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Chicago Tribune Reporters Don't Want Readers' Pre-Approval
theodp writes "Irked by the Marketing department's solicitation of subscribers' opinions on stories before they were published, 55 reporters and editors at the Chicago Tribune signed an e-mail demanding the practice be stopped. 'It is a fundamental principle of journalism that we do not give people outside the newspaper the option of deciding whether or not we should publish a story, whether they be advertisers, politicians or just regular readers,' the e-mail read."
Imagine that, having your readers decide the content. Unheard of. /.
Hey, I didn't approve this story, why was it released?
Yeah, wouldn't want anything to be changed, as the present system works so well. Better keep up the tradition of deciding to publish the same bad articles.
Yet another reason why the newspaper business is bleeding money and descreasing subscriptions year after year after year. Kudos to the editors for attempting something different -- trying to match the product they sell to the market demand.
I don't believe these employees understand they are just that -- retained at the pleasure of their employer. If they wish to spout off with unpopular opinions without fear of retribution, they should have either been college professors or Supreme Court justices.
In the meantime, so long as someone else is paying them, they will do as they are told. Call the Waaaambulance.
WTF do they think a newspaper is for? The minute you try to "democratize" is, politicians and PR types will try to game the system to make sure that only stories beneficial to them will get published.
I piss off bigots.
"As long as they get to over-hype whatever story they want"
Isn't the idea of overhyping based on whoring out integrity to whatever sells, which would be the opposite of what is going on here? Just why are they overhyping if they aren't doing it for ratings?
I read it the other way. Basically, if we just follow what the majority want, then many stories that appeal to minority groups will be snuffed out. I can't speak for this newspaper, as I have never read it. If they are already just trying to provide sensational titles, with very little actual content, then sure, they don't care about the stories and are just about lining their wallets.
Why should the reporters care what you think of their stories? They're here to report, not to butter you up.
If I want news report that aims to please the masses, I'll go watch Fox News.
Of course, they want to spin the news they way THEY want - both by how they report and what they choose to report or not. How could they stand it if people wanted them to report negative stories about Obama and positive stories about Bush?
Or vice-versa... See if any are in bed with the Obama administration. Why would they care about what is published now that Bush is out of office? Unless they were in bed with the current administration, then...
On one hand, you have the reporter's (note I do not refer to them as journalists) bias.
On the other hand, you could have them deep-sixed by someone else's biases.
In a case like this, there just isn't a "lesser" of two evils.
Chas - The one, the only.
THANK GOD!!!
It's the evil liberal media conspiracy, trying to suppress the truth of Obama's evil! Where can I sign up for your newsletter?
"In other words, the reporters don't care what the readers think of their stories."
The readers indicate their care by either purchasing or not purchasing the newspaper.
In other words, the reporters don't care what the readers think of their stories. As long as they get to over-hype whatever story they want (a brown nose Obama story, or a effusive global warming rant), they don't care if nobody wants to buy the paper.
I read it as the reporters wanting to publish news, rather that was fits best with the marketing.
Jumpstart the tartan drive.
The Tribune's expose on Anonymous will not be published, after receiving 50 billion no votes.
Or perhaps they have things to say that people don't necessarily want to hear or believe.
And I read it as the reporters using the idea that you just said to accomplish what the parent suspects. They're smart enough to know that that is a very real drawback to the plan, but they ought to be smart enough to take the feedback and do something with it.
It might be a case of readers collectively wanting to suppress something, but it might also be a case of readers wanting information about something else and wanting resources to be freed to get that information.
Can you be Even More Awesome?!
This "review" process is already taking place -- it's why subscriptions are falling off a cliff. The product is crap, the readers know it's crap, which is why they're not buying it. Solution: Stop printing crap.
Clearly, their feedback mechanism has gotten seriously out of tune. I think also that they recognize this, and that the idea of allowing direct reader feedback on stories in the queue was born out of some desperation to correct their editorial priorities.
Here's a hint: Try to keep ideology at bay, and follow the facts wherever they take you. Yes, it's often uncomfortable. I imagine Woodward and Bernstein had many sleepless nights. Yet we are the better for their work. Emulate that. Oh, and spike any "story" about Paris Hilton.
