Hypercrit

Journalism has become about the journalists, writes Jeff Jarvis.

The press has become journalism’s curse, not only because it now brings a crushing cost burden but also because it led to all these myths: that we journalists own the news, that we’re necessary to it, that we decide what’s reported and what’s important, that we can package the world for you every day in a box with a bow on it, that what we do is perfect (with rare, we think, exceptions), that the world should come to us to be informed, that we deserve to be paid for this service, that the world needs us.

In his article about journalistic narcissism, Jarvis points to an article from the New York Times about the paper’s daily 4 p.m. content meeting — where the editors decide what will be on the front page of the next day’s paper. He riffs especially on the writer’s description of the ritualistic and “formidable” nature of the room.

Eighteen editors had gathered at a table to discuss tomorrow’s news. The table was formidable: oval and elegant, with curves of gleaming wood. The editors no less so: 11 men and 7 women with the power to decide what was important in the world.

To which Jarvis replies:

Behold the hubris of that: They decide what is important. Because we can’t. That’s what it says. That’s what they believe.

But if you read further down that NYT article, past the hubris — yes, there is some overbearing pride there — you get a question that I think is, in some ways, driving that hubris: “With the blogosphere expanding like the freeways of Atlanta, are readers going to want a little guidance with their news? Or will they simply navigate the Internet alone?”

The NYT writer, Alan Feuer, goes on:

Here, the belief remains that editing isn’t tyranny but perhaps a little closer to curating. Pick whatever metaphor you like: wheat from chaff, signal from noise, gold from dross. Without that process of selection, one is left to find the news on a Borgesian online map that is as big as the world itself.

(I especially like the literary allusion to Borges thrown in there for good measure.)

Newspapers have argued in the past that they were a vital piece of our democracy, that they keep the public informed so that public can go out there and operate a successful democratic society. Many have disproved that myth.

That argument has not completely died away, but another argument is rising up to compete with it. That argument says that we need curators to help us filter through the news noise that blares through the pipes every day, curators we trust to show us what we need to know and make it easy to find.

Jarvis takes offense to the idea that someone might assume to know more about what’s important to readers than the readers themselves. In a time when those readers can become writers — and indeed news outlets — in just minutes and when we have powerful search tools and networks of social contacts at our disposal, why do we need the professional, paid middlemen? Why can’t the people take care of their own news needs, using tools like Twitter to sort the proverbial wheat from the chaff?

In other words, when we have the tools to filter the news for ourselves and our friends, why should we worry about paying professionals to do it for us?

I’m not going to argue pro or con on the issue of professional news curation. I think it’s a good idea in theory, but I don’t know whether it’s vital or whether a business model can be found to sustain it.

I will say this: I think the blogosphere and Twitter-sphere tend to have short attention spans and can be distracted easily, whether that distraction is natural or designed by marketers (or worse). Without professionals, I wonder whether a popularity- and recommendation-driven news ecosystem will manage to stick with the important-but-perhaps-a-bit-boring stories long enough.

Professional curators will stick with those stories. At least I hope so.

Though, judging by the prevalence of Michael Jackson news coming from those professional outlets lately, I have to wonder whether those outlets still have any journalistic judgement left.

This morning, I went down to the City Clerk’s office to get copies of the e-mails that the City of Bozeman has received about its now-repealed policy of using applicants’ social networking passwords in pre-employment background checks.

I knew the documents were public record; City Commissioner Sean Becker said so during the City Commission meeting on June 29. So I went to the clerk’s office and asked for them. The assistant clerk was the only one in, and she quickly found two folders full of public comments for the City Commission — not all dealt with the privacy controversy, but most did.

She wasn’t sure whether she could make copies of the documents, so she tried to call about a half dozen people and even went upstairs to try to find someone who knew. She didn’t, so I agreed to wait until she had her answer to get copies of the documents and asked whether I could just read through them at the office in the meantime. She said that would be fine.

For about 15 minutes, I sat in the City Clerk’s office going through the two file folders — in the 32 e-mails I counted, 26 dealt with the controversial policy. Many of them were civil but disbelieving. There were no really rude e-mails in those files.

The clerk said there was another file that contained all the e-mails that were submitted anonymously and that there was still some lingering legal question about releasing those. She said those were the really nasty e-mails.

About 15 minutes after I started, just when I had finished scanning through the first folder of e-mails, a woman from the City Attorney’s office came in and said that the attorney had called in via cell phone and said that he didn’t want any of those e-mails made available to the public yet — meaning that I could not even read them in the office, let alone get copies of them.

The reason given to me was that some of the e-mails could contain information that would violate the privacy rights of some city employees. OK, but then why did Commissioner Becker say they were “public record” and why were they available to view, for at least 15 minutes, in the City Clerk’s office?

The attorney apparently told the woman that he wanted a written request for the documents filed before they could be released. I left to compose that request.

I recounted my experience to my contacts at the local newspaper, who were of the opinion that a document made public should remain public. I agree, but I’ll play by the city attorney’s rules here. I submitted my written request this afternoon. Since it’s a holiday weekend, I don’t expect to hear back until next week, at least.

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not alleging any wrongdoing here at all. If anything, the city is doing the right thing by proceeding slowly on the matter to make sure it has all its t’s crossed and i’s dotted, despite the inconvenience it causes me.

I do hope, though, that this “concern that there’s something in the documents that could violate privacy” (or words to that effect) doesn’t become a standard practice for keeping documents away from the press and public.

I’ll write more when I know more or when I receive a response from the city.

What happens when you apply for a job with the City of Bozeman? What is the city looking for in its job candidates? What should those candidates know before going in to the hiring process?

