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Ted Diadiun vs. John Kroll: Plain Dealer face-off
By Steve Outing on Jul 13, 2009 in Blogging, Business models
Here’s the video promised by Cleveland Plain Dealer Impact Editor John Kroll (representing the paper’s online/digital side) having a follow-up debate with Reader Representative Ted Diadiun about some disparaging comments Diadiun made toward bloggers and Internet news sites during a previous video chat, which generated quite a bit of heat. (Original link on Cleveland.com.)
This is not one of Diadiun’s normal video web chats, but rather a debate between an Internet-savvy Kroll and Diadiun (appearing on his day off!), who while contrite about some of the things he said previously, still strikes me as in need of some education about the media transformation we’re experiencing. Since Diadiun didn’t exactly back off his use of the word “pipsqueaks,” I’ll refrain from backing off my earlier blog-item description of him as a news “curmudgeon” in need of some further education.
See for yourself. (BTW, the headline below in the embedded video is part of the video; I didn’t write it, a Cleveland.com staff member did.)
| Two pipsqueaks sitting around talking |
Kroll makes the point that Diadiun’s rant last week represents only one opinion of many in the Plain Dealer’s newsroom of 240, and that many other staffers there have opinions that differ from either of the two men in this video. I’m glad he emphasized that.
However, from my point of view, the Plain Dealer can’t afford to have too many people on staff with views similar to Diadiun’s. For newspapers to get through the transition to profiting in the digital world, they need to pull together as a team and figure out how best to play in the digital landscape. If there are too many folks in that newsroom with views like Diadiun’s that the newspaper is best and other media are inconsequential in comparison, the Plain Dealer doesn’t have a rosy future.
I won’t go so far as to opine that Diadiun or any other “curmudgeons” in the newsroom need to be removed, but they do need some remedial education on what’s actually happening to modern media.
On Jul 13, 2009, John Kroll
said:
For the last couple months, I’ve been training the whole newsroom on an upgrade to our online platform, but also on ways to engage the rest of the online community. You call it remedial education, I call it career development.
Oh, and I wrote the “pipsqueaks” headline — but I can assure you, that word’s not part of the training program. Just a bit of anticipatory self-deprecation.
Also, it’s Kroll, with an R. As in, Cleveland, the Rock and Kroll Capital of the World.
On Jul 13, 2009, Stu Lowndes
said:
The script was flawed and the delivery redundant.
Diadiun reminds me of a Viagra-enhanced ‘ol man who continues to believe he can still participate in a pissing contest with some of the young studs at the local watering hole.
It’s a sad, sad observation on a big man with a big belly and a small mind who seems to be too insecure to accept the many truths of his being, intelligence and compassion, and prefers to intimidate others like a schoolyard bully.
Diadium will become a poster boy in a dying industry.
Meanwhile, the meek – these link-happy pipsqueaks that lurk behind millions of blogs and websites – shall inherit the digital kingdom of the New Media and the future of journalism to come in a communications monolith.
On Jul 13, 2009, Steve Outing
said:
John: Thanks for commenting. Fixed your name, which at least I got right in the headline and first reference, before my brain changed subsequent spellings. It’s a problem with blogging: no copy editors. 8^)
On Jul 23, 2009, Jeff Sonderman
said:
There’s a new article on this today in the Cleveland Plain Dealer that continues to disparage bloggers. Read about it here
On Nov 18, 2011, vi da nam
said:
The bloggers I encounter, with exceptions granted to those few who actually work like honest journalists, are largely playing catch up on a given story; cutting and pasting is a primary skill and cross-verify is largely foreign to their personas.