The New York Times Magazine published an excerpt from Charles DuHigg's forthcoming book (release date is February 28) last Thursday. The article, "How Companies Learn Your Secrets," is a well-researched and informative look into the world of how Target uses its consumer marketing research to pinpoint the needs of a individual customers and send them coupons or ads according to their consumer profile. It also speaks about the role of consumer habits and how habit-forming works in general.
Then, on the same Thursday, Forbes published "How Target Figured Out A Teen Was Pregnant Before Her Father Did." This article is a summarization of the main points in DuHigg's book excerpt published in the New York Times. The journalist, Kashmir Hill, also adds in some of her own commentary on DuHigg's findings.
After that, Creator of Social Times, Inc. and startup entrepreneur Nick O'Neill, posted on his blog: "How Forbes Stole A New York Times Article And Got Al The Traffic." His post talked about the importance of titles in gaining web traffic. Indeed, his own blog's web title was controversial enough to up his site traffic.
And, taking the original article even further, journalist Jim Romenesko posted a blog yesterday in response to O'Neill's blog post. In Romenesko's post, he asked for all three of the above to weigh in on the matter.
Here are some quotes I've pulled from Romenesko's post:
Hill: "I took a great piece by an excellent reporter and created a version of it that was better for an online audience. This is a big part of what I do as a 'new Journalist.'"
O'Neill: "...remixing content is an important part of creating content on the web. It also happens to perform incredibly well."
DuHigg: "Every journalist relies on other people's work. I became a reporter because I wanted to find important ideas and share them. Whether that happens through my authorship, or someone's summary, is less important to me than making sure the news is spread."
This internet journey so far has raised a few points:
1. Journalists rely on news that is already out there, as much as original reporting, to create stories that inform their readers of issues in the reader's world.
2. This often leads to journalists summarizing the articles that other journalists have spent countless hours researching.
In DuHiggs reply to Romenesko, he also says: "...every hour spent summarizing is an hour not spent reporting. And at the end of the day, this job is only really fun if you discover what no one else already knows."
So, that brings us to the real question:
3. Should journalists spend their time summarizing news that is already out there, or should we spend our time digging deep, exploring sources and researching the multitude of information on the internet ourselves?
Now that I have spent some time meta-summarizing not one, but four different articles, let me add some content of my own.
I believe in the power of re-packaging, drilling down and keeping the news accessible. In fact, most of this blog will be me summarizing and/or discussing news that is already out there. But I also believe in the challenge of doing my own reporting and own research.
That brings us to:
4. Is there a happy medium between the two?
Yes, I believe that there is. As journalists who are dedicated to speaking truth to power and reporting fairly, we should feel free to summarize information that our colleagues have published for public knowledge, as long as we give proper credit where it is due. And we should continue to hone our reporting skills and publish content that is original and that some other journalist will find worthy of summarizing.
Read DuHigg's New York Times' original article here.
Read Kashmir Hill's Forbes "stolen" article here.
Read Nick O'Neill's blog article here.
Read Jim Romenesko's blog article here.