Thanks for those who listened to Betsy live on today’s Redoing Media show as she interviewed the News Editor from the Portland Mercury, Matt Davis. For those who expected fireworks and/or irreverent opinion, well — Matt didn’t disappoint, throwing down his observations about the (mostly) sorry state of Portland journalism, just who’s not making media as a result of the We Make the Media conference, and just what’s needed in his opinion to package content for the hipster market (or any market not reading print newspapers, that is…) And yes, there’s a reference or two to tabloid journalism, Bike Portland, the Oregonian and Rupert Murdoch. (You’ll have to listen to figure out just how that all comes together now, won’t you?)
Thanks so much to Matt for joining us, and don’t forget — send your show or guest suggestions to betsy@redoingmedia.com, please!
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I love that a guy who writes for a total rag that no one takes seriously beyond arts and culture coverage has the gall to stand up on his high horse and declare who is and isn’t a journalist.
Just because someone isn’t covering local politics doesn’t make them unqualified as a journalist. More importantly, a simple Google search will tell you that (outside of past journalism of a much higher caliber than Matt’s) Abraham has been an editor for the past few years, currently for one of the most read and respected technology publications on the Web.
Then he implies pretty frankly that Abraham is out to fuel a cyclical conversation about media in order to make money. Last time I checked no one was making any money from free journalism meet-ups and conferences. Great way to do your legwork and provide us with the constructive criticism you claim is your value in this whole conversation.
While I’ll be posting shortly here clarifying some inaccuracies that crept into Thursday’s show, I don’t think it’s appropriate to add insult to injury, either.
I do think Matt’s doing some much-needed work aggressively covering both local crime and social justice issues here in PDX. And I don’t think it’s true that people aren’t paying attention, either.
Just from the short time I lived in Portland, I completely understood what Matt was talking about — just do it, just get it done, and worry about community and solidarity and What It All Means and What Makes a Journalist? later. Just write something, for Chrissake (or, in Betsy’s case, just do a podcast). But get something done that isn’t just talking about getting something done.
Writers write. That’s what they do. They might go to conferences sometimes, or sit around shooting the shit (aka complaining) about writing, but they have to produce. It’s part of the job description; it is the job description, whether they’re a novelist, a newspaper reporter, a blogger, whatever they may be. If you truly “make the media,” then make it, for God’s sake.
It’s no different than punk rock or “outsider” art or anything else. You pick up a guitar or a paintbrush or, in this case, a pen or a keyboard. You’ll make a lot of mistakes. But you’ll do it because you love it, and someone else might like it, too.
I would’ve gone batshit crazy at a conference called “We Make the Media” where the solons on the stage didn’t actually do it (and if someone is described as “having a lot of irons in the fire” or “having a lot of balls in the air,” that’s a flashing red siren they’re not getting anything done well).
Look. A writing community can be a fine thing. But as I observed so often in Portland, people got so caught up in the notion of ‘community’ as a goal unto itself — rather than a byproduct of achievement — that they sat around gassing about community and got very little done. If you write, or paint, or fix pipes, eventually you will become a part of a writing community, or a painting community, or a plumbing community.
But the work comes first, and the work is often solitary and mundane and mind-numbing, and the work comes first, and talking about what you intend to do is the surest way never to do it, and THE WORK COMES FIRST.
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