The Media Leviathan

Almost a decade ago, during the first Internet stock boom, I helped to put together a panel discussion at the Columbia School of Journalism, where I was serving as an adjunct at the time. The discussion featured some of the leading media moguls of the day and it was intended to wrestle with the question of whether the rapid rise of digital media would eventually tear control over access from the big companies and place the right of usage squarely in the hands of consumers. I remember writing a  suggested question for the interlocutor (a network news star) that consisted of two words:

Whither gatekeepers?

It amazes me that the debate still rages, even as we grapple with Web 2.0, open source media, feeds, tags, digital rights management, consumer-created content, and massive intellectual bubble known as the "Weblog." Indeed, I recall the two words young Barry Diller uttered in response to a suggestion that media gatekeepers would indeed find themselves out of business, that a manic anarchist distribution state would result, and that money-making networks would soon be on life support:

"That's bullshit."

Diller, who believed very strongly in the growth of digital media and the increased involvement of consumers, was right then and he is right now. As I recall, Diller arrived at Columbia in a cream-colored, chauffeur-driven Mercedes and was allowed to drive right onto hallowed College Walk, park just below the statue of Alma Mater, and stroll regally (with me trotting alongisde doing the harried pre-briefing) right into the J-school like, well, a big-time mogul. Something tells me Diller still gets that kind of treatment. Because media moguls walk the Earth. Because gatekeepers prosper nicely, thank you.

And because they always will.

The oft-heard absurdity of "big media is dead" ranks right up there with "up is down" and "victory is near in Iraq" in the pantheon of ludicrous statements given by those who understand only a slim sliver of human behavior, especially when it comes to the buying and selling of words, images, and sound.

The gatekeeper-dying crowd is the intellectual equivalent of the purple-finger crowd on Iraq: oh look, there's an election, democracy is here! Oh look, a percentage of the population blogs and newspaper ciruclation in some U.S. cities is down, citizens now own the media!

Today's Times (a dying media property pretty much on life support if you believe the Jeff Jarvis chorus) has an astonishing back-to-the-future interview with one James Chamos, a hedge fund manager who specializes in short-selling (remember that little hint, folks). In Joe Nocera's column (protected, gatekeeper-like behind the NYT's TimeSelect fee-wall) Chamos claims argues that we're in the "Twilight of the Gatekeepers." Nocera actually wrote this sentence with a straight face: "The Internet, he believes, is going to erode the value of - if not destroy completely - virtually all the companies that serve as intermediaries between the big content providers like Disney and you and me."

To re-quote Diller: "That's bullshit."

To quote Watson: "Has he ever heard of freaking Google?"

[Watson again, in a gentle aside: "Is Nocera really a complete fool, quoting a short-seller predicting doom for big, public companies?"]

Or Thomas Hobbes, for that matter. Say what you want about the anachronistic 16th century philosophy of the need for an absolute monarchy in a compact with the people, but Hobbes had one thing right: not everybody can lead. Some have to follow. In media, as in everything else.

And that's why Fred Wilson invests in media technology - not because of the onset of anarchy and a distribution system without rules and without profit, but because of the onset of change and the opportunity to create new rules, and new profits. Fred is an old pal from the dot-com days who runs one of the great personal/business blogs and is now a second (or its it third?) generation venture investor in Internet and digital media companies. He's not betting on the death of gatekeepers; he's betting on new gatekeepers - which is a too-simple of way of saying new tool-makers, new distribution systems, new content, new networks. Yesterday, one of Fred's bets paid off - Yahoo acquired del.icio.us, the portable bookmarking tool company that's created quite a buzz among the cognoscenti over the last year, even while remaining frustratingly hard to describe.

So let's recap that deal: one of the world's top 10 media gatekeepers acquires a distributed digital media tool-maker that will assist in offering even more services and ease of use to consumers - consumers who just happen to use a portal branded as Yahoo, a big media brand.

Whither gatekeepers, indeed.