Schwab
Editor, A1-AAA AmeriCaptions
AP, April 22: "The Chicago Tribune cut 53 jobs on Wednesday as part of a newsroom reorganization designed to help it weather an economic downturn that has forced its parent company to seek Chapter 11 protection from creditors..."
-=Maggie Leber=-
I'm sick of upper management and marketing/advertising sticking their noses where it doesn't belong. This isn't the first time I've heard something like this proposed. It's the entire reason there are comment boxes and ratings (on some news sties) on stories. This is NOT the way to go. Write a goddamn letter to the editor.
How could they stand it if people wanted them to report negative stories about Obama and positive stories about Bush?
Suppose all press outlets were run democratically, plurality vote, right now.
Given the current popularity of Obama and unpopularity of Bush, how many news outlets do you think would be publishing stories critical of Obama and positively reviewing the policies of the Bush era?
Tweet, tweet.
Yeah, readers are just another over-fed special interest.
... vote by approval for a story. It's the ability to have multiple perspectives on a topic published. Ideally, by anyone, but failing that, a fairly representative set of perspectives.
Being able to vote stories up or down could be disastrous when popular opinion and the truth of the content aren't relevant. Are you worried about brown-nosing Obama stories? Obama's pretty popular right now. A press run via democracy might be less likely to publish stories critical of him (or of climate change, for that matter) than an independent press.
It's just like the current group of teachers. They don't care if they actually teach anything, and are upset when someone wants to make sure that the kids are able to read after graduating high school, as long as they get paid for pushing them forwards.
Nobody goes into teaching just to get paid. There's so many better ways to do that. Most people who do it -- as I can attest from firsthand process of going through an education program -- have a pretty wide streak of altruism. The system may grind their best efforts out of them, and like the rest of us, sometimes they're just trying to get through their day, but my observation is that apathy is pretty far from the default state.
Tweet, tweet.
I think that's a little paranoid. Fox declined to show the latest Obama press conference because it was during sweeps week and gets worse ratings than their normal programming.
No, reporters care about special interest groups not being able to squash stories with little public backlash due to long acceptance of some kind of "community review" program.
512 MB RAM, 20 GB disk, 200 GB transfer, five datacenters. $19.95/month.
You, sir, are an idiot.
To my experience, I don't recall any major source dropping a presidential address in favor of any particular show -- most often the most favored shows are cancelled for crap like presidential addresses and debates. I'm not saying it has never happened before, but it is the first time I have ever seen that.
Exactly!
Now, I'm sure the Tribune's marketeers will whine like crazy that their subscription readership numbers are declining. I'm sure they are - I'm a subscriber to their South Florida Sun-Sentinel, whose overall page count has been dropping like a rock the last 2 years. Comic strips have been dropped to save space, the financial pages are now a single page of pure drivel, and the list goes on.
What they need to realize is that, yes, we the computer-literate can read the same AP or Reuters articles to our hearts' content (and perhaps beyond...) the night before. *BUT* we (or, at least, I) am relying on the reporters and the editors/managers to make sure that there is some sort of local perspective/analysis knitted into the story that appears in print. And, I'm also hoping that the editors will suppress some of the (very) rough drafts of local stories that I have seen on the Sun-Sentinel's web site the night before, that would make any high school English teacher scream in terror, and make us wait until the final version that appears in print. A teaser headline with a graf or two of bare-bones facts is fine, but some of the other crap that's made it to the web (but, thankfully, fell onto the composing room floor) was just that - pure crap.
(And I mean poorly-phrased, inconsistent subject/verb relations, etc.). I'm a EE, not an English major, and I could probably do better than some of the clowns they had on the beat.
What a democratically decided newspaper would put on the front page today (via Yahoo search traffic):
Swine Flu
Christina Applegate
American Idol
Kristie Alley
Jon and Kate Plus Eight
Sarah Jessica Parker
Twitter
Hi-5
Lady Gaga
NBA
Source: http://buzzlog.buzz.yahoo.com/overall/
Three observations:
1) There are media outlets that cover pretty much exactly this list. Good for them. I don't read those and never will. I question their contribution to democracy.
