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Newspapers Are Dying, Blog At 11
The New Yorker is running a long and thoughtful piece by Eric Alterman on the death and life of the American newspaper. It's not news that newspapers are dying, but the acceleration of the process in the last few years is startling: "Independent, publicly traded American newspapers have lost forty-two per cent of their market value in the past three years... The columnist Molly Ivins complained, shortly before her death, that the newspaper companies' solution to their problem was to make 'our product smaller and less helpful and less interesting.'" The article goes on to profile The Huffington Post as exemplar of what is replacing paper and ink. "The Huffington Post's editorial processes are based on what Peretti has named the 'mullet strategy.' ('Business up front, party in the back' is how his trend-spotting site BuzzFeed glosses it.) 'User-generated content is all the rage, but most of it totally sucks,' Peretti says. The mullet strategy invites users to 'argue and vent on the secondary pages, but professional editors keep the front page looking sharp.
The papers in my area in California are at least 50% ads. In fact, on Tuesdays, they include this ad flyer in addition to the paper. On that day, the paper is about 70% ads then.
So, to make up for their lack of "real" content, the companies are sticking ads in there. Sad really.........I remember in the 80s that the newspaper had extremely few ads.......
It's either on the beat or off the beat, it's that easy.
I moderate therefore I rule!
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I take mild offense at that. Most people do not realize that in small towns, most Newspapers are weeklies, not dailies. In small towns, away from the lights and cameras of CNN, MSNBC, Fox News, the weekly Newspaper is about the ONLY source for LOCAL news. That is really the trouble. Large, daily papers keep trying be the end all and be all of "The News". IF they let people watch CNN, MSNBC, and Fox News for the "World News" and focused their attention just on their local communities (Things the Majors couldn't give a shit about), they might be surprised how their fortunes turned.
"Don't be a martyr -- BE THE ONE WHO GOT AWAY!"
Of course nobody is reading newspapers any more. There's so little news in them.
In the SF area papers, the "Food and Wine" section is thicker than the "News" section, and the "Cars" section is thicker than both together. What's the point? Especially since, if that's what you want, there are better sources for information about food, wine, cars, sports, and classified advertising.
The whole point of newspapers is that they send people out to dig up stories, and you pay to read the results. That's fine. As advertising-delivery vehicles, they're obsolete.
the internet has merely created lots of partisan fiefdoms with an agenda and user venting. much of it rambling, illiterate, unhinged, and mostly useless.
So have newspapers. I was reading an editorial in the WSJ about the how successful "the surge" allegedly is, and found it to stretch things and manipulate quotes. I decided to abandon it out of frustration. While moving my eyes away, I happened to glance at the author: "Karl Rove". R. Murdoch has Foxitized it, as feared.
Table-ized A.I.
...not sure what other hair style could represent "party all over." The reduction in the quality of the major newspapers in India over the last decade is startling. I don't know whose fault it is though - maybe sports, fashion, lifestyle nonsense and celebrity gossip is all people actually _want_ to read in a newspaper. The Times of India, which used to be pretty good, is truly shameful.
The people working for the newspapers aren't all that different from the people writing blogs.
I don't think most journalists like to admit this, but I think you're actually right.
The BIG difference between the newspaper writers and the bloggers is funding and resources. How many bloggers are there embedded in Iraq for instance? How many have the resources, capital, lawyers, and clout to investigate Watergate, or The Pentagon Papers? I don't recall hearing about any bloggers able to get into the white house press room (but hey, traditional journalists haven't exactly been all that great when they ARE there).
Journalists like to downplay the bloggers as cub-reporters, and bloggers like to imagine they're bringing the REAL information to the people, unfiltered, unedited, blah, blah blah. Both opinions are an exaggeration.
My point is that the bloggers aren't going to ever replace professional journalists. There's some stories that just can't be done by a guy doing a little research after work and on weekends.
AccountKiller
The BIG difference between the newspaper writers and the bloggers is funding and resources. How many bloggers are there embedded in Iraq for instance?
Counting the Iraqi bloggers, military bloggers, and contractors?
How many have the resources, capital, lawyers, and clout to investigate Watergate, or The Pentagon Papers?
How many newspapers have done that kind of investigative reporting in the past 20 years? If they had been doing it a few years ago, we might not be in Iraq in the first place.
I don't recall hearing about any bloggers able to get into the white house press room (but hey, traditional journalists haven't exactly been all that great when they ARE there).
Not yet, no, but that's not because they don't have the resources. If it was just money someone would have bought their way in by now. It's because they're not seen as reporters, kind of a catch-22 situation.
My point is that the bloggers aren't going to ever replace professional journalists.
I don't know if they will be able to or not. The more interesting question is, will they have to do it anyway?
