Note: The following is the lead item in my weekly e-mail newsletter, A-Clue.Com, sent today and dated August 21. I would love to have you as a subscriber — click here to learn more.
A very interesting thing happened recently that you didn’t read in your newspaper, or see on your TV.
That’s because it involved TV and newspaper journalists, and showed them to be fools.
The major media got beat to death on a major story by a bunch of bloggers. This was not the first time such a thing had happened, of course. Far from it. But this wasn’t some right-wing nitwit picking apart a news report and having his words echoed endlessly. This was active, aggressive reporting, using open source methodologies, working together, finding facts and getting them out there.
The subject was an alleged “hack” of the Joe Lieberman Web site by “bloggers attached to the Lamont campaign.” The story, put out by the Lieberman campaign on the day of the primary, drew extensive coverage and probably contributed to the narrowness of the result.
Only one problem. The story was a crock.
In past years, such a trick would have gone unremarked-upon. With just a few hours of voting left, it certainly would not have been challenged. But this time there were people ready to go after the truth, with the means to get it and work together. Over the course of just a few hours, using Internet tools, several blogs cooperated (without communicating directly) and systematically refuted the claim.
During this time, and even after, TV and print reporters continued running the lie. The final New York Times story on the result, filed after Lieberman conceded, was the first to get the facts right. It was only correct because the Times had four named reporters contributing to the story, along with several editors and who knows how many uncredited fact-checkers. Yet, even in this story, you only really got a “he-said, he-said” version of the truth. That is, the charge was in the story, and a claim of refutation was also there. The Times did not independently verify a thing.
They didn’t have or the resources. The bloggers did.
The day after the primary I got a call from Justin Rood, who works
for TPMuckraker. Rood had picked apart
the Lieberman story
and was preparing to do
the same to the blogger-critics. (Note the handsome forehead. A sure sign of intelligence, perspicacity, and good taste.)
Wait a minute, I said. What you saw from these people was active,
in-process work product. Of course some things are going to be wrong.
Of course you’re going to see some blind alleys. That’s the difference
between open source reporting and closed source, transparency. But
eventually it gets the j-o-b done.
And, partly as a
result, Rood’s follow-up attacking the bloggers has not appeared as of
this date.
But because proprietary shops are lazy, and rely for their copy on
other proprietary shops, the Lieberman lie kept going-and-going. Here
it is in a trade paper report from Thursday, August 10, two days after
it was proven false.
This is a tipping-point. A closed-source process lied, it continued
to lie, and it never fully retracted the lie. An open source process
saw through the lie, reported the truth, and (finally) the lie’s spread
slowed down. Closed-source reporting failed on this story while open
source processes succeeded.
Why? Internet values like openness, transparency and connectivity
all played a part. Another important difference is that open source can
put a lot of boots on the ground, just as open source programming can
put more people to work on a program than closed-source can. This is
the most important point. A New York Times reporter may be highly
skilled and professional, but they can’t communicate with other
organizations, and their numbers are limited by the budget. This is not
true in an open source process.
The Clue is that what is true for the software business is also true
for the journalism business, and for business generally. It’s also true
for politics, and for society. The result may look messier, but it
actually gets you closer to the real facts, faster, than a
closed-source process.
Those who understand, accept, and internalize this Clue are going to
succeed in the coming years. Those who ignore it have been warned.