2) I get news from a variety of social media filters, and almost none of the information I get from these very useful selection processes are from this list (the flu outbreak is the exception). That's not to say that my information is better than yours - just that it's what I happen to want.
3) Therefore: A more useful "democracy" strategy might be to help readers select from the vast array of information coming out of organizations like the Tribune and put that on the "front page" akin to Amazon's personalized homepage metrics.
As a journalist, I will say that allowing anyone outside the organization to spike a story pre-publication opens to the door wide open to self-censorship. Critical journalism requires independence, or it becomes PR. Critical journalism is rare enough as it is without this.
If the "news" reporting agencies in this country would quit performing their best Monica Lewinsky impersonations they would not have to worry about polling their readership.
Objective reporting would attract readers of all stripes since the who, what, where, when and why, AKA facts (not opinions) are what we, the news consumers, are looking for.
If I want opinion I will read Ann Landers.
Good riddance Boston Globe!
Oy! Fox taking sides.
Fox is NOT the only one takings sides. At least with Fox, if a politician is caught in a bathroom with someone, the word "Democrat" or "Republican" is used in the first sentence.
All the other major TV and Newspaper outlets will feature the word "Republican" in the first paragraph but will not use the word "Democrat" till the 4th or 5th paragraph
As in "Vermont Sentator So and So (Republican) was caught doing something. Is right up front. But "Utah Senator So and So was caught doing something, blah, blah, blah. He is a Democrat serving in the senate for the last 18 years". Ends up way down in the story.
I prefer my bias right up front, at least I know how they will slant the story. In that at least Air America and Rush Limbaugh have done a service to the public.
Speaking of such things, I am close to a story that has been in and out of the paper about 6 or 7 times. Close enough that I know all the parities involved and I have yet to hear one news report that has been anywhere close to even 25% correct. That scares me. If the rest of the news is like this, I am becoming dumber and less informed every time I read a newspaper or watch a reporter.
It would be nice if we lived in a world where a company only cared about breaking even, paid editors to keep the reporters straight and to help check out facts. Reporters tried to get every side to the story and present them all with as much intellectual honesty as possible. That people would flock to such a paper and buy it.
The Papers, Editors and Reporters would like you to believe that what they do is called "journalism" and all the above is true. But that is not the case. The paper is beholden to it's stock holders to turn a profit. Editors may have an ax to grind and are more favorable to one point of view or another. Or just like to see a story written in a certain way. Reporters want to "change the wolrd", or "cover a big story". It is a huge chore to collect all the facts and to be meticulous in being fair. It is a lot more work than just trying to publish stories that get you recognized.
All of these things go into the product called a "NewsPaper". It is sold to the reader as something open minded, informed and intelligent people read. Even if they wrote at a level opend minded 12th graders read at 20 years ago, and now write at a level for open minded 9th graders. It is also sold to the advertisers as a way to reach a large volume of people who can be influenced to spend their money on the advertisers product.
At best, it is in the stock holders benefit for a paper to strive for a certain bias or for "journalism". At worst, papers that don't deserve to exist will keep being published.
vi +
Maybe those reporters and editors should also send the letter up the chain to their owners. How many times has a Murdoch or Packer dictated what can & can't be published?
It doesn't take much effort to determine the bias of the reporting source and adjust accordingly to the news being presented (*coff* Fox News *coff*). We shouldn't have to, but it's the way it is.
I left my body to science, but I'm afraid they've turned it down...
It's interesting to see these newspaper people work. When they sell a story and the population is angered with it, they just complain that 'Joe Sixpack' isn't clever enough to understand. They just never really got the point that, Joe Sixpack is their customer: without him, they are nothing.
Journalism...that's what it's called now days when you take a story, read it through a prism, apply it to a template, and if you post it at all, it becomes read by 500-1000 people, has a problem. It' not the internet.
Ever since Watergate, when reporters were seen to 'take down' a president, journalism students have clamored to undertaken the role 'to change things'. Just ask them- they're proud to tell you.
