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Postmortem for a Dead Newspaper
Techdirt points out a great postmortem for the Rocky Mountain News, a newspaper that ended up shutting down because they couldn't adapt to a world beyond print. While long, the talk (in both video and print) is incredibly candid coming from someone who lived through it and shares at least some portion of the blame. "It seems like pretty much everything was based on looking backwards, not forward. There was little effort to figure out how to better enable a community, or any recognition that the community of people who read the paper were the organizations true main asset. ... The same game is playing out not just in newspapers, but in a number of other businesses as well. Like the Rocky Mountain News, those businesses are looking backwards and defining themselves on the wrong terms, while newer startups don't have such legacy issues to deal with."
Can't we link to the original source in the article summary? http://www.johntemple.net/2009/09/lessons-from-rocky-mountain-news-text.html
That RMN and Denver Post were essentially owned by the same parent company. Wasn't really a loss, given that neither paper has been particularly good for quite a while now.
Why on earth is this a link to a tiny summary of the actual article?
Here's the article http://www.johntemple.net/2009/09/lessons-from-rocky-mountain-news-text.html
Techdirt doesn't deserve the ad revenue for such pathetic summary spam
Do you know why people are moving away from traditional media? Because it acts like it's better than we are. Blogging has become popular because it's there in plain english, the way we look at things -- and it's accessible and free. I can share it with my friends instantly -- unlike a newspaper which is physical and takes time. With the digital age, all of my friends are only a few feet away from me most of the time. Cell phones and laptops are like spiders -- there's always one within a few feet of you.
Traditional media has forgotten that the most important asset they have is trust -- and accessibility. There is still just as much need today to know what's going on in the world now as there was fourty years ago. But most media is awash in a crapflood of advertisements and profit-oriented behavior, which when people see they reflexively numb their senses. Seriously -- hold a normal conversation with someone and in the middle of it toss off a marketing slogan. If they don't strangle you, did you notice they're about half as smart as they were a second ago? They recover, but the momentum in the conversation is now gone. We don't trust traditional media (GenX and GenY) because it's full of crap and irrelevant to our daily lives -- so we blog and we talk to our friends, and they filter stories they find relevant back to us.
I have friends on facebook that post links of personal interest to their feeds so the rest of us can see and comment on it, and this is the foundation of the new media -- peer relationships. Journalism needs to mesh with this, and the journalists themselves need to get out there and put their reputation on the line in a public and accessible way. I want to 'friend' journalists I like and trust on facebook and then see their stories -- separate from these stupid constricting media websites and the constant crap-flood of advertisements that go with them.
Okay, but how do the journalists get paid? I mean, it costs them time to do the job, right? I don't have all the answers there, because it's not my industry, but I know that having a hundred friends that listen to me about anything related to computers is worth something. And a lot of people here on slashdot are in the same boat.
#fuckbeta #iamslashdot #dicemustdie
They just don't kill trees to put out their paper, sacrificing electrons instead.
*sniff* that's TERRIBLE! *sob* Poor little electrons...
Free Martian Whores!
There are a handful of leader-types.
- The conservative (like this guy). He understands his company's strengths only as a function of what it currently is. He can fortify the company's business in good times.
- The forward-thinker (like *gack* Larry Ellison). He understands not only his own company's strengths in regard to what it is, but also in regards to the changing environment. He can take action to position the company well for the future.
- The visionary (like Steve Jobs or Sergey Brin). He understands both his company and the changing environment and can perceive the changes within the changing environment. He is able to not only strengthen the core competences of his company but drive new business and create new markets.
- The idiot (like Woz (sorry)). They grab on to anything that looks like a good idea and drive it forward without care for business, competition, longevity.
What happens is that every once in a while the idiot will strike it big (Jeff Bezos). Most of the time, these guys go out of business. On the other hand, the conservative leaders will do what they can and most of the time it pays off. Markets really don't change very much, and there will always be winners and losers. All they need to do is try to stay on the winning side as much as possible.
But RMN stuck to what it knew and failed. This is what happens in business. But to look back now and to analyze the failure is a lot of Monday morning quarterbacking. Of course it's easy to see all the trends after they've passed. It's easy to see where mistakes were made and how easily it probably could have been to avoid them. But at the time it would have been much more difficult to make the same judgment call.
It was a failure of management to fail to adapt to the changing business environment, but not every leader is going to be a forward thinker and even fewer will be visionaries. You can academically analyze these business cases from now to eternity, but unless you're actually in the leadership chair at the moment of crisis, you'll never know whether you would make the right choice.
Most print newspapers have journalist with a very liberal slant, and people don't want that anymore, witness the success of Fox News and online bloggers.
Leaving aside the absurdity of the "liberal media" mantra in general ... the Rocky Mountain News was known as Denver's conservative newspaper. And the more they tried to chase the Fox News crowd, the more their fortunes declined. Take that FWIW.
