Yesterday, Michael
Cader posted some interesting and important thoughts at Publishers Lunch. It’s behind a paywall, but I’ll excerpt the part I want to respond
to. I’m going to address Michael’s position on anonymity; Joe Konrath addresses
Michael’s thoughts on book pricing and other matters on his own blog.
Michael’s thoughts
on anonymity are all set forth in the first sentence of his post:
As most of our readership has likely seen by now, on Tuesday afternoon
the Amazon Books team put up another unsigned, closed to comment post (an
exercise in what Barry Eisler ought to call shameful "pointless, pernicious, promiscuous
anonymity") on the Kindle Forum.
First, I want
to thank Michael for (finally) addressing, albeit obliquely, my periodic thoughts
on the way he grants anonymity to sources quoted in his articles. The link he offered
was to my blog generally, but I think the post he’s referring to is this one, where I said:
By the way, shame on Publisher’s Lunch for offering pointless,
pernicious, promiscuous anonymity to the unnamed “Hachette executive” quoted in
that article. Amazon’s executives are all on the record, and Publisher's Lunch offers
anonymity to Hachette executives…. why, exactly? Are they whistleblowers? Do they
fear retaliation from Amazon? This kind of anonymity is unworthy of anyone who takes
journalism seriously.
But Michael
might also have been responding to something I wrote in a conversation with Joe Konrath a few years ago (also available as a comprehensive,
profoundly offensive free downloadable book called Be The Monkey) with
regard to Publishers Marketplace, a service of Publishers Lunch. Here’s an excerpt—you’ll
see that I challenge Publishers Marketplace to publicly account for their shameful
habit of granting publishing executives anonymity:
Joe: I have to say on this topic that the two anonymous
comments made in the Publishers Marketplace coverage of your defection irritated
me. The “senior publishing executive” said: “[Eisler will] have to sell a hell of
a lot more copies than he has ever before.” But that’s exactly backward—actually
you can sell fewer books, and you’ll make more money, because you’re getting a much
higher royalty on your own.
I hope this senior publishing
executive isn’t in charge of accounting, because he/she apparently has no conception
of numbers.
Barry: Yes, that was not a great moment in the history
of anonymously sourced senior publishing professionals.
Joe: The other anonymous comment was: “Nielsen Bookscan
figures show Eisler’s print book sales, which have always been driven by mass market
editions, declining steadily from book to book.”
Well, duh. ALL print sales
have been declining over the last few years. But apparently they weren’t declining
to the point where a publisher didn’t want to give you half a million dollars. Also,
your mass market edition for your last book isn’t even out, so there are no Nielsen
Bookscan figures yet…
Barry: One of the most destructive,
pernicious, slovenly aspects of modern journalism is the promiscuous use of anonymous
quotes. Most news consumers are so inured to references to anonymous sources that
they don’t even notice them. And though newspapers like the New York Times and Washington
Post have strict rules about the use of anonymous sources, they routinely ignore
them—ignore their own rules.
Joe: More likely they were afraid to look stupid
by saying stupid things…
Barry: The main thing, though, is that when a journalist
asks someone for a quote, gives someone the opportunity to be quoted in an article,
there needs to be a damn good reason for offering that person anonymity. If the
person insists on anonymity in the absence of that damn good reason, a good journalist
will quote someone else.
Seriously, I would really
like Publishers Marketplace to answer these questions in public:
Publishers Marketplace,
why did you offer anonymity in your piece? Do you think this sort of anonymously-sourced
journalism promotes accountability, encourages accuracy, and fosters meaningful
discussion? Couldn’t you have found sources who would go on the record with such
anodyne stuff? Why didn’t you? Was this a mistake? Is it in keeping with your own
journalistic guidelines and consistent with sound journalism generally? If not,
what will you do to improve the quality of your practices going forward and ensure
your reporters don’t do this sort of thing again?
Joe: You really think they’ll respond to that?
Barry: If they’re good journalists and care about the
quality of their product and the trust of their readers, they will. If they’re not
and they don’t, they won’t. But I hope anyone who’s reading this—anyone who believes
good journalism is vitally important and that bad journalism is pernicious and destructive—will
tweet Publishers Marketplace with a link to this piece and tell them we’re calling
them out publicly and urging them to do better. @publisherslunch—let ’em know any
way you like, or just cut and paste “@barryeisler and @jakonrath call out @publisherslunch
for pointless and promiscuous grants of anonymity,” with a link to this discussion
wherever you found it. And if you want to learn more about becoming a more active
consumer of news and about why we should all call out reporters for shoddy practices,
be sure to read Dan Gillmor’s excellent new book, Mediactive.
