This week’s Chron column is a slight departure from the usual, but not too far out from my purview: in Sweater Puppies and Sorta Journalism I take a look at (reluctant journalist *and* reluctant rack-owner) Amanda Congdon’s comments about how being a new media person entitles her to act any way she wants, in light of doing vlog-style DuPont infomercial ads while having a newsdesk vlog show for ABC. The title was inspired by this post and this post; and in my piece I also talk about being on the SXSW panel with Congdon. I am, in fact, deeply angered by both her actions and attempt to shore them up under the guise of new media. Talk about muddying the waters for the rest of us. Please do read it — the discussion has now been raised about bloggers in mainstream media roles, what makes us new media in those traditional spaces and what kind of ‘code of conduct’ we should be creating for ourselves. I think it is one of the singlemost important discussions bloggers and vloggers should be having right now. Snip:
Amanda Congdon isn’t a journalist. But she plays one on TV. Or rather, she portrays one on ABC’s vlog. Congdon is a video blog correspondent — a vlogger — and is equally recognized by bloggers for her role as the former face of Andrew Baron’s overrated comedy news vlog Rocketboom as for her messy (and vocal) departure from Baron’s vlog. Congdon entered the vlogosphere answering Baron’s Craigslist ad and later split from the enterprise to move into mainstream media with a highly publicized ABC video blog deal and a late-2006 HBO signing. In Congdon’s high-profile (at least, online) ABC vlogging gig, her show repurposes online trends, memes and newsbits, which Congdon presents in a behind-the-desk, newscaster format.
Recently, Congdon made a series of online infomercials for the DuPont chemical company. Congdon has never overtly played up or emphasized (playfully or otherwise) the curves that some of the snarkier bloggers and vloggers among her peers call “the rack” and to which they attribute her popularity. But after blogs criticized her star turns in the “viral” DuPont spots, she has put considerable emphasis on her entitlements as a blogger. Because the DuPont video blog style — “science reporting”-themed online infomercials — called into question her credibility as an ABC video-blogger-journalist and raised questions about ABC, Condgon defends her participation on her blog with: “I am not subject to the ‘rules’ traditional journalists have to follow. Isn’t that what new media is all about? Breaking the rules? Setting our own?”
(…) What makes me — or any blogger — still a blogger while writing in mainstream media’s traditional spaces is that I follow the traditional rules of those spaces but still say exactly what I want. This includes the freedom to criticize typically off-limit topics, like other media, “traditional values” and even the mainstream media outlet I’m writing for. It is usually classified as news/opinion. Following those rules is what could allow bloggers and vloggers vital speech and privacy protections under the law — such as statutory shield laws (as in the Josh Wolf case) — while self-publishing and reporting news gathered from confidential sources.
Those “traditional media” rules that Congdon can’t be bothered to play by are supposed to be what delineates the differences between fact, opinion and paid content. The increasing problem has become that with mainstream news companies like ABC contemporary Fox, viewers can no longer distinguish clearly between fact and opinion. The bigger problem is with what Congdon did: She is a vlog correspondent for ABC. She made vlog infomercials for DuPont (a company with a deeply questionable track record) while working for ABC — commercials that are styled as a correspondent reporting on a science story. At the end of each infomercial, Congdon reminds the viewer that this is “science.”
Link.
Afterthought: I truly enjoyed having the Chronicle link to Crooks and Liars. Other afterthought: Congdon continues to give DuPont a deep and satisfying blowjob outside the infomercial spots on her personal bvlog, chastising us for criticizing her for working for a company that “saves lives”.
Reader comment from Gawker Artist Dustin Lacina:
Violet,
I loved your latest SFGate article. I was wondering something about your take on Congdon’s defense of the DuPont ads. Is this really any different from those shoddy “news pieces” that broadcast news and magazines have been doing for years now? You know what I’m talking about (there’s a specific name for it, but I didn’t pay nearly as much attention in my Communication Ethics class as I should have) the barely disguised advertisements (often presented as a Inside Report, Special Feature or something equally false) about X medical breakthrough from Y pharmecutical company, or what not. They tend to cross all commercial industries. Vogue and its kin tend to all have those several glossy page “featurettes” on skin care, which is really nothing more than ad copy written to seem as though it’s a real article written by the magazine. I notice them all the time on the nightly news and in magazines but I know that many viewers/readers who aren’t as versed in the practices of advertising or journalism often fail to notice the difference. This strikes me as very clearly mainstream media’s attempt at hijacking New Media with the same practices they’ve set into place in their own channels.
Not to say that this in anyway validates Congdon’s asinine comments about the rules/ethics of New Media, but isn’t particularly nonsensical of her to claim guerrilla New Media tactics as an excuse for her to cash in on her “Science” reports when she’s doing nothing that mainstream media hasn’t already beaten her to doing?
I’ve watched her reports before with a sort of sociological interest but it seems if anything Congdon is guilty of increasing mainstream media’s crawl into “new media” out of fear of lowered ratings. I think your statement, ” Now it’s time for indie media…to define itself a bit more and set forth standards and traditions” is particularly poignant as this seems exactly to be what we are currently under attack by “Old Media’s” attempt at not only undermining but colonizing “New Media’s” space.
So the question is, in order for Indie/New Media to survive and maintain its integrity, what course of action do we take? Are there resources for this sort of thing? Does Indie Media have a consensus on conduct amongst itself? What do you think the definition and boundaries should be? There’s so much effort spent on people splitting hairs over “is this legitimate” or not, that no one is establishing lines of communication about what is illegitimate about it, and what needs to be done in order to define that world into something that people aren’t skeptical of anymore.
Blogging/Vlogging/Casting/and all points in between seem to be in this same quagmire. Who are we, what are we, and what do we need to do so that we’re seen as our own principality. But it seems only a small few are beginning to realize that. Which is why it’s great people like you are really getting out there and pushing these dialogues. And why it’s terrifying that people like Congdon are spouting off “I’m New Media I can do whatever the hell I want” while brandishing ABC News like her father’s gun in the school cafeteria.
Inquisitively yours,
Dustin
Update: Cnet’s Media Blog calls Congdon’s response video ‘odd’ (they are awfully nice), seeks comments from ABC, and quotes my crack-smoking accusation. New Tee Vee posits “In Defense of Amanda Congdon” assuring us she’s the right person for the job she’s doing — um, not really. Ouch Jackson, that’s some snark. :)
