MEDIA WATCH WNY’s churning urn of online news and comment: good, bad, or just confusing? By Christopher Schobert Marc Odien (left) and Chris Smith (Right), WNYMedia.net. At 8 a.m. on Tuesday, September 15, WNYMedia.net’s featured stories included a video interview with Brian Higgins on the health care reform debate, a story on Sheriff Timothy Howard’s wishy-washy response to a FOIL request, and a “Buffalostyle” video episode on Crystal Beach and big bands. And, oh yes, it was also primary night, as a banner on the right reminded. Meanwhile Artvoice’s blog was wondering whether or not a memo about Leonard Stokes was actually about Leonard Stokes at all. On the Buffalo News blogs, readers debated the mayoral primary and learned that Patrick Swayze was dead at fifty-seven. And at Buffalo Rising Online (BRO), thirty-five commenters responded to a post titled “Carl’s Declaration of Indignation,” which concerned a fiery op-ed rant by developer Carl Paladino. A bit further down was a story on Kanazawa, Buffalo’s Japanese sister city. Variety? Certainly. The Buffalo News has made a major upgrade to its online offerings, shepherded by editor Margaret Sullivan, and it’s been a game changer; along with news updates throughout the day and the availability of reader comments (such as they are), there are also blogs by many News journalists. WNYMedia.net features a roster of local columnists on politics, community topics, and sports, and is partnered with Artvoice’s political blog and local radio station WECK-AM 1230 (other WNYM affiliates include Spree contributor Alan Bedenko’s Buffalo Pundit). BRO has been one of the area’s most popular sites since Newell Nussbaumer and George Johnson first teamed up. Today, it continues its focus on local events, food, arts, development, and much more. Have these sites become more apt to cover similar content? Possibly. This leads to a larger question: Is there a war going on in Buffalo’s online media world? And if so, is anyone paying attention to it? The answers seem to be maybe and absolutely. “War” is, of course, too strong a word. But there is competition, and it’s becoming more and more personal. This has begun to manifest itself in the way the news is covered. A few weeks before the writing of this piece, the Michael Gainer story broke; in essence, the charismatic co-founder of Buffalo ReUse was fired from his position, although several weeks later it was announced that he would remain involved in some way. The way each entity covered the story demonstrates some important differences, and some noticeable competitiveness. “I think there’s a big difference when you read about it in the Buffalo News or on our site,” says WNYMedia.net’s “nominal CEO and business guy,” Chris Smith. [It is worth noting that Smith was designated as spokesman for ReUse members.] “I think the Buffalo News sticks to the facts, the ‘here’s what happened;’ they don’t get into a lot of the background. They’re speaking to a much wider audience—they have to deal with people in Niagara County who have no idea who Michael Gainer is. We’re speaking to a more dedicated audience, one involved with activist causes in the city. We can make bigger assumptions but wrap a bigger context around things, because we believe in what’s called the ‘ethic of the link.’ I’ll put up a story but I’ll link to everyone else who’s written about it. The reader has the ability to have context around something. When we break a story, we break it in a different kind of way. We’re looking at motivations and the causal factors, not just reporting on the events.” “Sometimes there aren’t two sides.” Covering a story in this way leads to one of the criticisms of WNYM: that it cannot be considered a “fair and balanced” outlet. “I disagree with that,” says Marc Odien, founder and managing editor of WNYM. “We’re fair. But no, we’re not balanced, because we find the truth in the story. And that’s what we report. There’s no point in reporting the other side of the story that’s fabricated or not true, and that’s where mainstream media gets lost. No matter what the story is, they have to show two sides of the issue, and sometimes there aren’t two sides. The wrong side is way off course.” Smith mentions Jay Rosen, dean of the school of journalism at NYU, and his idea of a “paradigm change in media.” The result, says Smith, is “outlets like ours are forcing larger outlets to change. The larger media outlets won’t admit it. What newspapers have devolved to in a lot of ways is he-said-she-said journalism. You’re reporting a horse race: who wins—not what happened or why it happened. When we report on something, we focus on the why and the how. Not the who and the when.” Margaret Sullivan and Jim Heaney, The Buffalo News. “An all-day, multimedia news organization.” Margaret Sullivan says the Buffalo News is now more than just a paper: “We now consider ourselves to be an all-day, multimedia news organization, not just a newspaper.” And she believes the changes are already evident, specifically with the case of the Flight 3407 tragedy. “The moment when this really sank in was in covering