Well, it’s
been three years, and Publishers Lunch is still granting anonymity to publishing
executives for no legitimate journalistic rationale. And though again, I’m encouraged
that Michael seems to at least be aware of my criticism, I’m concerned that he doesn’t
understand it, because he seems to be conflating anonymity in an article with closed comments to an article. Both practices are problematic, but they’re not at all
the same thing.
Let me start
by trying to find some common ground here: I generally agree with Michael (and with top literary agent Ted Weinstein) that Amazon should have enabled comments on its post. Though I think there’s a bit of a difference between what one might reasonably expect from a corporation, on the one hand, and what one might expect from an organization calling itself the “Authors Guild,” which bills itself as “the nation’s leading advocate for writer’s interests in effective copyright protection, fair contracts, and free expression” (my emphasis, because I love irony), on the other, let’s not quibble. Let’s just agree that whether it’s the “Authors Guild;” or Amazon; or James Patterson, Douglas Preston, Richard Russo, or Scott Turow, the failure
to engage substantive critiques of your arguments (yes, that’s you, Douglas Preston of “Authors United”) is a disservice to the public
and belies a lack of confidence in one’s own positions.
(Which, I have
to emphasize, is why I’ve been so disappointed in the failure of Publisher’s Lunch
to respond to my critiques of their pernicious habit of granting publishing executives
anonymity. Michael, you’ve clearly read the critiques; is a misfired jab in
response really all you think you owe your readers?)
All that said,
to equate granting anonymity for sources quoted in a news publication, on the one
hand, with a blog post closed to comments, on the other, is incoherent. Let’s talk
about why.
Amazon’s post
was issued on behalf of the corporation. It’s signed, “The Amazon Books Team.” Michael,
if there’s some way you think the post would have been more transparent or more
accountable if it had instead been signed, “Jane Doe, on behalf of Amazon,” I’d
be grateful if you could elaborate. But either way, we would know the statement
was made on behalf of Amazon and that Amazon stands behind it.
By contrast,
the Publisher’s Lunch anonymous quotes I’ve addressed have been about (i) speculation
regarding the basis for an author’s business decisions; and (ii) refuting Amazon’s
on-the-record assertions about how Hachette has dragged its feet in negotiations. In this context, is there any question that
transparency and accountability would be improved if the executives making these
assertions allowed the use of their names?
Or to put it
another way, why won’t they use their
names? If Amazon is lying when it lays out
the factual history of Hachette’s foot-dragging, wouldn’t a Hachette executive—wouldn’t
the entirety of Hachette management!—want to go on the record to rebut? Of course they would. And that being the case, why doesn’t Publisher’s
Lunch, in the interest of transparency, accountability, and accuracy, insist that any such official it quotes go
on the record?
Look, if I
publish my own blog post without enabling
comments, I’m being small-minded and cowardly. But if I publish someone else’s comments without attaching
his or her name to those comments, I’m potentially enabling score-settling, propaganda,
and straight-up lying in the pages of my own publication.
So when the White
House publishes bullshit on its own website, we know where the bullshit is coming from,
even if we can’t directly respond. But when the New York Times publishes that same
bullshit—attributed to “Senior Administration Officials”—we don’t know who to hold
accountable. The official seems to be speaking on behalf of the government, but
maybe she’s not. We can’t question her assertions or otherwise hold her to account
because we don’t know who she is. We don’t even know if she’s speaking on behalf
of the government, some faction of the government, or herself alone. It’s all deniable—with
the newspaper’s complicity.
There’s a ton
more to be said on this topic. Michael, I highly recommend the following:
See what I mean? The insiders are worried about how their conference
is going to “play” in the media. They are trying to make the story come out a certain
way. Reporters grant them anonymity so these struggles can be publicized. But if
today’s media report about politics is about how the media will be reporting a political
event tomorrow, there’s obviously something circular in that. And this is how it
begins to make sense to call the journalists “insiders.” Everyone is engaged in
the production of media narratives. Journalists and politicians are both “inside”
the story making machinery.
Eric Schmitt remembers being surprised when, as a member of a Times newsroom
committee on reporting practices, he was given information about what bothered readers
of The Times most. It wasn’t political bias, or factual errors, or delivery problems.
The No. 1 complaint, far and away, was anonymous sources,” Mr. Schmitt, a longtime
and well-respected national security reporter in
the Washington bureau, told me last week. “It goes to the heart of our credibility...”
The heart of our credibility. Perhaps worth pondering.
Michael, in
the end, maybe we won’t be able to agree on any of this. But even if your point
that “Hey, Amazon does it, too!” were correct, would that absolve you when you
fall short of your own journalistic benchmarks? Shouldn’t you set your own standards based on your own integrity and on what’s
best for your readers, and without regard to what Amazon or anyone else does or
doesn’t do in their own blog posts?
In the spirit
of transparency, accountability, and engagement that (I think) we both agree on,
I hope to hear from you in the comments. Mine are always open. :)