The correlation between ignorance of statistics and using "correlation is not causation" as an argument is close to 1.
Honestly, I disagree with most of these reasons.
Most of the news on a 24 hour news cycle is old, too. The same stories get endlessly rehashed. Despite the fact that there's more frequent updates and coverage, there's usually not even enough NEWS to fill a 24 hour news cycle. Watch any cable news network for more than an hour and you're liable to hear the same stuff over and over again.
The point about liberal slants may be true for the editorial sections of a few specific, national newspapers, but most small-town newspapers - the ones that are really suffering - are and have always been fairly conservative, particularly in more rural and conservative areas. Admittedly, this may not be the case with the Rocky Mountain News (I'm not familiar enough with it specifically to comment). But for most local newspapers, the people doing the reporting are just that: local, not so-called "mainstream media elite" from the big city, or what-have-you.
The reason newspapers are failing is because advertising revenue has fallen in print media, while the price of advertising online is simply too low to sustain the sort of large organizations traditional newspapers have required. That's it. It's not people defecting from dying traditional media to seek the new golden horizon of genius online reporting or sad dinosaurs who can't keep up with the new times, it is a business issue and little else. It's also the fact that the internet is inherently an international medium, and people want national and international news online. And there's simply no way the Bupkisville Free Chronicler can compete with the NY Times, WaPo, and The Times of London on that front.
We're in a unique part of history where there is a huge upheaval in technology - mostly centered around computing. Newspapers are biting the dust, film cameras are biting the dust - digital cameras are basically computers with lenses; new weapons are being developed and I'm sure in my lifetime, guns that use gun powder and bullets will not be used by modern militaries; music playing and purchases is changing dramatically; and there's more. Sure, many of those old technologies will probably stay around, but they won't be mainstream: they'll be something that hobbiests use. There will be a few folks who still use film cameras and there will be a few niche camera producers that will still make the camera, film and supplies. There will still be gun makers for those that still or have to keep using gun powder - or the government will outlaw the new weapons for civilian use. And there may be some traditional newspapers around here and there. But the thing is, things are changing at a fast pace now and eventually will slow down. If you look at progress throughout history there are times where their are huge leaps and changes and then things fo back to a baseline of progress. Some past examples: the Industrial Revolution and the Renaissance,
It's NOT me! It's the meds! I'm on 1000mg of Fukitol.
3. Most print newspapers have journalist with a very liberal slant, and people don't want that anymore, witness the success of Fox News and online bloggers.
Actually, I'd argue just the opposite. The success of Fox News from a large number of viewers who watch nothing else speaks more to the fact that people will go out of their way and become loyal consumers of "news" that has a distinct slant that confirms the viewers' already conceived ideals. People like news that doesn't give them facts so much as comfortable facts. People like Websites where they can talk to people who don't challenge their ideas and don't make them put in any effort to determine the truth.
Fox News is the epitome of this and is far more focuses on entertainment than journalistic integrity. Heck, they went to court and argued they have no legal obligation to not fire people for refusing to lie on TV and for refusing to kill a story about a health danger to the public. They're legally right too, they have no obligation not to lie to their viewers, but any organization that makes that argument in court is not "news" any more than a Frootloops commercial is. That's not to say some programs on the network don't have some integrity, of course, but the corporation does not.
At one time I thought the internet might open up the world. People would be able to hear views from around the world and directly communicate with those people inexpensively. People could thus gain a wider perspective and understanding. In truth, human nature is such that it has allowed us to self segregate more. People don't even have to talk to so diverse a range of people as live in their neighborhood because they can find an online forum that fits exactly with their beliefs and preconceived ideas and spend all their time talking to people without the discomfort of disagreement. It's much easier to complain about one's favorite villainized segment of our society when one does not actually have to hear them and can just attack strawman arguments one poses on their behalf. There are forums for people who thing the earth is flat or is literally 6000 years old and the people there can safely discuss their nonsense knowing the moderators will ban and remove posts from anyone who challenges it with facts or controversy. People don't want unbiased opinion and Fox is another example of the consumer getting what they want and not what they might need.
I read TFA (more specifically the speech transcript) and I don't believe that the Rocky Mountain News would have been much better off even if they did everything right. There aren't any city-specific news web sites out there that are making anything like the kind of money that newspapers made in their heyday. Like the buggy whips, the telegraph industry, and home coal delivery the business is gone and the new industry that is replacing it is too far removed for a transition to be possible.
Dead-tree newspapers are dying for one simple reason: All the news anyone could ever want is available for free on the internet. Just a Google search away. The whole idea that a newspaper can survive by catering to the "community" (either in real-life or online) is stupid. It's something to make the investors/owners feel better as their doom inevitably approaches.