the crash. We were posting audio and video, breaking news on the web, changing stories every few minutes. Then we turned around and put the newspaper out. Nearly our whole newsroom—160 or so people—was involved. The event, of course, was tragic, but the coverage was exhilarating in that it showed us what we could do. The state Associated Press just gave us a first place in breaking news coverage, which affirms what we believed: That we served our readers well in that community crisis.” Embracing the possibilities Jim Heaney might be the finest example of a Buffalo News reporter who has embraced the possibilities of blogging and online reporting. An investigative reporter with the News for the past twenty-three years, he’s been blogging at buffalonews.com since April 2008. His efforts recently earned him honors for the second best newspaper blog in the state by the New York Associated Press Association, and he says the local statistics are telling. “So far as I can tell, my blog and Buffalo Pundit are the two best-read locally—in terms of traffic counts—that focus on local news and issues. There are several sports blogs that attract more traffic, but when it comes to public affairs, Alan and I are the top draws.” While Heaney hesitates to call the News’s online shift a “game-changer,” he does see a continued evolution. “We’re progressing, posting breaking news and feature videos, and about a half-dozen reporters and critics have taken up blogging in a serious way. [So far] the News, like the local television stations, isn’t producing much full-blown multimedia work. A good audio or video clip can drive home a point and give readers a different entry point into the story. In the case of [a Byron Brown clip denying involvement with Leonard Stokes’s parking ticket], I thought the intonation of the mayor’s voice communicated something that simply could not be relayed through words on a page. I read the quotes in the paper and thought, ‘Hmm …’ and then listed to the audio and thought ‘Whoa …’ He sounded kind of Nixonian.” Even though his blog is relatively young in internet terms, Heaney says this style of writing has been transformative on several levels. “For starters,” Heaney notes, “I write a lot more. The job of an investigative reporter doesn’t require writing stories every day, or even every week, as in-depth reporting takes time. But as a blogger, I’ve got to feed the beast five days a week. It’s forced me to be constantly reading, learning, as original content is vital to attracting and keeping an audience. ... That, in turn, has influenced my approach to writing for print. Blogging also has allowed me to establish a two-way relationship with readers. I’m starting to get a fair number of story tips, some of them already partly researched, from readers who react to the blog by sending me an e-mail or making a phone call. ... My blogs usually involve some degree of original reporting, while few of the other local bloggers do much legwork before they write. Bloggers here, like elsewhere, are more often riffing off the reporting of the mainstream press. That’s not a knock, just a reality.” Heaney says he spends time reading local blogs each day. “I’m always learning from them. I think Buffalo Pundit is especially good; he’s prolific and a sharp observer of the local political scene. I also get a kick out of The Answer Lady (buffalowatch.blogspot.com). She does her homework and has spunk. I’d like to see more neighborhood blogs like hers. Artvoice daily, when so moved, can be a good read. Buffalo Geek has some spot-on observations. Fix Buffalo Today offers a window into the East Side that you can’t find anywhere else. I think a well-done blog—that is, one where the writer does his homework as opposed to simply venting—can strike a chord with readers who want ‘tell it like it is’ journalism without all the blah-blah-blah that comes with so-called ‘objective reporting,’ which all too often is the byproduct of lazy, timid reporting. But it’s a fine line to tread.” “The great thing about the web is that there’s room for everybody,” says Sullivan, “and [WNYMedia.net, Artvoice’s blog, and Buffalo Rising] add to the richness of what’s available in their own ways. However, I don’t think you can compare them to what we’re doing, simply in terms of scale. Not only do we have 160 journalists contributing, but we’re generating twenty million page views a month, and, with our Yahoo partnership, reaching eighty-four-percent of the market.” A daily outlet for a weekly paper For Artvoice—a weekly print paper—having the ability to instantly break news is groundbreaking. “It’s terrific to have a daily outlet,” says Geoff Kelly, Artvoice’s editor. “In the past, we’d learn new information—about politics, about the cultural scene, whatever—and have to wait for the weekly print edition to get the word out. As a result, we rarely were able to break news, and instead aimed to be authoritative and thorough in our coverage. That’s still what we aim for in the weekly print paper, but now we can share what we learn as soon as we’ve confirmed it. I tell our writers to think