the Daily Beast. She was formerly a senior writer and editor at the Huffington Post and is currently working on Jew-ish, a humorous book about cultural identity. She recently launched online micro-giving site Charitini, and Twitters up a storm here.
The Daily Beast Video curates the most essential and entertaining video, and brings you original and exclusive productions from our talented contributors.
David Carr on the NY Times and Star Trek
Rachel Sklar is the Editor-at-Large for Mediaite.com and a contributor to the Daily Beast. She was formerly a senior writer and editor at the Huffington Post and is currently working on Jew-ish, a humorous book about cultural identity. She recently launched online micro-giving site Charitini, and Twitters up a storm here.
The Daily Beast Video curates the most essential and entertaining video, and brings you original and exclusive productions from our talented contributors.
Rachel, you've nailed it. Print media is increasingly irrelevant. The morning paper is old news, merely a print version of what was online the night before. Investigative journalism? That died years ago, around the time the Bush administration lied our way into Iraq. For immediacy, look at Twitter on the night of the attacks in Mumbai.
Charitini is awesome - I clicked on loads of links!
We should rejoice in the decline of corporate media. It's served primarily as a propaganda arm of the government and business community since Woodrow Wilson first tamed it with his Red Scare campaign. It's complete demise can only serve the cause of restoring true democracy, missing for more years than anyone alive can remember.
Rachel, that is one big but, as in "It may not save them, but some newspapers really got it last year."
Newspapers are dying for lack of ad revenue, not for lack of blogs. The "it" newspapers need is a means of monetizing online content. The "it" they got ain't worth spit.
"Otherwise, dominating stories included two nearly-naked men, Michael Phelps and Eliot Spitzer (what covers more, a Speedo or socks?)"
Apparently, socks take precedence:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy1_1TUrWs8
I've never heard of a Speedo Gap :P
Print is increasingly irrelevant but what was printed, the content, is still as relevant as ever.
Monetizing such content is going to come as advertisers find themselves with a need ("How's anybody going to hear about me if I can't advertise anymore?").
Bloggers (and podcasters.vidcasters, webcasters Twitts and the rest of the social/new media,) just have to be there somewhere waiting while a new class of middlemen arises.
These middlemen will play roughly the same role that the networks and the traditional advertising agencies played.
The role will change in that the agencies will have to become skilled in the new metrics (CPM and sponsorship don't cut it anyore,) and their success will be commensurate with their ability to discover the bloggers, podcasters. vidcasters etc.
The next "Jay Chiat" will be somebody with eyes and ears open to what advertisers need in their constant search for product recognition and placement (playing a role such as anticipated by William Gibson in "Idoru" [Chia McKenzie has an allergy to "faux".])
Allen, you hit the nail on the head!!! Lower your ad costs and maybe more business will come in. It's that easy.
If you can't sell it at $10 reduce to $8 . No buyers at $8 sell for $6 ....that's the free enterprise system. However something went wrong around GWB presidency. Now we have it that if you can't sell it for $10, lay off some workers. Dumb asses!!!!
This is the only 2008 wrap I care about. Excellent work. I'm a fan. I wanna be like you when I grow up. I'm fed up with everything about the past 30 years of media, and you've fed me a feast of hope and excitement about my own 09 enterprise.
maybe its because i don't have a single subscription to a print paper....but aren't these predictions all a little...2008? Weren't papers dead in...2006?
Thank you.
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