That was my point. Forget about the ‘quality’ of the the journalism. It’s a red herring. It’s all about the journalist. How they react and how they are treated.

That’s what makes me uneasy. It is the debate, not either approach, that can sometimes fail to address that attitude from journalists. Both sides and all approaches.

I’m not sure I agree with your division. Strikes me as one of those ‘my way and the wrong way views’

And whilst I take the point about business – if your ‘in’ business that’s what you think about. But I’m bound to defend a bit of thinking – ivory tower or otherwise.

Doesn’t mean that it isn’t getting done just because we are talking/thinking about it.

But it comes down to trusting journalist to get it right. Either journalists are good, creative people who given time, training, motivation, etc. will eventually produce better and better web video; or you don’t trust them, and video should only be produced by the privileged few videographers/visual storytellers.

It’s the old thing of, you gotta start someplace. We’re not going to turn a bunch of print guys and gals into Peabody winners overnight, or even in a year, or even in two.

Point-and-shoot video, like Texas Holdem, takes minutes to learn, a lifetime to master.

I’m eager to see what reporters who started out with simple tools and a simple approach are able to accomplish in a few years, for those who stick with it.

The only reason I keep framing this as a business decision debate is because too few journalists are willing to look at it from a business-sense perspective. It is business thinking that pays the bills and keeps people employed. Ivory tower thinking about video is counter productive and could ultimately be destructive.

“The concept that we must have a story (specifically narrative like articles and videos) to make sense of information doesn’t always work well on the Web.”

I kind of agree with that. But some would argue that the interpretation of that information, whether that be through story or editorial selection and presentation of that information is what a journalist does. It just so happens that making it ‘a story’ is a palatable and expected way of doing it.

Some would argue that information has no intrinsic value unless it is intepreted. That information turned in to knowledge – following the old data, information, knowledge and wisdom – and it’s the experience of journalists that does that.

So I read Holovaty as in favor of story, that’s his form of information – journalists knowledge turning data into stories. Where a story is defined by its relevance to the audience

Of course digital in all its forms subverts the role of a journalist on a number of different levels. But we need to be aware that it doesn’t remove those people from the role.

Journalists are used to that role as the knowledgeable and wise (imagine yoda with a press pass). Their experience means they have set their own markers of quality with little reference to the audience – it’s professional identity. And whilst I agree you can have quality information regardless of the medium, I’m not sure that I agree with the idea that the audience just care about the information. They have been weened on the diet of content that professionals identity has created

So in that sense meeting the needs of the the consumer is only part of the whole process of change. Setting a measure quality by the barr set by the audience is just as troublesome as setting the bar set by the journalist. Both are so diverse it can only work on a local level.

I have always seen the job of journalists as making sense of information. The concept that we must have a story (specifically narrative like articles and videos) to make sense of information doesn’t always work well on the Web.

From a journalism standpoint, Adrian Holovaty says my feelings much clearer than I can. From a business perspective, we have to do what will make us money and keep our jobs, and I think Howard is absolutely right about doing more journalism faster and in smaller chunks.

I think both quality and disruption can coexist, so I believe you’re completely right about how we should re-frame this debate: “Quality” is an intangible, like I said. Ultimately, most readers don’t care about the journalist, they care about the information. You can have quality information regardless of medium.

Our audience should define quality, not us.