Bad News on a Good News Saturday

Winds of Change began as a solo blog in April 2002. From the outset, it had a very special feature: Saturdays are reserved for "good news" postings only: discoveries, inventions, wisdom from a variety of traditions, profiles of people whose actions inspire us all, etc. There are a variety of reasons for this - some practical, some religious, and some bound up with Winds of Change.NET's mission and motto. It's a deep thing here, and the rule has only been broken twice in Winds' entire history: [1] A Reuters Saturday newsflash that the Turks has caught smugglers with 33 pounds of enriched uranium in Sept. 2002 (and see follow-up); and [2] Saturday, September 11, 2004, when we needed to discuss all aspects of this world-changing event in our coverage.

Robin Burk and I just had a back-and-forth related to this issue, culminating in a friendly phone call Sunday evening. I want to chat about it here on the blog, because I think I owe that to Robin and to our readers. It also offers some lessons for us all. I'll cover:

1. My own chain of mistakes
2. What ought to have been done differently
3. Some pitfalls of online media that were exemplified here, and which other bloggers may want to watch out for

Let's start with the mistakes.

As many of you know, Robin has been covering the CPAC 2005 as a Winds of Change.NET representative. She did a great job with media interviews etc., and had some insightful things to say (including some she hasn't said yet). I checked the blog just before leaving on Saturday morning, and found an updated post re: the Swift Vets in the Saturday field. I quickly opined that the post didn't really meet these criteria, asked that it be moved back to Friday or future-posted to Sunday, and headed out the door.

The biggest mistake was doing so right where I was reading - in the post's public comments section.

I'm not gonna bore anyone with the whys of it, or tally plusses and minuses. It was the wrong thing to do. Full stop. Not only that, but if Saturdays really are sanctified here, in the classic sense of being a sanctuary that's set apart to be about higher things, then our contributors are owed the same standards we work to deliver to our readers. That didn't happen, and it's my fault, and I'll add this public apology to the private one I delivered by email to Robin.

A back-channel email exchange began about this, as you might expect. Late Saturday afternoon, the post was moved back to Friday and had an (Updated) added to its title. It was later deleted by Robin, until some sleight-of-had by Evariste on Monday magically restored it to life. While all this was happening, Robin was fielding queries about this from some people at the conference. In short, things escalated quickly before they began calming down.

Now let's look at what should have happened, in hindsight.

CPAC represented a lot of trouble for Robin to attend. Money, yes, but also time out of a tight schedule. So value for time and money were critical. Like any political conference, it's also a big deal for Winds to be accredited there as a blog, so how we approach it mattered to us.

We knew in advance that CPAC 2005 fell on a weekend, and that Saturday was 1/3 of the conference. It certainly isn't easy to political conferences, even for just one day, without repeating putdowns of the other side. While I was arranging the shipment of Winds of Change.NET business cards and fridge magnets to Robin, therefore, we should have been talking about how that would be handled, and how we could produce interesting and insightful Saturday material. Could we ask delegates what they do back home to make their communities a better place, beyond politics? Could we do about about the human side of political belief and their deeper values by asking them what events or sources motivated them to become involved in politics, and how they hope the USA will be a better place if they succeeed? Could we do some other kind of series, maybe something that become a series of posts with one of them on Saturday? What kinds of themes and approaches do we want to characterize that day's coverage, and what kinds of things should be checked, and how would we communicate to do that? Etc.

Had I done this, it would have established 3 things; (1) a clear understanding of what mattered to us about Saturday; (2) a plan to approach that day that we both agreed gave us value for time and money, instead of having me assume the tradition would be kept while Robin assumed it was suspended until my reminder email Friday night surprised her; and (3) a communication protocol just in case.

We didn't have those things, and so a situation that could have been avoided or defused with a short phone call happened and then escalated, compromising our coverage. We also missed a number of productive opportunities during a rare event.

Being a team has advantages. We did discuss conference objectives by email, productively. I handled stuff like the cards, giveaways, flowers to Ms. Noonan for her much-discussed WSJ article that really "gets" what blogs are about (got a classy note back, too), sent interview requests I saw, and was on hand to help so Robin was more free to do her thing. The flip side, of course, is that being a team blog with special features or a focused mission sometimes means having discussions with one's fellows, and it can also mean problems if they don't. "Living alone" lets one avoid all that stuff, though of course it brings its own headaches as well.

If you aren't a "live alone" blogger, or want to cooperate with other blogs around a big event or issue, the way our communications broke down offers some lessons:

• One is the lack of tone or nuance in pure print media, well known to people like Robin & myself who've studied cyberspace interactions. Something that wouldn't raise an eyebrow in normal conversation can look very different online, leading to rapid escalation. This dynamic happens in the blogosphere as a whole, and also drives some of the deeper partisan polarization that Winds of Change.NET works to avoid. But it can happen anywhere, any time - even among friends who are aware of the problem.

• Fewer preople consider an even more important limitation: communication timelines. While text allows for more composed replies, sometimes time really is of the essence. When that's true, it's better to trade emails for something more immediate like a phone; this was such a case. Which is why it's good to have that option set up whenever possible, and why it's often worth picking up the phone even though email is free. When Robin and I did connect by phone, not only did we address the issues, we also got to catch each other up on a bunch of things and toss some ideas back and forth.

• Online tools are fine if you have some lead time, though. An online blog team workspace, powered by a Wiki engine like UseModWiki, would really have helped us get more out of this conference, and probably helped with follow-ups as well.

So there you have it. What went wrong, what we'd do differently, and some overall lessons. I hope it helps some of you, and prevents y'all from having to experience what we did.

"But on you will go
though the weather be foul
On you will go
though your enemies prowl
On you will go
through the Haken-Kraks howl
Onward up many a frightening creek,
though your arms may get sore
and your sneakers may leak

On an on you will hike,
And I know you'll hike far
and face up to your problems
whatever they are."

   -- Dr. Suess