Happy Sunday, and if you’re reading this from the USA, we hope you had a wonderful Fourth of July. Actually, no matter where you’re reading from, we hope you had a great Fourth! This is Prospectus Idol, I’m Dave Pease, and I hope you saw all the fireworks you wanted to yesterday.
As we’ve moved further along in our contest, we’ve exercised our contestants skills in different ways. Last week, we gave them a tough deadline to meet, so this week we wanted to make things a little more relaxing. They didn’t have to write a thing-all they had to do was talk for a few minutes. Here are the instructions given to our contestants for Media Week:
A big part of our job as writers at BP is doing interviews on radio and TV. It’s not only promotion for us, but we’re among the most in-demand guests because we always provide an interesting angle on a variety of topics. One of you will be in that mix soon.
For “Media Week”, you’ll each be interviewed by Mike Ferrin of XM’s Home Plate channel. Those audio interviews and a transcript of each will be what you will be judged on next week. You’ll need to schedule a short (5-10 minute) interview with Mike on Monday or Tuesday. Mike will give you the normal prep that we get at BP when we make an appearance on his show.
Since there’s no writing needed this week, I hope this serves as a pause that refreshes before the final couple big weeks leading up to the crowning of the first BP Idol. Good luck and as always, if you have any questions, feel free to ask.
We’re looking to bring on someone who can make a compelling point both in print and in person, and we hope you enjoy this departure from the contest format. This week, you’ll have both the raw audio that the contestants recorded with Ferrin and a transcript of the interview. As usual, you’ll have the comments of the normal judges panel to consider, and interviewer Mike Ferrin is this week’s guest judge, giving you an additional viewpoint. All of our judges’ comments will be taking into account that, like all of the articles contestants have submitted thus far, you wouldn’t normally see something like this interview audio posted without editing-the intent here is to make sure our contestants aren’t being assisted unequally by applying an editing layer to the process.
Before we move along, I also want to make sure you have a chance to evaluate the reader-suggested topics for use in the next round of the contest, which I asked for in the Deadline Week wrapup. We’ve had some great suggestions thus far, and we could use your voting them up or down as you like to help us decide on what we use. Feel free to post additional suggestions (in that comment thread, not this one) as well, but everyone who posted early is going to have a leg up, and we’ve got to pick our topics very soon, so do hurry.
Let’s have a look (or a listen) to how our contestants did in Interview Week. Click here to visit the Prospectus Idol page.
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I'm reminded of Bill James' occasional media appearances; he was always a disaster on TV or radio, despite the brilliant writing. (BP founder Gary Huckabay is wonderful at this type of thing.)
I've done media appearances, and I do fine. But for the people who don't do fine, for whom it's not a plus.... I'd hate to lose the best writer because he's not radio-friendly.
Finally, if you determine radio's a critical element (which it appears you have), failing to give each candidate a one-hour primer on radio appearances seems to me to be an error. The question for BP isn't whether a person can do good radio right now, but whether a person could do good radio with some advice and training.
But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.
You can make the argument that a writer is never going to do a player profile, write about history, or any other subject, but the idea that a BP writer isn't going to do radio is just plain wrong.
I'm not an experienced transcriber by any means so I might've been a bit too thorough or just outright slow, but it took me about three or four hours and about 2000 words of typing to process each clip... so it is not an instant turnaround process.
I could vote for all 4, or for none, and be statistically irrelevant. I chose none.
I have downloaded exactly zero audio clips from BP.
I have listened to exactly zero minutes of Mike Ferrin's XM radio show.
I have exactly zero confidence in my qualifications to vote on this week's topic. I will vote for none, but wish all well.
Yes, I think this skill is critically important and is a big differentiator between a writer that can grow an audience and one that is stuck. I think if Bill James were able to approximate a good media interview, sabermetrics would have been pushed ahead by a decade. Rob Neyer wasn't given much opportunity to do them over the first decade of his career, but has been solid since getting the opportunity. In fact, find me a major writer that can't do radio *and* television.
Interesting.
JRM:
Arguably America's best feature writer, Gene Weingarten?
Greg Smith of SI?
Dave Eggers, founder of McSweeney's and brilliant writer (and former contributor to ESPN The Magazine)?