The problem is, it's not their job to _change_ things, it's their job to find the truth, wherever it leads, and _report_ it. Even if it makes them look bad, even if it makes their president look bad, if it's true and someone might care, it's in there. But that's when "journalism" had integrity.
And it's been that way so long now, the lone dissenting news source on TV, Fox News, is looked at as a problem, because it's the only news channel that isn't covering every story the way reporters want it told. It IS, however, telling the truth, and the news most Americans want to know.
Think I'm full of it? Notice how, on a good day, CNN (though never Headline News) sometimes gets more ratings than Colbert or the Daily Show...two FAKE news shows. Meanwhile the ratings on Fox are sometimes FOUR TIMES LARGER. There is a reason for this; people know lies when they hear it.
There's now Congressional interest in bailing out their hometown newspapers. John Kerry (who, you'll recall served in Vietnam) wants to fund the losses at the Boston Globe. Others want to save the New York Times.
But does anyone see these trends reversing? I sure don't.
--- For a good time mail uce@ftc.gov
The journalists aren't idiots, however: they are going to continue to trade stories and (un)favorable coverage for benefits, like access to the rich and powerful, power trips, and book deals.
If you think that journalists at commercial newspapers have your best interests at heart, or that they give you unbiased coverage, you're a fool.
I once worked for the Dallas Observer, a largely editorial news weekly rag. The music editor wrote an opinion piece that stated things largely as he saw them. It insulted, in some way, one of the paper's advertisers. The music editor lost his job as the advertiser would accept nothing less.
This is a true tragedy in the world of journalism. The editorial and sales sides are always at odds with one another, but I have never seen editorial win... not ever.
To their credit, the journalists at that paper truly work in the spirit that the press is supposed to work under. I have witnessed the animosity first-hand. But too often, money wins.
I'd subscribe to a local if it was custom tailored to my requests. That would really be a way to "give the customer what they want". A weekly that was so designed and still came in cheap would be sufficient. Such as, I would prefer a lot more local and state news coverage, as national and international is just so much better online, and they could skip the huge middle section they push with high school sports. Other people might want the opposite, even more local grade school sports and gossip, etc. If newspapers had a way to easily do a custom version, it might work. And I also notice the totally free mostly ads/classifieds newspapers seem to be doing OK, both the English and Spanish papers around here.
Newspapers now throw the kitchen sink at people and they only read a couple of sections and the rest is a waste of paper and just costs them money and the advertisers for those sections you skip are paying for no eyeballs. Which makes the costs way higher than they need to be. Even on a large newspaper, I never read the fashion or travel or food or sports sections, woodstove kindling instantly. And I bet most folks read the newspaper in a similar fashion, just those sections they are really interested in and skip most of it. Making a custom fit paper, "news a la carte", could be an alternative way to do business. How hard to pull that off with the dead trees version, no idea.
With few exceptions, journalists are in bed with whoever is in power and whoever has money.
Regarding all the self-righteousness in the above comments, all I can say is one word:
Firehose.
Wow, I like your thinly veiled sarcasm and I would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
I don't see the "funny" part of this post. One thing that bothers me is when these guys STOP writing/reporting due to funding (e.g. travel), we will be left with Twitterers or whatever they are called.
I would assume wherever a story happens, it will be Twittered and then the journalist will actually just be an editor by just scraping stories posted by others and reposting. The problem will then become signal/noise (e.g. fact/fiction, news/not news).
Note, I am all for letting the market govern itself, so I don't suggest helping any newspaper. But a heads up that it will get MUCH worse before it gets better.
So, you want to subscribe to each other's newsletters. Get a room, you two!
Just a quick comment: Fox has been known for, and caught remarking Republicans as Democrats when they get into trouble. They actually will switch the party affiliation lettering right in their news ticker, or in the story sub-titling.
Happened fairly recently too as I recall.
@Mindless Drivel: 100% of Twitter posts ever Tweeted.
and that reason is that journalism is essential to the proper functioning of democracy. Without it, the populace will not be informed of the inner workings of the government. As history has shown-- and we only know about these things because of journalists, who have often risked their lives for the greater good-- the government needs to be constantly watched. Watching the government is a heck of a lot easier than refreshing the tree of liberty from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants (to paraphrase Jefferson). We wouldn't even know about things like Watergate, the Pentagon Papers, Abu Ghraib, the current torture discussion, without inquisitive journalists.
