Getting real-time journalism right

Excerpted Tim Bray regarding my podcast interview of him earlier this week:

I got email late yesterday from David Berlind: “Hey, can I call you for a minute?” He wanted commentary on a story he was writing......After a few minutes’ chat, David asked if he could record for a podcast.... even though I only had a cellphone, the audio came out OK.... I thought David could have been a little clearer that I was pushing back against the thrust of his story, but on the other hand he included the whole conversation right there in the piece, so anyone who actually cares can listen and find out what I actually said, not what I think I said nor what David reported I said. I find this raw barely-disintermediated journalism (we talk on the phone this afternoon, it’s on the Web in hours) a little shocking still. On balance, it’s better than the way we used to do things.

In the name of media transparency, I think it's better too.  That's why I do it (and more journalists should). And real-time multi-media (text, audio, perhaps video) journalism is definitely the envelope we're pushing here. CNN.com is doing a pretty good job of this too.  Some of their newslinks offer the video or text verion of their stories.  The videos are heavily edited though (which equates to less transparency because interviewee quotes can much more easily be published out of context).  Apologies to Tim if I wasn't as clear as I should have been. I thought I was. But what I think doesn't matter.  What matters, if you don't want your sources to abandon you, is the interviewee's perception of your intent (ironically, the punchline of the interview was about overcommunicating intent through disclosure).

Finally, while I was out for my back surgery, I spent a lot of time shopping for podcasting gear that would make this sort of real-time journalism  a lot easier.  I often get questions about the gear I'm using.  Here are the details.  Here's how I do it.