Danny Whatmough.com

Paul Carr is at it again. The notorious columnist, who I have written about before, has authored one of his NSFW opinion pieces on TechCrunch covering the recent Fort Hood shootings. It’s a long post but worth a read.

Suw Charman-Anderson has written an interesting reply in which she pulls Carr up on some rather glaring factual inaccuracies:

This is not, however, a reflection on social tools so much as it is a reflection of human nature: Some of what gets done with social media is good and some is bad. This is not news, nor new.

Suw’s post is well researched, but it also misses the underlying debate which Carr starts (these are, as usual, obscured somewhat by the sheer length and often rambling nature of his post). A debate that I think is both relevant and important.

There is a debate here to be had about ethics, about our social moral compass. There is a debate to be had about citizen journalism and its value. There is a debate here to be had about the role of journalism and the increasing speed in which so-called pro journalists are overly eager to jump on any tweet and big it up into front page news (read: Stephen Fry).

I agree with Suw: this is not a debate about the social tools, it is a debate about the realities of humanity and society (and journalism) that these tools reveal. Back to Carr:

As I’ve already said – and I’m even starting to bore myself now – the answer isn’t censorship (which won’t work), but rather in our social evolution catching up with the state of technology. We need to get back to a point as a society where – without thinking – we put our humanity before our ego.

For me, there are three big takeaways here:

1. We all need to stop and think before we tweet

2. We all need to stop and think before we read a tweet (and respond and write about)

3. The news industry (and I include Carr here) needs to get back to rigorous fact checking and investigative journalism, otherwise it won’t survive

Social tools and their immediacy are incredibly powerful – used rightly and wrongly – and this is something that we all often forget. The wisdom of the crowd can easily turn sour…

If we are all to become citizen jounalists, then don’t we need to try and adopt (or put in place some of our own) some of the ethics to which journalists should subscribe?

(hat tip to Eb, Suw and Euan)

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A few months back, I blogged about how writer Paul Carr had been sacked by the Guardian due to freelancer budget cuts. At the time, I said:

“…it is yet another indictment of the decline of ‘traditional media’ and the power and rise of bloggers and media ‘personalities’ who don’t need a publishing house behind them to be successful. And that’s great for people like Carr. It’s harder though for less forthright journalists.”

And I was right. Carr is still writing his next book, publishing on his blog and has since secured two new columns. One with pro-blog Techcrunch and the other with the Telegraph.

The latter always seemed a weird fit, but it was good to see the Telegraph taking a few more risks (which it certainly was with Carr!). But then yesterday Carr announced – surprise, surprise – that the Telegraph has terminated his contract. The reason given by his boss:

“I’ve been looking at the latest traffic figures for your blog and also our budget and how we’re spending it. And I’m afraid I’ve reached the conclusion that your time blogging with us should come to an end… Our limited budget just cannot sustain these sums without a bigger bang for our buck.”

You can read the rest of Carr’s post to get his full (and colourful) reaction to his sacking. But it’s the reason given that is interesting to me. As Carr says:

“I short, I wasn’t driving enough pageviews to justify what they were paying me.”

Should we be surprised that this is potentially all that seems to matter for journalism now? Should we be concerned? These are after all commercial companies, with commercial concerns.

Perhaps this is why, for me, ‘personal’ blogging is becoming so important. By this I don’t mean Techcrunch or even Paul Carr. I mean the thousands that blog every now and then, even the millions that post on microblogs like Twitter. Those that share their thoughts and ideas.

They aren’t driven by page views or sensationalist headlines.  They aren’t ruled by the ‘media agenda’ or corporate, PR-speak.

This is why the democratisation of media is so important, especially considering the way more and more professional media outlets seem to be going. I hope the professional media stays strong and survives, I think it is vital. But I’m excited by the new brand of journalism just as much.

Mike Butcher’s written a great piece on Techcrunch in response to Paul Carr’s latest column in the Guardian, which lambasts the state of London’s start-up scene. Mike’s counter argument is both well thought-out and winning (which you would expect given his job and stature).