The 1st Amendment was first for a reason. Ever wonder why?
Newspapers worked and they worked for 100 years. Here how they worked. Some flashy on the front page above the fold. Something of interest to most people below the fold. Many articles from several different points of view meant to interest a few poeple inside. Very fiew people read every article. Very few articles are meant to be of interest to every person.
Therefore whether journalists are elitists is not the issue. Whether school makes you better is not the issue. I know conservatives all agree that a unqualified and unaccredited and dishonest plumber is the person they want to fix their household fixtures, but even that is not the issue here. The issue that newspapers add value by putting together an mix of stories that will be of interest to different parts of the community, not by prioritizing them based on who will scream the loudest for inclusion. This ratings based system in fact has little to do with the writers, and a lot to do with editors.
In any case, many newspapers already have a rating system. They have the most read, most emailed, most blogged, most linked. This does add value beyond that traditionally added by editors. If one does not like the elite, then go and read something like People, whose content is determined by the celebrity people would most like to screw.
"She's a scientist and a lesbian. She's not going to let it slide." Orphan Black
anyone can copy CNN's top stories!
On the serious side, you should have seen the number of pages devoted in the AJC to some RAP star's problems with the law and handguns. You would have sworn he was the most important person in the country.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
With so many comments already posted, I doubt this will see the light of day, but in the hopes someone will read it:
I read Daring Fireball pretty regularly and its author has stated he doesn't want comments on his site because he feels it distracts from his own articles.
When I read a newspaper article, I am looking for a reporter's writing. While there is a lot wrong with journalism today, reading the comments on any newspaper website is like mucking through the dregs of human society. The anonymous nature of the Internet allows (and seemingly even encourages) people to post stupid comments. It's not worth reading and on newspaper sites, I don't.
I'm glad and I wish more sites and blogs would forgo comments and concentrate and getting new content out. When I read the BBC news or the New York Times I'm not interested in what Joe Schmo thinks, especially if it's going to be some poorly spelled, angry, outburst.
Slashdot is different in that the moderation system helps filter out the noise and no one in their right mind would come here to read the articles.
"There is no time, sir, at which ties do not matter," Jeeves, (Jeeves and the Impending Doom)
Problem is.... parent is correct (bad form not withstanding). OP is pure over-generalized rhetorical spewage.
You are where you are at the time you are there.
I think the problem most reporters have is that they have a big struggle to get their editors to let them cover almost *anything* beyond a 3 column inch piece about something on the police blotter. The idea of adding yet another layer of `approval' to any story they're interested in doing real work on is enough to make them want to shoot themselves. ``I'm sorry Jane, the plebs have voted down your investigative report on the financial links between city council members and that corporation currently seeking exemption from planning processes - you'll need to toss the last two months work you've been doing on it. They voted up more stories about Britney.''
In other words, your application for enrollment in journalism school was rejected.
"Science does not emerge from party politics or public debate" - the same is true of good journalism. Journalism, like academia, has a long tradition of having its own standards and practices. These traditions have served society well when they have been allowed to operate - the values taught in journalism schools lead to better news than those that would emerge from the crowd, just as peer review, the scientific method, and other academic traditions lead to better science.
You may take joy in being one of the populist barbarians raging against all structure and virtue, but don't expect all of us to join your foolish crusade as well.
For every problem, there is at least one solution that is simple, neat, and wrong.
everyone knows that "fair and balanced" means balancing out the other side.
You know, that is the first time anyone has ever explained that phrase to me in a way that made sense. Taken from that vantage point, FOX News actually is healthily supporting balance by being a counterpart to other networks.
The problem is that your suggested context is not what FOX claims to be. Remember their other tagline, "We report. You decide?" That strongly implies impartiality on their part, which, come on - nobody can claim with a straight face. FOX is so blatant in their bias that they are generally held up as the exemplars of modern yellow journalism.
