July 22, 2010
Collaboration culture in news: No room for pettiness
In the news business, there’s less and less reason to view other news venues primarily as competitors, even if they’re in your backyard. These days, all news providers are potential collaborators in the practice and business of journalism—and I think it’s time we started acting more like it…
By Amy Gahran
I’ve been making this point for years, but I was reminded of it most recently when I reread Newsroom Collaborations: The New Culture of Sharing vs. Competing—an excellent June 22 Idea Lab post by Spot.us founder David Cohn.
Cohn quoted Mediabugs founder Scott Rosenberg’s observation that the news business is transitioning from “an environment where competition was the dominant mode of interacting with other organizations to an era where dividing labor and sharing might serve the public better.”
The trick is, adopting a culture of collaboration and sharing isn’t all about work. It’s also about how current and potential collaborators relate to each other—in private and in public, and increasingly via social media. It’s hard to lay the groundwork for beneficial partnerships in a culture of reflexive guardedness and sniping.
Recently, a colleague who works for a daily paper told me about an incident that illustrates a key problem with the competitive culture of news.
There’s a reporter at his paper who uses Twitter mainly as a broadcast channel. One day, he noticed her tweet a public “nice to have met you at that event” greeting to another journalist. The other journalist works for a hyperlocal venture that launched recently in the existing paper’s coverage area. Later, and privately, my colleague cautioned her that their paper’s management might frown upon such public “shoutouts” to “the competition,” however innocuous.
From a competitive news mindset, “public acknowledgement equals accreditation,” my colleague explained. “It suggests equivalency, collegiality. The other news outlet, they’re not in a position just yet to be breaking anybody’s rice bowl. But the attitude above me is: well, who wants to help them get there?”
As more news organizations wrestle with the effects and implications of social media, the costs of petty rivalry will grow. Because casual public conversations are one way to help wary, jealous competitors evolve into friendly potential collaborators.
Casually greeting someone at a competing news outlet via a Twitter @reply is a type of social grooming—subtle cues that build and sustain relationships that are (or might become) mutually beneficial.
Microsoft researcher Danah Boyd wrote of this phenomenon: “Conversation is more than the explicit back and forth between individuals asking questions and directly referencing one another. It’s about the more subtle back and forth that allow us to keep our connections going.”
Social grooming also can be a public act, especially when it happens in public tweets. It transmits a collegial tone, despite competitive circumstances. It’s a subtle way to let people outside either newsroom see that the news orgs are not enemies. By not giving each other the cold shoulder, news orgs aren’t yielding turf—they’re leaving options open.
Remember the old Looney Tunes cartoons featuring Ralph the wolf and Sam the sheepdog? What made those cartoons not just hilarious, but encouraging and memorable, was this: After a hard day of trying to thwart each other, both characters clocked out from their jobs, grabbed their lunchpails, and walked off into the sunset chatting amiably. They still have their jobs to do—but it’s not personal. This ending leaves open the possibility that someday, if their job descriptions changed, they might work well together.
A look over Josh Stearns’ lengthy, diverse inventory of journalism collaborations reveals the rich opportunities that abound in looking past competitiveness. But such projects aren’t likely to blossom in an atmosphere of suspicion or contempt. Being collaborative means acting friendly.
Best of all, acting friendly towards today’s competitors doesn’t cost a cent, but it can help buy you tomorrow’s opportunities.
Comments
Thanks. Serving the public better seems like a worthy goal for journalism. Some day I hope getting it right will be more important than getting it first which will inspire more people to collaborate and share.
By SLVNews.net, 07/22/10 at 2:33 pm
Its a wonderful topic for me.
http://www.articlesbase.com/health-articles/advanced-colon-max-review-amp-free-trial-2146370.html
By lopensi, 07/27/10 at 12:58 am
Caring for long hair extensions is a continuing dress up gamesdress up games. If you have dress up games for girls wefts dress up games for girlschances are that they will be reused many times and bridesmaid dresses.bridesmaid dresses Consider this prior to Flower Girl Dresses asFlower Girl Dresses you might wish to go a little longer so they won’prom dresst be too short after trimming and prom dress.
2
By wolanlw, 11/02/10 at 7:57 pm
Really nice topic here.
leanspa
By billq, 11/21/10 at 7:03 pm
Page 1 of 1 pages
Commenting is not available in this section entry.
Exploring innovation, transformation and leadership in a new ecosystem of news, by journalist and change advocate 
RSS Feed