I have to agree with your sentiment. There is nothing wrong with the medium of newspaper (ok, there might be a whole load wrong with some of the people who decide what gets printed). When Gutenberg invented the printing press he pushed literacy to a great many - no longer did people have to rely on spoken word and it's subjectivity to catch up on what was going on locally and nationally. The newspapers that flowed off the printing presses helped create professional journalism and this, and I realise this might not be popular, is something I feel is sorely lacking in the blogosphere. Internet news is, by and large, ephemeral (pages can disappear at the slightest hint of litigation), professional standards are lacking (there are exceptions though) and user generated content is awash with ranting and unsubstantiated gossip and innuendo. I like reading a well-written newspaper and having it around for a few days. And echoing the sentiment of the above poster, I find my local paper plays a very important role in my local community. I think it would be a terrible shame if we lost them all.
I would mod you up if I could but you have your points already anyway so I comment instead.
You are right that announced death of a newspaper is exaggerated. I do not read newspapers the way I did 30 years ago but I still do because our beloved and indispensable internet provide all information but not always it is is easy to find and when I find it it is usually not very reliable and for instance rarely describes local issues that are important to me.
Besides I still prefer to read in depth commentaries and do it while for instance waiting for a train or bus or while relaxing on the bank in the spring sun. The same information in electronic form is either not available or when it is it is so cumbersome to use in such places than I prefer to access it old fashion way.
Besides there is no better way to polish windows than to use old newspaper (at least those printed in the old fashion). When internet becomes available without trouble and polish my windows too I will agree to discard my then pointless habits:)
Note for those slashdotters that never leave the geek's basement: windows are those things people like to have in their rooms so that the sunlight can come in and you can look outside. They are similar to computer display but need no power and you do not need DSL to see naked (albeit not very nice looking) female neighbour taking the sun bath.
So have newspapers. I was reading an editorial in the WSJ about the how successful "the surge" allegedly is, and found it to stretch things and manipulate quotes. I decided to abandon it out of frustration. While moving my eyes away, I happened to glance at the author: "Karl Rove". R. Murdoch has Foxitized it, as feared.
The New York Times, LA Times, and many other newspapers were "Foxitized" well before Fox. Most of Fox News's popularity comes from people who were sick of the rest of media being so ridiculously biased in one direction.
You know it is bad when Hillary Clinton is complaining about the general bias in media towards candidates. And somehow I don't think she is apart of the "Right Wing Attack Machine". Of course, you only complain when you are not benefiting from the bias...
You also have to consider the effects of the out and out lies---Stephen Glass, the doctored photos from Adnan Hajj, the recent admission the LA times made that they were duped on FBI records on the death of rap murders, etc. The argument against blogs is that they are amateurs who cannot be believed, yet they seem to be the ones doing the best fact checking against the so-called professionals!
We are lacking a maturity in our analysis abilities that allows us to identify bias both FOR and AGAINST our positions. People who lack this maturity think that everything that agrees with their point of view is somehow "in the middle" and everything else is "to the left and right". This two dimensional egotistical thinking is causing deep divisions in our country that really scare me. It's like this is some sort of sporting competition with teams and a winner and a loser. You are not allowed to have any beliefs of the "other side", not allowed to compromise or cooperate for solutions. Not allowed to understand that you have a point of view, and it may be reflected in a newspaper or TV programs, but it is not the only point of view and it is equally valuable to listen to both sides. Or to have a newspaper or news show report with a neutral point of view, to use a wikipedia term. But the media today wants to push an agenda and "tell a story" (aka "Narrative") rather than report facts. So people vote with their dollars and abandon those newspapers, because they aren't providing them with news!
Brian EllenbergerI enjoy the opinions of various columnists, and the letters to the editor, as well as the mixture of local, national, and world news all aggregated together. Studying the financial pages is a lot easier with the newspaper - when you open up the two page spread, you get an information spread about twice the size of the average computer screen, which you can scan more quickly than the computer.
Finally, my paper includes a cryptic crossword,sudoku,bridge problem,and chess problem. The only one of these I've ever found online is sudoku, and I find working them with pen and paper is much quicker than doing them online. So I get a lot of value for $16/month for 24 papers.
What was once true, is no longer so
Did you ever leave the 1980's?
Electing a socialist president was the first step to falling under communist influence? You mean how the UK, France, Norway, Sweden etc. all elected socialist governments at some point during the Cold War? Were they all destined to fall under Soviet influence?
And you're right the blame for Iranian autocracy doesn't solely fall to UK/US foreign policy however when you consider that they were responsible for destabilising an emerging and [b]fully functioning[/b] democracy you have to raise some objections - especially as there were no other justifications apart from oil interests, its a pretty disgusting episode in both of our nations history.
Oh and the people of Iran never became 'religious nutjobs' they overturned a blatantly unjust government (partially our fault remember) with the only alternative at the time that wouldn't splinter the country. Iran is a huge multi-ethnic country and Islam is one of the few common strands that ties all those disparate groups together.
And you realise your final paragraph is basically a restatement of 'the domino effect' which is pretty much bullshit, and the Soviet Union was never going to control the whole world. And there's no [i]perhaps[/i] about it. It is immoral to install dictators and subject people to totalitarian rule. And it was pretty much a ineffective wherever we tried it as it lead to huge resentment from the populations of those countries when they eventually freed themselves.
Which is why South America has such close relations with the UA nowadays. If we use the exact same tactics as those we label our enemies, what makes us any better then them?