I agree with you that broadcast and newspaper journalism organizations held a palpable liberal bias for many years. Offering a counterpoint to that is fine. But what FOX does is so over the top that I think you should only watch it - hey, the same goes for MSNBC for the most part - if you don't like hearing anything that might disagree with your preconceived notions. Bully for you if you like your "news" filtered in advance to agree with you ... I just don't think it does much to stretch your worldview or improve your ability to see multiple sides of an issue. That's why I try to stay away from TV and radio news in general.
"95% of all Slashdot
I wish news organizations were failing because the most important issues to cover were covered so poorly. How many news agencies collaborated with the US government to sell us lies about the invasion and occupation of Iraq? We saw the multi-page spread mea culpa for Jayson Blair's lies but how about the far more important lies from the front pages of The New York Times by Judith Miller (included planted stories referenced by Vice President Cheney on the Sunday morning talk shows: "There's a story in The New York Times this morning [...] and I want to attribute The Times" he said).
John Nichols reminds us "It is important to remember that, at the same time The New York Times, The Washington Post and television network news programs were cheerleading the country toward war, European print and broadcast outlets were questioning President Bush's outrageous exaggerations and outright lies.". There was and is massive failure on the part of American establishment news organizations to properly report on the most important thing a government can do—go to war. Instead of challenging the powers that be, which is a journalist's job, journalists were lining up to become "embedded" with the government and thus never got around to questioning the case for war (remember Col. Powell's lies to the UN? Remember how many news programs said that that was a "slam dunk" case for war with Iraq? A lot of them did. Too bad so few of them could muster the intellectual courage to remind us of Powell's recent lies when Powell endorsed Obama for US President).
Basic journalistic principles are left out as media consolidates. "The Market" apparently isn't doing a good job making sure the investigative journalists are finding outlets to be heard and paid for their critical muckraking. We need independent audience-funded journalism now more than ever.
Digital Citizen
I think the journalists are underestimating the intelligence of the readers. To avoid the no-nothings for the most part, all they need to do is to count the readers who want a story and discount the readers who do not want a story. Just pick the stories who have the votes for them. You'll get a lot of nonsense, but that happens anyways.
"Stupidity" is not contained by racial lines. The investment brokers needed a "new product" to market and sell because the new products give the highest and quickest returns... usually because people don't know what they are getting into yet. (That's why the dot-com bubble occurred.) They got lending rules relaxed even more than Clinton did and suddenly people who weren't qualified could buy things they couldn't afford. Smart people never buy things they can't afford. Stupid people do it all the time. They get stuck in credit card debit because they buy things they can't afford. Seen white people do it. Seen black people do it. Seen hispanic people do it... almost never see asian people do it but it's possible.
Now if you want to talk about stupid things that mostly black people do, well then you can talk about buying a $3000 car and spending another $10000 on wheels. (I'm sure other people do it too, but where I live, when you see it, it's almost ALWAYS a black driver and for the life of me, I cannot understand what motivates people to do that. And at the same time, there are LOTS of black people in my area that live within their means and are smart enough not to call attention to themselves when they are driving! [hint: police like to pull over black people! sad but it's true!])
But stupid? The people who are supposed to KNOW all about money sold houses to people who can't afford it and rolled them into "securities" and called them safe. I'll bet most of those people were white. And either they are stupid as hell or they are criminals or both.
Correction, "money TODAY wins".
Any business that relies on 'Sales' making business decisions about other departments is one of the first signs the business is starting to fail.
But this is Chicago. Everybody knows that we don't operate by the same rules as everyone else. How else can you explain Blagojevich and Obama?
"It's the height of ridiculousness to say for those 9 lines you get hundreds of millions."
Have you ever considered that news reporting by nature is a 'liberal' profession. i.e. that ideally they are supposed to report the facts without spin and not concern themselves with national security or actively trying to support a political ideology to 'balance' things. The fact that liberal views happen to fall in line with the views of reporting in general isn't politics it's the nature of the profession.
"Reality has a well known liberal bias." -- Stephen Colbert
I'm not a populist and wouldn't necessarily want community standards censoring publication.
