Slashdot Mirror
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!
--
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?