That's just off the top of my head (and maybe they've done more radio or TV than I'm aware of, but I could come up with a dozen more with a little thought and the help of Google.) Writers are often odd ducks, or are not amenable to public appearances.
My question should have been specific to sports media, where the ability to do multiple media (Stephen A Smith, Skip Bayless) trumps quality.
This is even more disturbing by the fact that transcribing is something into which people CAN insert bias, with their choice of what to include/exclude, and even punctuation. I found it interesting, for example, how every little sound (no matter how insignificant) of Matt Swartz's interview was amplified as some sort of unprofessional interjection, while Ken Funck's somewhat distracting...sounds were left out of his transcript. Richard Bergstrom even commented that Tim Kniker's interview sounded better than it read, but he's the one who wrote it, so why didn't he fix that?
The bias reflected in the transcription was confirmed by Richard Bergstrom's subsequent comments on each of the articles.
I definitely took this as seriously and impartially as I could. My weekly commentary has tried to be as unbiased as possible, where I've tried to provide constructive criticism and positive feedback on people I like and people I didn't like. I've also noted when my favorites have not done well and noted improvement of others I didn't like.
If I had fixed Tim Kniker's transcript to remove sounds or change verbiage so that it was "grammatically correct", that definitely would have indicated bias and was also against the instructions I was given by BP. Also, Matt's been in my Top 2 on the Idol Hit Lists I have done since the beginning so why would I paint him to look bad? Or say someone who I have been less fond of, like Brian Cartwright, had the best interview this week?
I thought I worked hard and I thought I did my best.
I understand faulting BP for not having it done in-house, but I salute Richard for doing it.
--JRM
It is IMPOSSIBLE to not to interject bias into (yes, that was a double-negative).
As I have now listened to the interviews and read the transcripts, I don't see any significant "bias" in this one way or the other. Personally, I had a lot of "you knows" and ramblings, but I thought Richard's transcripts were pretty accurate on most. I agree with Richard in that trying to fix too many of those would actually create more bias than simply putting in everything, and let the user sort it out.
I do agree with Will on the point that it's probably better to listen to the segments. There's just certain things that are better to listen than to read, and these may be one of them. I would only use the transcripts if:
a) I couldn't listen online, whether because of technology or time;
b) Just wanted to re-examine a point or two, but didn't feel like trying to find it in the actual point.
First, I don't see why it is material whether or not the transcriber is on the payroll of BP. If the transcriber can exhibit bias, it can come from an internal transcriber just as easily as an external one.
Secondly, Richard has been here for seven weeks now. If "bias" has crept into the transcripts, I'd rather know what that person's biases are. Richard's opinions have been there for everyone to read. Personally, I have every confidence that Richard made a good-faith effort.
Thirdly, if anyone is concerned about the quality of the transcript, there is an audio clip there. I'm sure a near-universal majority of people will use the clips and not the transcript to make their decision.
BP is looking for a jack-of-all-trades, or at least they've implemented a process that will give that result. (Of course, they'll probably end up hiring/using several of these guys anyway).
Since I NEVER listen to your radio stuff or watch your videos - I vastly prefer written material - all I would ever care about is the transcripts, so it's the transcripts on which I'd be basing my voting.
And I still wish BPR transcripts were available.
A few weeks ago, based on some of the stats Will had put out about voting, I was guesstimating that even the losing voter received about 1000 votes (though in hindsight, I might put that closer to 800 or so). Per the rules of the contest, only voters can subscribe. Anyway, if even 100 or so paying subscribers listen to the audio, that'd be a significant minority. With all the podcasts and radio interviews advertised on BP.com, I'd guess that there are at least a few hundred subscribers who listen to interviews... and probably a few hundred nonsubscribers, other reporters/anaysts, media outlets etc who also listen to the interviews.
Supposedly, this contest has attracted some attention. I imagine that whoever wins will be doing interviews. Beyond that, it appears the job of a BP staff member includes doing interviews, podcasts, etc. I can see, then, why BP would want a radio component and have a winner who can make a good impression on readers and listeners. BP might lose some integrity if the eventual winner has to avoid radio interviews because they do not come across well "on air", etc.
