the war in Iraq, via social media

SF Chronicle Executive VP Phil Bronstein talks up the value of social media when it comes to war coverage, vis-a-vis WikiLeaks' recent leaks of encrypted government footage that tracks what transpired when an Apache helicopter crew opened fire on a dozen people -- including two Reuters photographers -- on the streets of Baghdad back in 2007.

He contrasts war coverage via social media versus his own reporting in the Phillipines over 20 years ago, when his notebook and his photog's camera were the only instruments of recorded fact.

From his piece in today's Huffpo:

I've seen a fair number of people killed in countries at war, including combatants, journalists and civilians. Even at ground level, though, in the midst of bone and blood spray, sorting things out is near impossible.

I am sure of one thing: tragedy aside, this is all good for us in the bigger sense, starting with the video release. Transparency is the victor here. More information and even more yelling back and forth gives everyone more data and opportunity to make up their own minds. And it keeps life-and-death topics like war fully in the bull's-eye heat of aggressive social interaction.

That's what's really changed since my war correspondent days. No one today has to be a passive non-combatant in the important moments of our culture.

all about the numbers.

Good, bad, indifferent. Some quick hits:

Read here about a newspaper bailout bill now working its way through Congress. Is Obama a fan?

San Francisco Chronicle Editor-at-large Phil Bronstein goes on HuffPo to combine two words you rarely see in the same sentence: "future" and "print" and to offer his take on the above.

Finally, the bad news: journalism jobs are disappearing at three times the rate of other jobs throughout the economy, says Editor and Publisher.

But, but, but. The audience for news isn't going away. Still need people to do the jobs. We can sit and moan or we can put the thinking caps into overdrive. I vote for door number two. Ideas? bk

"All right, Mr. DeMille. I'm ready for my close-up."

Maureen Dowd compares newspapers to Norma Desmond -- the aging actress in "Sunset Boulevard" -- in today's NY Times. She also chats up the SF Chronicle's Phil Bronstein, who takes her on a nostalgia tour of the paper, the scenes of some of the paper's best reporting, and the soon to be obsolete icon of hard-driving newsfolk: the newspaper bar.

Read it here.

Here's a taste:

We drove around the city for hours, looking at places where journalism had had an impact. At police headquarters, [Bronstein] told of The Chronicle’s coverage of police brutality that forced the department to create a database tracking misbehaving officers. He talked about the paper’s AIDS coverage as we drove through the Castro and past San Francisco General Hospital, where the AIDS wards once overflowed. Parked outside the Giants’ ballpark, he praised the paper’s reporting on Barry Bonds and the steroids scandal, noting that “there are far fewer fly balls going out in the bay.”

His tour ended with cold comfort, as he observed that longer life expectancies may keep us on life support. “For people who still love print, who like to hold it, feel it, rustle it, tear stuff out, do their I. F. Stone thing, it’s important to remember that people are living longer,” he said. “That’s the most hopeful thing you can say about print journalism, that old people are living longer.”

the guy who killed newspapers

Go here for a comprehensive and insightful look at the demise of American journalism via a long piece in Canada's Globe and Mail, which gets it right.

The story is pegged to the near-death of the SF Chron and includes an interview with Phil Bronstein, who sees himself -- almost facetiously -- as the guy who killed newspapers.

BTW, the Chron reports that its guild agreed last night to concessions in a new contract that "clear the way for cutting at least 150 union jobs and eliminating certain benefits and rights, measures the company says are essential to save the newspaper." Most of those cuts would come from editorial.

Sad, actually. The new contract, which may save the paper, was approved by a 10 - 1 majority. Though the concessions may save the paper, a year ago, agreeing to those same provisions would have been unheard of. From the Chron's story:

Carl Hall, lead negotiator for the Guild, said the outcome demonstrates a "clear-eyed attitude" among members hoping to protect workers and their families from a worse fate.

"This is the start of the real battle," he said in a statement. "We have to find a solution, a real solution, to save what we really care about here - quality journalism and quality jobs."

more

Phil Bronstein, former executive editor of the SF Chronicle and now vice-president and Editor-at-large, weighs in on the Stewart-Cramer inquisition (see my previous post, below). He writes that Stewart is no Edward R. Murrow (to whom The Atlantic's James Fallows had compared him).

From the post:

I didn't know Edward R. Murrow. I didn't serve with Edward R. Murrow. Edward R. Murrow was not a friend of mine. But I do know that Jon Stewart is not Edward R. Murrow. But neither is he Carrot Top. He is more like Jonathan Swift, the brilliant 17th/18th century satirist and author of "Gulliver's Travels." Only Mr. Stewart uses all sorts of contemporary visual and electronic tricks to enhance the effect.

I think Fallows might have been conflating Murrow, whose courageous and probing reporting and broadcasting stemmed the ferocious bullying by Senator Joe McCarthy, and Boston lawyer Joseph Welch, who famously asked the anti-commie crusader during a hearing, "Have you no sense of decency, sir?"

Jon Stewart did both: he pressed Cramer, using the CNBC host's own video interviews to trap him (just like Tim Russert used to do), and then relentlessly called him out on the contradictions. The full quote from 1954 was: "Until this moment, Senator, I think I never really gauged your cruelty or your recklessness... You've done enough. Have you no sense of decency, sir, at long last? Have you left no sense of decency?"

That's pretty much what Jon Stewart said to Jim Cramer, only it took him longer.

Joe Garofoli, the Chron's media critic, also chimed in. He writes:

Stewart regularly uses the steady stream of overheated, underreported stories coming from the 24-hour cable news networks as comedic fodder. But Thursday's interview was another example of the passion for good governance and aggressive journalism that informs his satire. In 2004, he went on CNN's "Crossfire" and told the hosts that they were "hurting America" with hackneyed, partisan banter, which he found long on opinion and short on reporting. Three months later, when CNN canceled the program, network president Jonathan Klein said, "I agree wholeheartedly with Jon Stewart's overall premise."

Last summer at the Democratic National Convention in Denver, Stewart gathered a dozen national political reporters for breakfast. He scolded them for letting the 24-hour cable networks set the nation's political agenda and for being so cuddly with the people they cover. Rosenstiel said Stewart helped reshape the opinion of the Iraq war (through his ongoing segment dubbed "Mess O'Potamia") and helped highlight the foibles of the Bush presidency.