The internet is the thing anyway by now. Just make sure there is a blog specifically designated as the "Wall of Shame" where readers can ridicule the stupidest, laziest, and fluffiest work. Not just the usual comments to editorial essays. All stories, as in, "Oh, Geez. The thousand-and-first story on the perfect cherry pie. Nothing important happened in the world today?"
Newspapers all around the world have a long tradition of bringing the powerful to account, very often when the rule of law doesn't.
No question that there are plenty of newspapers whose only reason to exist is to make money, but saying that all newspapers are like that is showing monumental ignorance and intellectual laziness.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Being preempted by Britney is a bitch in any world but what makes you think that preemption doesn't happen in the standard way because that is what sells? Fluff will always trump substance and is far safer / cheaper to produce. You don't piss off local advertisers (the real ones paying for the paper) that way.
This is a sig. This is only a sig. Had this been an actual sig you would have been informed where to tune for more sigs.
If they are selling ad space, then why don't they stop publishing anything at all and sell a publication with ads only?
The newspaper lives and dies by its content, no content, no readers, no readers, no sales and no ads.
Newspapers should look for a business model that takes them back to their original roots: people paying for opinion. When they gave so much prominence to advertisement as the main tool for their survival they moved into the territory of marketing people and all kind of varied snake oil peddlers.
In spite of everything, a content free newspaper can't sell anything.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Fox.
When they were challenged for truth in reporting, they dismissed it as entertainment that didn't need fact checking.
It's not dissent as much as it's a far right-wing pulpit with token elements of opposition. Never mind that they frequently harass Turner & Cox as if Atlanta was made of evil.
No, I don't work for either of them. I just know that CNN isn't the only one who crosses the line of journalistic integrity.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
They try to hide a slant and call it "fair reporting".
Bias fail on your part.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
Fox is NOT the only one takings sides. At least with Fox, if a politician is caught in a bathroom with someone, the word "Democrat" or "Republican" is used in the first sentence. All the other major TV and Newspaper outlets will feature the word "Republican" in the first paragraph but will not use the word "Democrat" till the 4th or 5th paragraph
God, so many right wingers have a delusional persecution complex, making up these false generalizations which are just BS you pulled out of your ass. Care to back up this claim with facts?
This ad space for rent.
The comments section might attract those types in a newspaper, but it's a different type at blogs.
For an issue such as what Daringfireball discusses, he's demonstrating that he can't take the heat.
If somewhere drops comments that I've been at, I no longer read them, and consider their opinions on other sites a couple notches above spam.
Twitter supports and protects racists - by smearing their critics with the "Hate Speech" label.
GuloGulo2, why don't you tell us why you think having readers vote on whether or not a story gets published is a good idea?
And learn to use blockquotes and write complete sentences, please, before you ever reply to one of my comments again.
Deal?
You are welcome on my lawn.
"...but they ought to be smart enough to take the feedback and do something with it."
The editors don't need this kind of feedback. They've had feedback for years. It's called Letters to the Editor.
http://www.rootstrikers.org/
Therefore whether journalists are elitists is not the issue.
Yes, it most certainly damn well is an issue if not *the* issue.
When you ask a lovely little college grad girl why she wants to be in Journalism, and her response is "to change the world for the better"... Sir, that should scare the hell out of you!!! A journalists job is to be the recorder and presenter of information; not to reshape policy and culture in their own image.
Life is not for the lazy.
No, it's just the same thing. You hype what you think someone wants hyped. This is just a more direct method of figuring out WHAT to hype.
I agree with you that broadcast and newspaper journalism organizations held a palpable liberal bias for many years.
If by "liberal", you mean pro-corporate, well then you're quite right.
And people wonder why the newspaper business is dying? The editorial board is trying to find a way they can HELP increase circulation by vetting stories to people who actually SUBSCRIBE. They want to determine how they should slant the news. The Trib is leftist, liberal paper and supporter of Obama and the Democrats. They can't survive though with that editorial slant and they know it. Circulation and Advertising Revenue is down. SOOOOOOO. They're trying to find how they can please their readers and stay in business. The reporters can keep their integrity or their paychecks. They have a choice.