In reality, the goal here really should be to see who has the best innate skills. Being able to talk about simple boring research isn't as important as being able to DO complex interesting research. Though I really did enjoy your UUS (Um/Uh Score) breakdown, ums & uhs are not really the metric that matters. That stuff is so fixable. It's just a matter of practice and coaching, which I think doing radio successfully does require. Being a skilled researcher, on the other hand, well... they don't have PR coaches for that.
And your Pujols analogy is also incomplete. Pujols is paid to perform well enough at baseball to generate attendance. BP Staff Members are paid to perform well enough at baseball analysis/tools/insight/research to generate subscriptions and book sales. You can have great ideas but if you're a bad writer, it won't generate subscriptions or assist book sales. Similarly, books sell because BP does podcasts, interviews, pizza feeds, etc. I am not saying the audio is as important as the writing, necessarily, but I am saying it is a significant component.
Besides, at this stage of the game, everyone has done so well in so many different areas that being merely adequate in one area can be a tiebreaker to some people.
As for the Pujols analogy, I was being extreme. Maybe a better analogy would be like Pujols being able to bunt-- it would be nice, but how relevant is it, especially when bunting is such a teachable task? What I was trying to say was that good writing is the basis for this contest to be a weekly columnist-- that will increase traffic/readership on BP, just as you say Pujols can generate attendance. Or perhaps consider a baseball player's ability to talk to media. It's also nice but irrelevant, and certainly not what you base any decisions on. I'm sure everyone can think of someone who is/was a great baseball player, but was criticized by more mainstream or local media for their "bad attitude" because of their lack of media contact (even if it was for unfair reasons, such as not speaking English well). Or maybe we should just go back to drafting someone because they have the right "look"... or face?
This is also BP's first time doing this type of contest so they deserve a bit of slack and a lot of props for devoting time to develop a voting engine and updating the way new comments appear as well as taking the time to judge each piece. They could've gone the easy way and made it a one week competition monitored by interns. Also it seems some of the feedback has also changed the way the established BP authors write their columns. Not many places try to adapt and learn.
Without seeing the numbers, I think we're hitting the stretch where I wouldn't be surprised if any of the contestants were voted off whether it be for a bad week. It seems that each contestant has developed a "following" though it's hard to determine what the size of the following is as we only know what the very vocal minority is thinking.
The thing that I find intriguing is that IMHO each of the final four have a unique voice compared to others. Now it is really down to which slant the readers prefer and how well each contestant executes that voice week in and week out. My gut is that a significant percentage of readers are voting solely on the contestant's approach, while others are happy with any of the voices, but are more focusing on execution. What the ratio of those two "blocs" are I have no clue.
For the former, you come off sounding a bit supercilious in your critiques of the interviewees' style, while for the latter - "It is what it is" - to abuse a phrase quite in vogue these days, so choose to rate the contestants or don't, but please refrain from going on about the appropriateness of the topic/format/medium.
I found all four of the interviews interesting and none of them so awkward as to be unpleasant. I have a clear #1/#2/#3/#4, but that said, the "letter grades" range from an "A" to a "B-", so all four get a thumbs-up this week.
So I ask - what is the threshold for elimination? If all four of the contestants receive roughly the same number and percentage of votes will they all survive until next week? What if the difference between the bottom two is statistically insignificant?
One more thing - I think Mike's interviews deserve a round of applause from all of us, both for the effort he put into his research and the enthusiasm he brought to the mic (pun intended, for those of you who remember REBOOT).
And the difference of even a single voter, who is a paying subscriber, is statistically significant.. it's not due to luck or random chance.
If Will tells us that most subscribers do so, then I'll let their votes do the counting.
I still say, sign 'em all up!
If I want to see new angles on existing topics, I like Matt the most.
If I want to understand completely new topics, I like Tim the most.
If I want to get a rigorous, accurate information on existing topics, I like Brian the most.
If I want to be entertained and surprised, I like Ken the most.
Hire 'em all (and previous finalists), though continue the contest for a cash prize and bragging rights.
I don't have time or patience to sit through all four audio interviews and I'm not sure they are pertinent anyway. Whoever called this a swimsuit competition was spot on.