Now, I believe strongly in ever-better consumer rights over content, in the growth of user-generated content, in liberal digital rights and changing copyright standards, and in the wonderous power of search - the incredible human library - that the Internet gives us. This trend - now 20 years on - has changed my professional life, and enriched my personal life. But in Hobbesian form, monarchs are with us still. Indeed, Fred's partner Brad Fields said it very well on the VC firm's blog-posting on the sale, describing his belief in an "open data architecture which will be the foundation for a whole new ecosystem of innovative web services."

Which is to say, as consumer usage grows, so with opportunities for gatekeepers. Let's take a test: I'll name a company, you answer with a one-word description of what that company is. A little louder, I can't hear you. Ok, let's go. Yahoo. Gatekeeper. Google. Gatekeeper. Tivo. Gatekeeper. Technorati. Gatekeeper. Craigslist. Gatekeeper. Huffington Post. Gatekeeper. AOL. Gatekeeper. MSN. Gatekeeper. News Corp. Gatekeeper. Bloglines. Gatekeeper. Gawker Media. Gatekeeper. OurMedia. Gatekeeper, non-profit category. Apple. Gatekeeper. Hey, you got 'em all right! And did you catch the pattern? Big. Small. Medium. Billions. Millions. Twenty dollars. Doesn't matter.

Human nature requires some form of mediation, folks. The simple reason is time; we're all dealt a finite quantity of it. In theory, we can spend millions of hours fine-tuning our media libraries, setting the Tivo just right, creating endless digital films and podcasts, building libraries with billions of shared photos. But we're all going to die - and we're going to die soon. Everyone reading this will be dead within 75 years or so. (Even you Jason). That is a very short period of time in world history. [Bloggers will, of course, die sooner from lack of exercise].  So we need editors. We need a little leadership - and we need a little common experience, which creates scaleable audiences that companies can sell to.

Whither gatekeepers? Don't make me laugh - or just tell me when Google's market cap reaches $0.

Comments

[Jay Rosen]

Aw come on, Tom. Who said "big media is dead?" If you're going to argue so strenuously against it, give us some names, some quotes. "A hedge fund manager who specializes in short-selling" can't be all you have. You must have a a bulging notebook full of people who have said "big media is dead." I want to know whom you are trying to refute: crackpots and ideologues or people who might actually know a thing or two? Jarvis, you're saying, thinks the New York Times is a dead property? He works for the New York Times as a consultant.

By the way, I agree with you that mediation, gatekeepers, makers-of-order, filters, editors-- whatever you call them--are going to be needed (in some ways needed even more) and haven't disappeared at all. Some of the old gates have, though. And some of the exclusive authority Big Media had is also ebbing away.

[Munir Umrani]

Tom,

"The Media Leviathan" and Jay Rosen's response to it highlights one of the values of blogging and the Internet. That value is that we can observe and participate in debates between press and media observers and practitioners such as yourself, Rosen and Jeff Jarvis over at BuzzMachine.

While many bloggers are contributing to the debate and learning process, you three seem to be foremost among the initiators of discussions on journalism and the media. In other words, whether you like it or not, or deny it, you are emerging as leaders instead of followers. You don't always agree with each other, and that's good. Why? Because divergent views, and those who respond to them, help advance the ongoing discussion on the "The Press," "The Media" and "The Internet."

As for the death of "big media, not yet. Will it be transformed? Yes. Foremost, "big media" will buy up as much of "little media" in the blogosphere as it can, which will contribute to its transformation, not its death.

Disclosure: A version of this comment is posted at my media blog, The Online Free Press.

[coturnix]

Your blog has been nominated for Koufax Award. In order to progress to the semi-finals, you need more than one nomination. Self-promotion is strongly encouraged. Send your readers over there to nominate you, too.

[Tom W.]

Jay, the quote is a strawman to be sure - but the mass of death-predicting is there and does - I think, anyway- add up to much the same thing. Indeed there is a cheering section out there rooting against newspapers, against editors, against professionalism and it's very tiring, especially from those who - as you justly point out - continue to make their fame and fortune from "big media."

[Tom K]

I'll nominate him, if you tell me how. I think of Tom as the early Koufax: a wild lefty who attended Columbia and is on the wrong team, but has lots of potential.