Last week gadget blog Gizmodo admitted to pulling a prank at CES 2008 in which they used a device to turn off TVs on the exhibit floor and during company presentations. In their post about the prank Gizmodo apologized ("It was too much fun, but watching this video, we realize it probably made some people's jobs harder, and I don't agree with that [...] We're sorry," they wrote), but across the blogosphere the blog was still widely panned for the juvenile prank. And rightly so. Today, Gizmodo editor Brian Lam posted a lengthy response to his critics.
In it, Lam makes some good points about journalism. Unfortunately for him, none of them are a good defense for his blog's CES prank. Lam may know a thing or two about what makes a journalist, but he apparently does not know how they should behave.
As Robert Scoble points out, a journalist is supposed to "report the news, not make it." (Unless, perhaps, you're aiming for some sort of gonzo-style connection with your story -- but Fear and Loathing at CES this was not.) But making news isn't really what Gizmodo was doing, at least not according to Brian Lam. Their prank was not intended to give them something to report, rather says Lam, it was intended to demonstrate their independent spirit.
"When did journalists become the protectors of corporations? When did this industry, defined by pranksters like Woz, get so serious and in-the-pocket of big business?" Lam asked in his blogged response to critics of last week's prank. Though I think he is making a rather extraordinary leap (how is criticism of a sophomoric prank evidence of pandering to corporations?), Lam does make some very good points about integrity and journalism.
"You don't get more access by selling out for press credentials first chance you get, kowtowing to corporations and tradeshows and playing nice," he writes, "you earn your respect by fact finding, reporting, having untouchable integrity, provocative coverage and gaining readers through your reputation for those things."
All true! But that's where Lam loses it: when he uses his treatise on integrity in journalism as a defense for a prank that showed an utter lack of integrity (or if not that, at the very least it showed a complete absence of class). "Our prank pays homage to the notion of independence and independent reporting. And no matter how much access the companies give us, we won't ever stop being irreverent. That's what this prank was about and what the press should understand," claims Lam.
Sorry, Brian, that's not what the prank demonstrated. What it showed was that your employees don't know how to behave in a public, civilized setting. You can still ask the tough questions, demand the the truth, not publish corporate talking points, and check facts before publishing without acting like delinquents. Irreverence shouldn't mean classlessness, and independence shouldn't demand that you act like misbehaving children at professional trade shows.
In the long run, who will the prank hurt? Probably no one. CES isn't likely going to stop handing out blogger credentials (except to the single Gizmodo blogger they banned for pulling the stunt), companies aren't likely going to stop inviting bloggers to press events or take us off their press release lists or deny us any of the access we've gained (though some companies may take Gizmodo less seriously). And as Lam says, the TVs turn back on. But please, Mr. Lam, don't try to equate a silly prank with a show of journalistic integretity. Annoying people at CES doesn't make you a better journalist -- or a journalist at all, for that matter.
Toward the end of today's post, Lam mentions his blog's interview with Bill Gates. "We got the guy to open up and talk about Windows and its shortcomings like he never has before, not even on 60 minutes," Lam says. "If that's not journalism, I don't know what is. If we had been in the pocket of this industry, we never would have asked such a risky question."
That is the sort of thing that makes you a journalist. And what's wrong with letting the questions you ask prove your independent spirit? No amount of silly pranks will ever do so much to prove your integrity as will the actual reporting you do. That's something that any blogger who wants to be taken seriously as a journalist must learn. Actions might speak louder than words, but not if your actions are juvenile stunts that obscure your reporting.
Comments
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Hear! Hear!
Posted by: Scott K | January 14, 2008 6:40 PM
im glad i didnt post about this because you did way better than i could.
don't you find it a bit interesting that scoble says what he did yet he did the EXACT same thing a week earlier? in fact his was even worse than gizmodo's.
bottom line is that gizmodo will be at ces next year, that post has 400,000+ views - show me another post from a tech blog with that number of views over the last 3 months.
today's post plays perfectly with gawker's pay for pageviews plan - it was on the digg frontpage exactly 30 minutes after being submitted.
and the way i sum it up is like this:
when you get pulled over for speeding, you can't tell the cop that the guy in front of you was speeding too. just take the ticket and be on your way and remember not to speed again.