of the blog as a sort of open notebook, [which can be published online] until you’re ready to put together the print piece.” Two specific stories that Kelly was able to run with online involved Syaed Ali, the Buffalo man accused of harassing Mayor Byron Brown, and the myriad scandals of city council member Brian Davis. “On both these subjects, my posts generated useful tips that led to new posts, which yielded more tips, etc.,” says Kelly. “[Seeing that develop] was fun.” The rumor mill Interestingly, there also seems to be an active rumor mill surrounding these sites. Newell Nussbaumer knows that first-hand. Various theories have floated about his role, and who actually owns BRO (businessman Barry Heneghan is the publisher). “I’m still behind the scenes talking about content on a regular basis,” he says, “passing along stories to writers, discussing projects, wooing contributors, speaking engagements, the WBFO radio program, etc. At the moment I’m concentrating on promoting www.eStudentNetwork.com, a site dedicated to showcasing Buffalo as a thriving college city.” As to the theory that he was nudged out at BRO? (“Newell had a good idea and it was taken away from him,” says Chris Smith. “It’s unfortunate.”) “Barry [who is listed as chief executive office of Think Financial and cofounder of Hyperlocal Media] is my business partner, and we’re actually working quite well together. I love BRO; it’s my baby. Barry’s an excellent businessperson, and I’m a community guy and activist. Elena Buscarino [BRO’s managing editor] is one of my best friends in the city and I respect her greatly. She’s doing an amazing job, and I feel very comfortable with her ability to wrangle cats, deal with politicos, and keep a level head. Buffalo loves rumors.” Elena Buscarino and Newell Nussbaumer, Buffalo Rising Online. Waving the flag, proudly Both Buscarino and Nussbaumer believe BRO’s audience is diverse, along with its staff. “Between Barry, Newell, and me, I would say we have our finger on the pulse of every demographic, age group, and viewpoint there is,” says Buscarino. “Barry is a numbers guy, Newell is Mr. Social, and I tend toward the political and arts. Barry is raising a young family, Newell is ageless, and I have always had a handle on teens and twentysomethings through my work as a teacher. Barry is statistically oriented, Newell is a big champion of retail and entrepreneurship, and I like the way things work and the people behind it, period … Buffalo Rising brings an upbeat side to Buffalo news and events. Sometimes our readers want to put us on the analyst couch when we seem to go dark, but it’s always and only for the purpose of being change agents when we think there’s an easy fix toward making something less than optimal go positive. Yeah, we do some finger pointing, but for the betterment of the common good in our point of view. Our readers also seem to like the little tidbits of information that might not be on mainstream media radar.” Nussbaumer does not waiver from the feeling that stressing the positive is, in itself, effecting positive change. “I feel that BRO’s role is to wave the Buffalo flag,” he adds. “Its mission has not waivered, other than we are more aggressive when it comes to getting our points across. We’re not afraid to take a side when necessary, and we will continue to beat the Buffalo drum until we get our ex-pats home and totally curb what was an exodus of residents. We’re here to tell people to jump in, the water’s warm. We don’t mind being warm and fuzzy one day and in your face the next.” Regarding BRO’s short-lived print product, Nussbaumer says, “I never liked print to begin with. It was a necessary evil. Once I got hooked on the immediacy of online it was over. It was only a matter of time before we killed the dead-tree edition; the environmental reason was also big on my list. ... At this point, I don’t think anyone cares that we’re not in print. The only people who ever mention it still have dial-up.” Buscarino says that print didn’t make sense to BRO and its demographic. “The advertisers came along with this decision without the slightest blip. I have to say that I was probably the last holdout for moving away from print, due partly to my training in journalism and letting go of the nostalgia of print. ... When I think about it, the magazine was full of sweet features, but there was never immediacy to what went in there. Anything I did there, I can still do online, but the ability to drop everything for something that’s happening right now is very freeing.” “They’re killing themselves. That’s my opinion.” WNYM’s Odien and Smith have strong feelings about Buffalo Rising, feelings they’re not shy about articulating. “They’re being left behind because of their proprietary nature, because they don’t want to share a link,” says Odien. “The last few months they’re starting to catch on. We constantly send them e-mails—‘Hey, check this video out.’ For the Buffalo ReUse story they didn’t even embed the YouTube video of Michael Gainer. They said, ‘Oh, there’s some stuff over here on this other website, so check it out.’ They’re killing themselves. That’s my opinion.” “One of the ways I show respect for others, like WNYMedia, is by linking to them rather than embedding their videos, when they have something I don’t,” explains Buscarino. “By embedding, I would keep people on BRO’s page, but by linking, I send readers there so that they get their props and maybe some first-time visitors they might not have had.” Says Smith on BRO, “I don’t know much about their business or how they’re doing financially. I know that they had a print product, and they don’t have it anymore. Their statement at the time was that they were going green, which I think we all saw through. As a web-only outlet, if you’re going to exist, you have to realize there’s a web around you, and they operate in a Buffalo News-style bubble. They’re trying to maintain an image as a PR marketing site instead of a news site—that’s not necessarily a horrible thing, but it is what it is.” “I’ve stopping being critical of them because they just operate in a space that we don’t want to play in,” says Odien. “They speak to an audience who wants uncritical press releases, uncritical news, and they don’t want a lot of controversy. They want to pretend that Buffalo’s a different place than it really is. And that’s okay; every city has something like that—all good news, all the time. But there are a lot of things happening in Buffalo that they just ignore. We try to be more reality-based and honest. When you’re uncritical, and you don’t offer a context around a story or different angles, you promote mediocrity.” Geoff Kelly, Artvoice. “If anybody thinks that we’re too positive, they can kiss my ass.” Odien and Smith raise a key point: Is there anything inherently wrong with a site stressing positive news and mostly ignoring hard journalism? Nussbaumer doesn’t think so. Asked about the perception that BRO is “fluffy,” or a too-positive look at Buffalo, he replies, “I love fluff. I like writing about fluffy subjects. I like reading fluffy stuff. If anybody thinks that we’re too positive, they can kiss my ass. I think my actions in the community speak for themselves. And I write about what I do. If that’s considered fluff by other media outlets, then so be it.”  Elena Buscarino also bristles at this criticism. “That’s an old notion, and if fluff means without substance, I’d look again. Though our objective is to get people to spend their money and time in Buffalo proper—and we do a good deal of cheerleading for and back-patting to Buffalo entities—I wouldn’t say we are a mindless, all-encompassing PR organ.” “We’ve heard the criticism that Buffalo Rising is ‘fluff,’” says Barry Heneghan. “We take it as a badge of honor to be criticized—it means we’re big enough to be a known entity worth criticizing. Every media outlet has a similar critique; the Buffalo News is the Snooze, WGRZ creates news with people in red coats rather than covering it, etc. I’ve heard plenty of glossy fluff/advertorial criticism of Buffalo Spree, but I still read it.” An interesting footnote to this occurred several years ago, when, according to Smith and Odien, BRO sent WNYM a cease-and-desist letter. “We hired a guy to design our website,” says Odien. “He had designed BRO’s website, where he had used a totally different publishing platform—we weren’t using any of their technology. We were using something completely different. We received a cease-and-desist letter from their attorney that we were not to deal with this individual or else they would sue us and him. We weren’t exceptionally happy with where our design was going at the time, but it sealed our resolve to move forward with it—I’m not going to have anybody tell me what I can and can’t do. Over time that’s worked itself out, and we never actually had to go to court. But to me, it was emblematic of what the problem was at the time—they were trying to build a new media company that was acting a lot like old media companies, and we were an open source and we were trying to help local business with our money, trying to design something, and they were trying to interrupt it.” Nussbaumer had an obviously tongue-in-cheek response to this (via e-mail): “That was a fun time. From what I remember there had not been an altercation between Buffalo Rising and WNYM for eleven days. It was promptly decided that there was no controversy to discuss online, and we should fire a shot across their bow. We didn’t want to sink them, we just wanted to frighten them. If we wanted to, we could crush those guys like little tiny ants. (Insert bug smiley face here).” Buscarino adds, “This is beyond me and before my time, but my understanding is that contracts are binding and whatever is agreed to with a signature has to be upheld.” But it still rankles Smith and Odien. “The whole thing did set us back. We wasted a lot of time, a lot of money, and it was unfortunate that it happened,” Smith says, adding, “But ... here we are three years later and we’re twice as big as they are.” With respect to traffic, Heneghan says the site www.quantcast.com shows positive results for BRO. “Buffalo Rising is, to my knowledge, the