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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!"
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.
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?
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 Ellenberger