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.

Comments

Ha Ha

[Kohath]

Good riddance to a slow, biased, anachronistic medium run by unethical America-hating propagandists. We'll find out how America is to blame for everything a lot faster from Slashdot and CNN.com from now on.

Thanks to craigslist, blogs, and YouTube for putting the news back in the hands of ordinary people. It may still be biased, but it's now biased every different way instead of just one.

Re:Ha Ha

[Shaman]

Uhm.. you do realize that the U.S. is in practically every country in the world, throwing its weight around, killing off brown people at a horrendous rate, destabilizing governments and economies, and threatening nuclear war with its biggest peers?

I'd say that maybe America is to blame for a lot more than it'd like to admit.

(edited because it was supposed to be a reply in the first place)

Re:Ha Ha

[Kohath]

Consider your offense noted.

Some of us out here are done catering to people who decide to take offense at things as a way to exert control over others. (If that's not you, then it's too bad others ruined your opportunity to have your reactions considered genuine.) So your offense is simply ... noted.

Re:Ha Ha

[xtracto]

where they hang gays in public square and Syria

Shit, nice troll there asshole. Unfortunately for your troll attempt, there are people here in slashdot who know what they are talking about. I, for example share office with a girl from Syria who is doing her PhD in Comp. Sci. I am certain that there are not such kind of things in Syria, while it is true that things like Pepsi or Coke just entered the country a couple of years ago, such stuff you made up is a blatant lie. Here, let me ask her (who is in the MSN right now)... ... No, deffinitely, there are no public gay hangings in Syria.... or not public enough for her to know.

Fucking asshole, you and your American "lets save the world by fucking them" pride. No, you are not helping people by killing them and their puppy dogs (your oh so proud navy soldiers killing dogs... oh yeah so proud of you asshole).

Now go back to drink your governments kool aid and watching at your TV. Do not try to think, you just can't do it.

Re:Ha Ha

[Anonymous Coward]

Advertising is of fundamental importance, it allows the employ of journalists, You mean those wankers and asshats who never get the facts right?!

Wow!

[Antony T Curtis]

I honestly wasn't aware that there were any newspapers in America.

I thought that they were all tabloids.