A few weeks back I attended an affair I can't stop thinking about. I was proud to be there, but left on the early side feeling somewhat out of place. It was a reunion of old Newsweek hands (not Tina Brown's recent crew) to celebrate what was and is no more. I worked there in the mid-80s, when it was no longer a magazine in its heyday but still an important part of the American media scene. That night, I saw friends and journalists I hadn't seen for years -- dogged reporters who filed stories, writers who excelled at newsweekly prose and the editors (dubbed Wallendas for how hard they fell from grace) who enjoyed making all their lives miserable. In some weird way I thought about the movie, Cocoon -- its pool with a "lifeforce" and the chance to hop onto a spaceship and travel to a place where you would never grow old.
Very few "star" journalists of that time and space have made the trip to the digital world. Most of those I spoke with and saw are pretty much doing what they did 20 and 30 years ago. They're doing it for traditional media companies that haven't changed much either, although executives at each have convinced themselves otherwise. Those no longer working romanticized about the past. The experience also reminded me of something I repeatedly told Tim Forbes three or four years ago when I was deep into my startup, True/Slant. "There's a new wave of of talent out there that's going to blow past traditional journalists -- and they don't even see it coming."
We're fortunate to have members of that new wave at FORBES. They do their jobs differently, particularly when freed from hierarchical editing systems to build their own brands and be accountable for their own success. They relate to and engage with the audience unlike a past generation of reporters who could care less what readers thought (after all, what do they know?). Using the tools of social media, they follow their colleagues as competitive beat reporters to gain insight from them. Most important, they banter with them in full public view, a far more raw, if not real, version of any "news analysis" than shows up in newsprint. Sometimes, they even ride the crest of a competitor's scoop by filtering it through their own eyes for different audiences. They produce their own videos, photos and galleries and podcasts to extend their reach. And they trust in Google, angling stories (and a story's headline) to give them the best chance of reaching the world. In the video below, six people who sit in our newsroom talk about their jobs and the FORBES model of digital journalism.
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We're luckier still that some real pros who have been here for years decided to commit themselves to what it takes to succeed in the era of social media. Many are curmudgeons in the best sense (I might even fit that bill) with the reporting and editing scars that the new breed desperately needs to truly be great. The new FORBES newsroom is working as it should. The native digital journalists who've come aboard and the ink-stained wretches who stayed on during our transformation are training each other.
Collaboration like this is vital to the future of a great profession. One new book, Rebuilding the News by C.W. Anderson, and a recent report published by Columbia University, Post Industrial Journalism, talk specifically about the newspaper industry's inability to think more expansively about how news should be reported in today's world of social media. "The kind of work that constituted 'original reporting' seemed increasingly difficult for journalists to define," writes Anderson in an except in the Nieman Journalism Lab. "Reporting existed side by side with other forms of newswork such as blogging and aggregation, often within news organizations that heaped rhetorical scorn on these so-called lesser practices.”
You teach me, I teach you -- that's the bridge FORBES is building to connect the values and standards of traditional media with the dynamism of the digital age. It actually began five years ago. Jonathan Miller, Ross Levinsohn and Tim Forbes each saw the future and teamed up to invest in a fresh idea, making sure to contribute their extensive old/new media experience. A few city blocks away, Mike Perlis, a traditional media journalist-turned-publisher-turned-VC, was bringing his knowledge to The Huffington Post as it disrupted an industry. Today, Mike's the CEO of FORBES, running a business dedicated to building a sustainable model for journalism.
Newsweek is gone. It was stuck in a nostalgic fog that will soon do in others. I often haul out smart sayings from others that stick with me because they hold true time and again. A dear colleague who helped me launch True/Slant used to say at all the right times, "Let the Google wash over you." FORBES is letting the new wave of talent wash over it.
Note: Included in the video above are Steve Bertoni, Jeff Bercovici, JJ Colao and Halah Touryalai