Posted by: Allen Stern | January 14, 2008 6:59 PM
Josh, all your points are well taken -- and I don't think even Brian would argue that what Gizmodo did was journalism in any way. But I have to ask: Why do we all seem to want blogs to turn into traditional media all of a sudden?
Part of what I've always enjoyed about blogs and other alternative media -- and I'm thinking specifically of Suck.com here (now I'm dating myself) -- is the irreverence and mischieviousness, the refreshing tell-it-like-it-is quality that blogs have, or used to have. That's what I enjoyed about Gizmodo's "10 Reasons" post on CES, and it's why I enjoyed the prank too.
There are plenty of blogs trying to play the old PC World-style, suck-up, toe the line, tech-journalism game. Why are we so quick to want Gizmodo and others to do the same?
Posted by: mathewi
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January 14, 2008 7:35 PM
I hear your concerns mathewi, but as Brian Lam seemed to imply in his post, he wants Gizmodo to be taken seriously as journalists one day, and pardoned as lovable rascals the next. I don't think you can have it both ways.
If you want to be fun pranksters -- cool. If you want to be looked at as serious journalists -- cool. But the two can't mix. And for the latter, you can't behave the way Gizmodo did at CES, in my opinion.
What really ground my gears (now I sound like Peter Griffin), though, was that Lam tried to pass the prank off as civil disobedience. I don't think Thoreau would quite agree... so, I call BS on that explanation. ;)
Posted by: Josh Catone
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January 14, 2008 8:32 PM
Get real Read/Write Web. Gizmodo's prank was hilarious (as most of its readers agree) and illustrates just how stuffy the mainstream press (and most bloggers with large audiences) are.
At CES and 4,000 other conferences, the press are saturated with a shiteload of marketing messages, our time is wasted by a whole heap of public relations flacks, and the truth about anything is hard to discern. All Gizmodo did was take a little back and entertain its audience. And readers loved it.
A member of the press corp
Posted by: George | January 14, 2008 10:09 PM
@George: And exactly how does turning off TVs help you "discern the truth?" I don't get it...
Posted by: Josh Catone
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January 14, 2008 11:06 PM
"But that's where Lam loses it: when he uses his treatise on integrity in journalism as a defense for a prank that showed an utter lack of integrity".
Probably the summation most of the Web has been trying to express in the past few days. I honestly think that if the blogger has just held to Lam's "no abusing press conferences" dictum, the prank would have been more appreciated. (And shown a lot more integrity, too.)
As it is, though, it seems that Lam just decided to take what turned out to be a bad situation and milk it for every pageview he could. Which might actually be the difference between a journalist and a (certain type of) blogger.
Posted by: Mark Hachman | January 15, 2008 8:10 AM
When the news first came out I was mixed. I did think the prank was funny, but I also thought it was over the top in a bad way.
It's the same way that I am mixed on things like Borat. It's funny but uncomfortable.
But when Gizmodo made some half-assed rationalization purporting that this prank somehow defended journalistic integrity they lost me. How incredibly dumb.
At first the problem was the prank. It was borderline.
But the utter lack of integrity in Gizmodo's defense has overshadowed the prank itself.
This is not about the prank anymore. It's about owning up.
Posted by: kayvaan | January 15, 2008 10:17 AM
The point that seems to be unmentioned here is that Gizmodo were not at CES as "bloggers", they were sporting real, honest-to-goodness press passes. A lot of people with more integrity (including some past editors of Gizmodo, when it was something other than "Jackass with gadgets") worked very hard to get to the point where a blogger would be treated as an actual journalist.
They've set back that cause substantially, I'd say...
Posted by: Lefty | January 16, 2008 10:51 AM
"In the long run, who will the prank hurt? Probably no one."
I beg to differ. I think the ill-advised editorial has hurt the reputation of one Mr Lam very, very much.
To say what he did about journalistic integrity, and then defend the very thing that did not respect that integrity is bad enough. But by trying to link the sacrifices made by civil rights movements to a juvenile prank is beyond words.
It would have been a lot better for Mr Lam's reputation if he'd just said, yes, our stringer was drunk and he went overboard. But the lack of remorse on the part of Lam and Richard Blakely is disturbing. I suppose it's not just the quality of standards among American war reporters that has been slipping.
Posted by: Mr Roberto | January 16, 2008 2:17 PM