Thankfully, the city provides a few pointers on its HR Web site — things that people interested in working for the city should keep in mind. I’ll summarize a few of the relevant items here. Text in bold indicates my emphasis, not the city’s.

• “It is extremely important to follow the instructions found on the Position Vacancy Announcement, the Application, the Supplement Questions and any other application materials. Incomplete, late and/or unsigned application material, including those which do not follow the instructions, will NOT be considered.”
• “Equal Employment Opportunity: It is the policy of City of Bozeman that the City does not discriminate on the basis of race, color, religion, creed, sex, age, marital status, national origin, political ideas, or disability in employment or the provision of services. This policy does not preclude discrimination based upon bona fide occupational qualifications or other recognized exceptions under the law.”
• “The Montana Human Rights Act requires the City of Bozeman to make and keep records relevant to the determinations of whether unlawful employment practices have been or are being committed. The City of Bozeman Equal Employment Opportunity Applicant Survey (attached to the application) once completed, will be separated from your Application. The survey information will be kept confidential, used only for statistical reports and other lawful purposes. The information you and others provide will be used to monitor the City’s recruitment and selection practices. This form is optional: failure to complete this form will have no impact on any employment decision.

It’s noteworthy that on its old background check waiver — the form has since been updated to remove the field asking for applicants’ passwords and usernames — there was no indication that any of the fields on that form were optional or required.

As I have argued before on this blog, that logically implies that either the whole form is requires or the whole form is optional. You can argue with that logic if you like, but you cannot argue with the fact that the form had no instructions on it, so how could the careful job applicant, who is told repeatedly in city materials to “follow the instructions,” do so? If that potential employee, lacking instructions, did not fill out that form completely, he or she was endangering his chances for a job by handing in an incomplete form, which the city helpfully tells us is not a good thing to do.

I won’t comment on the Equal Employment clause. No one’s accusing the City of Bozeman of discriminating against any applicant. The city is, instead, brushing up against charges of violating applicants’ right to privacy under the Montana Constitution. However, access to another person’s social networking site username and password could easily provide you access to information about that person’s race, religion, creed, age, sex, etc. — basically all the information that equal employment says is out of bounds.

I’ll grant you that access to such information doesn’t mean that the hiring committee member will use that information actively in determining whether a candidate is fit for employment. But that sort of information, once read, is hard to forget. Try as a committee member might, there is no way to forget information completely. Once a hiring committee member has seen such information about a job candidate, even if he or she swears they won’t use it, we have to consider that committee member tainted.

Finally, there’s the Montana Human Rights Act. I don’t know much about this act right now, but I’m going to be reading it soon. It seems pertinent to the discussion at hand. I’ll return with more commentary about the act soon.

Just when the City of Bozeman thought it had the privacy fiasco taken care of — and just when I thought the issue was settled and we could move on — something new crops up.

Late last week, a city employee sent an e-mail to Bozeman city commissioners, claiming that the explanation of city hiring procedures the commissioners got during their June 22 meeting was inaccurate. That explanation had told the commissioners that providing Web passwords on a background check form was voluntary. The e-mail’s author, whose name was not given, said this was not the case, that the passwords were tacitly required from job applicants.

Now the city has announced an official investigation of its hiring practices, the Bozeman Daily Chronicle reports. The commission decided at a June 29 meeting that it will hire an outside authority to conduct the investigation, which will look into “how and when during the hiring process that city job candidates were presented with a waiver form asking for their log-in codes, whether the candidate was told that providing the information was voluntary and how candidates’ Web sites were reviewed,” the Chronicle said. The city will look into every new hire in the past three years, the alleged period during which the city asked for passwords.

Local CBS station KBZK quotes City Commissioner Eric Bryson:

“I want to know if there were distinctions between the departments. Were there standards developed for what was considered appropriate content on someone’s personal page, how the applicants were told when the review of their sites would occur and for how long they could expect the city to access those sites,” Commissioner Eric Bryson said.

Seems like they’re more or less looking for the answers to the questions I asked on day one, the questions that remained mostly unanswered even after the city closed the matter.

To me, though, this is the worst part. Again, from the Chronicle article:

In addition, commissioners said they received another e-mail stating that a city employee retaliated against a citizen for criticizing the hiring policy. The employee told the citizen’s public-sector employer that the citizen was improperly using their official title on personal correspondence.

Retaliation? Really? A city employee who felt threatened by criticism of a policy goes ahead and hamstrings somebody who cared enough to point out the bad policy? Come on.

Part of a concrete breezeway connecting my building and several others on campus collapsed last week. No one was hurt. No one even reported seeing it happen, so quiet is campus in the summertime. It was a surprise to me, though. I walked back into my building at 2 p.m. after an appointment — everything was fine. I walked out again at 4 p.m. and part of the concrete roof just to the east was on the ground and someone had posted a cute little sign that read “walkway closed.” No shit.

News came late last week that the university is going to tear the entire breezeway down, ending its life after just shy of 60 years. Not a bad lifespan, I suppose.

I comment on the breezeway because it makes me a little sad to see it go. It connects, at one end, Langford Hall, and the four-building Johnstone Complex. An entire row of four dorms and an administrative building connected by a block-long concrete overhang that has stood since the late 1950s.

I walked under that breezeway daily when I lived in Langford as an undergraduate. It kept us out of the snow and rain on the way to the cafeteria in Johnstone. As a resident adviser in the building, I even saw jackasses scale to the top of that breezeway sometimes in the night and run along it. They got written up, if we could catch them.

I wonder what the Johnstone and Langford residents will think when they come back in late August and the breezeway is gone. Will they notice?

This is all prelude of course. I’ve seen the university’s 50-year plan. In half a century, neither the Johnstone Complex nor Langford will exist, let alone a silly breezeway. But still, it’s sad to see the demolition start so soon.