only outlet regularly publishing our traffic numbers on our site. To be even more transparent, we installed Quantcast’s tracking code on our site as other sites have done. This code allows a third party—Quantcast—to directly measure the audience a site receives. [It shows] BRO receives two to three times the daily traffic of our online competitors, including Artvoice and WNYMedia. Just like shoppers vote with their wallets, online media consumers vote with their browsers. We’ve had nearly 600,000 unique visitors to buffalorising.com in the first nine months of 2009—a thirty-two-percent increase over the same time period last year.” He also says BRO is finding success selling Buffalo-related merchandise online. Artvoice’s Geoff Kelly says he doesn’t feel anything acrimonious with respect to BRO or the News: “Not in the least. From time to time we snipe at something published by BRO or the News, but I have a great deal of respect for the reporters and editors at both outlets. There’s room for all of us in the market. And god knows we need a daily print newspaper in this city.” “There’s no acrimony from my point of view,” adds the News’s Sullivan. “We’re continuing to learn, to get better all the time, and we’re well aware that we’re not perfect. Not even close. … We recently added the ability for readers to post comments and are finding it both positive and problematic. The conversation tends to devolve rather quickly into nastiness and name-calling, and we are finding new ways to deal with that. On the plus side, it makes for more engagement with readers and a reason for readers to continue returning to the site repeatedly.” Freeing the information One of the key issues in this field is whether or not information should be universally accessible. “[According to] a great book called What Would Google Do by Jeff Jarvis,” Smith says, “set your information free—if people love it, they’ll come back to you. Among the various sites, between YouTube, Flickr, Twitter, Facebook, we’ve got 10,000 dedicated fans, people who consume our content on the network of their choice, when they choose. We also have a significant number who come to the website, and that grows every month. We put our information out in as many places as possible. We let people stumble into it, and they come to your site eventually. It’s what’s allowed us to grow significantly. But simply letting the information go is the hardest part for the establishment of media. We don’t want to assume it’s easy. You have advertisers you’re responsible for, writers, publisher, all of that.” “It’s very proprietary,” adds Odien. “We flip that model on its head and say, ‘We don’t necessarily care if you come to our site, but use our RSS feed. Follow us on Twitter. If you like a story, click on it. There’s been a sea change. It used to be that you had a cloud of information, and you had journalists who filtered it for the masses. Now, the cost of like-minded people who share and find information has been dramatically reduced. We’re taking that middle filter out and letting people filter for themselves. “We’re finding that we’re having a robust effect on news coverage in this town. There were things we did two years ago that Channel 2 does now. There were things we did three years ago that the Buffalo News does now. That’s great—we’ve influenced it, somehow … The technology alone makes it hard to trace back to us. But with that being said, there’s a lot of the live blogging that happens on the internet at mainstream media sites—they’re using the same technology that we’ve been using for years. ... What’s annoying is when they do it wrong. Quick example: Channel 4. We did a video for a fundraising effort for victims of Flight 3407 and it was a song, ‘Love knows no bounds.’ So Channel 4 does great coverage, and we go and click on its website. Instead of embedding our Youtube video, they recorded a computer screen with the Youtube video on it. All they had to do was put our link in there. They’re so concerned about their proprietary information that they refused to do it. That pissed me off—they take something that’s obviously from us. Doing what we do isn’t annoying—it’s great. It’s when they fail to recognize other outlets as breaking a story.” Jim Heaney often links to sites like Buffalo Pundit, and finds it a benefit. “I think the local blogging community does a pretty good job of linking to each other. ...You can learn more by reading an online version of a print story because of all the links and other resources that reporters can provide.” Building bridges, online Smith vividly recalls dining with his mother at the Wellington Pub after leaving a protest he’d helped organize for the proposed hotel on Elmwood and Forest, and coming to an important realization. “The average age in the room was sixty-two. I’m thinking, ‘What we just did, these people are never going to hear about. They’re not going to be asked to join in any particular way, they’re not going to be online actively seeking that activist information.’ So how do we build that bridge, how do we get from that activist group of people in their twenties and thirties to that older group in Buffalo who certainly want to change, but just don’t know how to get there? The News [could be] the answer to that. “Some of their reporters are embracing the blogs and technology. But there’re a lot of reporters who aren’t.” Smith believes the print and online sides are still seen as separate entities. “I think the News thinks of the media aspect of what they do as an afterthought—an addition, and not part of the core enterprise.” Sullivan, though doesn’t see it this way; when asked about the News’s online and print content merging more, she says, “On the contrary, the hope is for the print and online editions to be differentiated, with reasons to read both. It’s easier to add features online—audio, video, photo slide shows, blogs, and so on. The paradox is that people actually pay for the printed newspaper, not the internet edition. There’s still a great deal to figure out, and the entire country is working on it.” In a general sense, Jim Heaney sees further integration of print and online as inevitable. “How it evolves here at the News,” he says, “I’m not sure. For newspapers to be successful online, they’ve got to move beyond simply posting their print editions on the web. ... We’re in a period of great upheaval in the news industry, where the fate of daily newspapers and local television news operations is growing more and more perilous. I think it’s inevitable that we’ll see more local online content from a variety of producers. Many will be bloggers and entrepreneurs who will carve out niches. ... For example, on primary night, I followed Twitter and Buffalo Pundit to track election results. Along with the Board of Elections website, I was able to get timely results more quickly than through traditional news sites. So, in a sense, I’ve already left the news crawlers at the bottom of the TV screen behind. Ditto for listening to Joe Crangle analyze. I’d much rather hear from the Pundit and Geek.” As for Artvoice, Geoff Kelly sees the blogs as a “separate, dynamic product that contributes to our weekly print edition. Right now, it’s easy to look at that in reverse, especially since we rely on the print product for revenue. And of course, I hope to see the website continue to grow as a revenue source. ... We’d like a public blog. We’d like our readers to review area restaurants, to tell us about their experiences of the region’s arts and music scene, in words, audio, and video. ... I’d like to create a site that is a must-visit every day, multiple times per day, for news on what’s happening in arts, politics, activism, and the re-engineering of this city and region. We’ve got a long way to go, but we know where we’re going.” A changing landscape Since WNYMedia.net first appeared in 2005, the media landscape has changed dramatically, on all fronts. “It’s amazing to me how much influence bloggers have today that they didn’t have two years ago,” Odien states. “We have national political candidates that come and ask us for our support. We know that we control a segment of the populace, that we influence mainstream coverage, that what we do changes things. There can be a condescending attitude from newspaper reporters towards us sometimes, like we don’t check facts. But we’re pursuing facts all the time—it’s what we do. ... Most of the Sarah Palin stuff that came out was from a blogger for the Alaska Dispatch.” As one of the earliest locals to embrace online media, Newell Nussbaumer has seen things change dramatically, and he’s pleased where things have headed. “We’ve been through some scary times—it’s been a huge struggle. I’m extremely happy that there are so many voices out there these days. There’s finally some accountability, since Buffalo is a one-paper town. We need the News, we need Artvoice, and Spree, and WNYM—finally, there’s some balance.” Adds Buscarino, “I’m a fan of certain sites, and find it personally gratifying when they cover things we wouldn’t necessarily go after.” So perhaps the result of all this always frenetic and occasionally contentious activity is a positive for all of us: there is a choice for local online news. The bad news: you can’t pick just one of these online or traditional media outlets as your single go-to. To get the full benefit, readers need to hop between the News site, WNYMedia.net, BRO, Artvoice, and possibly some of the many other local news and opinion blogs and websites on the internet. The good news: it’s still all about being well-informed. And it’s a feast for local news junkies who have been reading a single paper for too long. For extended interviews, visit: Marc Odien and Chris Smith, WNYMedia.net Jim Heaney, Buffalo News Newell Nussbaumer, Buffalo Rising Online Geoff Kelly, Artvoice Elena Buscarino, Buffalo Rising Online Alan Bedenko, Buffalo Pundit In the interest of full disclosure, Spree associate editor Christopher Schobert is a frequent contributor to the Buffalo News’ book and film reviews. He finds much to recommend, and much to debate, about all of the local online news entities. SUBSCRIBE NOW Back to the Table of Contents Back to Top