But it’s his comments about the media industry in general that I really want to cover. He flags up Paul Carr’s announcement (via Twitter of course) that he’ll no longer be doing his Guardian column: “The Guardian has slashed its freelance budget. Result – no more column from me. Thought about writing it for free, but meh.”

I think Paul Carr’s great (and I know many don’t!). Yes, he’s arrogant, big headed and likes to name-drop. He’s also prone to putting the cat amongst the pigeons. But that is all deliberate and, whilst I sometimes don’t agree with the point he’s making, it makes you think and is often the start of a wider, more useful debate (of which this is a good example). His column also fills a gap in the Guardian’s output and, as far as I can tell from the sheer volume of comments and tweets, surely drives a significant amount of traffic.

So why is he going?

Well, declining print ad revenues etc. etc. mean less money for expensive freelance columnists – and I imagine that Paul Carr certainly fits into that bracket. Which does seem odd considering his popularity. But, as Mike states:

“…here’s a newspaper culling a column that almost certainly punched above its weight in terms of traffic, and probably got a lot more comments and reader interaction than the average post on that site. How many traditional journos would get this kind of reaction?

“That’s significant because at the same time “traditional” journalists (some of whom are my best friends btw) are doing their best to try and grapple with writing stories, blogging, posting videos and metaphorically washing up the boss’s coffee cup in the staff kitchen at the same time.”

Paul’s words aren’t lost forever! He was well-known before writing for the Guardian, and being on their books won’t have done his book sales any harm at all. But it is yet another indictment of the decline of ‘traditional media’ and the power and rise of bloggers and media ‘personalities’ who don’t need a publishing house behind them to be successful. And that’s great for people like Carr. It’s harder though for less forthright journalists.

UPDATE: Interestingly, Carr has posted an update on his blog:

“Initially I mooted the idea of carrying on writing for free until the economics started to look better but, yunno, the more I thought about it, the more I realised that would be a bad idea.

“The truth of the matter is, I’m rubbish at writing for free. You only have to look at how infrequently this blog is updated, and how badly it is when it is, to see the problem.”

He also suggests that he is likely to be ‘back soon’:

“Flatteringly, since Twittering the news of my most recent parting of ways I’ve had a few interesting offers – both online and off – which would allow me to continue the column. I’ve dismissed a few, shortlisted a handful and am seriously interested in maybe three.”

Tuesday was a great day. We sat in the office, in awe of an undoubtedly great man. We were transfixed.

As Paul Carr said in his weekly column, the usual British cynicism that so often comes to the fore when anything American is concerned disappeared like $1 Obama water offered to a million-strong crowd.

The reason: he’s a great, natural marketer.

From day one, Obama has marketed himself brilliantly. There was a great comment piece in last month’s Revolution magazine which compared some of Obama’s early speeches from before he won the nomination to the email he sent on the night he was elected. The messages were almost identical.

That’s great branding. Great messaging and great strategy. We are always telling our clients that if you get the messaging right at the start, then everything else follows and works much better. It’s true and Obama knows it. I guess from a political standpoint, it suggests that this is also a person who is true to his beliefs and his vision. A good business lesson too.

Sure, he was very different to what went before, and that certainly helps. But so is the best marketing. And Obama accentuates and plays on these differences, if subtlety. Marketing the same message in the same way as everyone else is only going to get you so far. Doing something different, something unique, gets you noticed.

David Meerman Scott has brilliantly demonstrated the linguistic differences between Obama’s inaugural address and the one Bush gave 4 years ago. It’s subtle but it seems to hit home.

As Seth Godin says: be remarkable. Obama is certainly remarkable – the person and the brand.

Politically speaking, the hard work starts now. And, at the end of the day, he is a politician, not a marketer.

But in the days when countries are hiring PR agencies, what better leader to have than one that seems to understand how to inspire, persuade and communicate effectively to his own country and globally.