Craig lists the issues for news media - Trust, Transparency, Objectivity

Craigslist's Craig Newmark has some interesting thoughts re the issues plaguing Olde Media on HuffPo:

Firstly, the media failed its public's interest:

An increasingly media savvy online public sees that recent major problems involved some really good journalism, particularly the current financial crisis, and also that "weapons of mass destruction" thing. Good reporters told us that something was amiss in both situations, and we did see some really good journalism in both cases.

However, the really good journalism was buried, not curated into the front pages, and then, infrequently if at all repeated. As news consumers, if big news is not prominently displayed, and then repeated, it's a tree falling in the forest.

So, these major news organizations reported on matters of great importance to the world, but the curation model failed to really warn the public about those issues, in any way that genuinely delivered the message.

Craig sees this as a failure to understand the role of trust and effective curation:

The new model for news curation and selection, I feel, will be a balance of professional editing and collaborative news filtering. In one incarnation, news organizations will look at feeds from highly respected news fans, and that will drive stories that are featured more prominently.

Now, remember that "trust is the new black."

Another issue is hiding unpleasant truth behind "objectivity", often used as a way of obfuscating commercial interests

In presenting two sides of a story, news organizations will allow both sides to present their positions. That sounds fair, but it's common practice to give those opportunities to "front groups," or "astroturfers," people who are paid to deceive the public in specific matters. This has been very well investigated, documented, and reported. It's a major problem in the public forum, for example, in the health care reform debate, badly hurting our country.

His proposed solution is very interesting:

The successful news organizations of the future will pursue models for news curation/selection which is a hybrid of professional editing and collaboration among talented consumers.

A major opportunity is to be found by rejecting the involvement of professional disinformation groups. New models for fairness in reporting will balance the current vision. That's probably captured in the statement that "transparency is the new objectivity."

We have hypothesized before that the future News Organisation will use an 80/20 approach to automated/curated production on economic grounds. This is interesting as it implies that there is value if even the automated systems can be selected for trust and objectivity.

Now on the one hand this is a very interesting blueprint - but on the other, according to some anyway, Craigslist has nearly singlehandedly destroyed today's News industry in the US by removing their classifieds advertising.

So, can such a dispassionate type of news survive economically- its not exactly going to attract much of the PR fraternity, there will be no sponsorships from special interest groups - so will it have to live on subscriptions from the sort of people who are bothered about the truth while the lumpen majority get Ad-served, self selected, self satisfying pap thrown at them?

Or, will it attract the sort of people some advertisers deeply desire, and will thus be prepared to relinquish influence for access?

Clay Shirky implies the former, and that someone will have to subsidise proper reporting if it is to be seen by the average citizen