I've thought about it a lot, and I don't think there is any workable "defense" against free news sites. The newspapers are all going to die, or at the very least, shrink radically. Even if they start really producing some great, exclusive content, it isn't going to help for long, and it isn't going to help them regain their fortunes.
The news world has changed.
No it is true. But they are not Liberal because they are trying to push their views (much like how Fox news does) But they are Liberal as it is easier to report good news.
In very raw terms. Liberals want to change things. Conservatives dont.
So Liberals make news (As they feel this problem needs to be addressed) and conservatives are trying to stop such actions (As the solution of the problem will do more harm then good).
So the news ends up first by targeting the Liberal as they are doing something that is new and news worthy. Then they get the conservatives on the defensive. So in the process of making the news There is a lot of time and effort toward the new idea. And just a little bit explaining the old view.
What that does is creates news where the Liberal Slant always gets more attention then the conservative.
If something is so important that you feel the need to post it on the internet... It probably isn't that important.
Marketing 101:
Define your company based on the needs of your customers that you are satisfying, not on what you do.
Sorry, this is the first day of first year marketing. If you don't know this, you deserve to go out of business.
Is this problem with traditional newspaper a US-only phenomenon? I heard yesterday of a recent study of newspapers in Canada which actually showed growth in their industry. What do others see in their country?
So why do these edited sources keep making factual mistakes, write misleading stories, bury stories that do not suit their political line etc?
Read Reuters for neutral factual coverage and blogs for opinion and analysis. That said I do read a few newspapers and the BBC online.
There might be some fact checking then
But probably won't be. Almost every news story I've been involved with -- either directly, by knowing some of the people involved, or by understanding the technology or science they're reporting on -- has been sensationalist garbage which bears little resemblance to the facts.
I find far more facts and better analysis of them on blogs than in mainstream media.
Blogging tends to be more like newspaper columns where assume a certain bias and literary style in whom you chode to read.
Sorry, but if you think that newspapers are unbiased, I have a bridge you might like to buy.
3. Most print newspapers have journalist with a very liberal slant, and people don't want that anymore, witness the success of Fox News and online bloggers.
That's a myth concocted by the right to explain why they don't win every election even though they claim they represent a majority of Americans.
Yep. It's a self-serving myth that's been pretty thoroughly debunked.
(And, correspondingly, the far left claims that the news has a significant conservative bias. Both are very self-serving myths for the fringe, since they justifies their telling people to ignore the news, and only listen to their carefully shaped and trimmed news, without those inconvenient facts that might disturb the ideology.)
In fact, the actual data shows that newspapers almost always turn out to be very well matched in political slant to their readers. (As should be obvious, since if they weren't, they'd lose readers even faster than they now do.)
Many of the large newspapers that people point to in the US stem from big cities, which have multiple newspapers-- for the most part, these newspapers split the political spectrum, with one newspaper favored by the more conservative readers, and the other favored by the more liberal (e.g., the Boston Globe and the Boston Herald).
http://www.geoffreylandis.com
That is true for both the time your paying for and the money you are asked to pay.
A blog dashed off in a few minutes (or hours), will never compare to the in-depth reporting that most newspapers still actually deliver. For that I'm willing to pay (and do).
If newspapers ever died, they would drag all the other mediums that have news down with it... most tv/cable/radio/internet copy I've ever seen is lifted from an old dead tree newspaper.
Not to mention - some of us LIKE real news. You know, stuff that isn't about sports, or celebrities, or the horoscope, or the comics, or crap like that. The only hard news you get out of blog posts are just glorified wire reports - sure I can find out about big events like an earthquake, but where am I going to find out about corruption in China? Or inflation in Zimbabwe? Stuff that is ongoing, slow, and less sexy - that require coverage over years. Cable news gave up stories like that a long time ago - all that's left for that in the US is PBS, NPR, and the big print (NY Times, WSJ, etc).
Interestingly - I have noticed that some print media is doing well (at least round me), the hyper-local weeklies that cover individual towns and villages in my area (as opposed to the area at large). Another area completely un-served by the web.
People don't even have to talk to so diverse a range of people as live in their neighborhood because they can find an online forum that fits exactly with their beliefs and preconceived ideas and spend all their time talking to people without the discomfort of disagreement.
Then explain slashdot -- MS vs Apple, the RIAA apologists you see here in any story about copyright, vi vs Emacs, US vs UK, people for the drug laws vs people with a clue, etc.
In this community, at least, you have VERY diverse opinions, arguments, areas of expertise, ages (hell, I'm 57 and there are older guys than me here as well as teenagers). There are even a few girls here, believe it or not!
Free Martian Whores!
Take any daily paper, from any city in the U.S. and measure how many column inches are actual news articles.... now subtract the number of inches that are from A.P. or direct pulls/quotes from other news papers, blogs or web sites, leaving only the news actually written reporters employed at that paper. Is that number greater then zero? If not - enough said, but if it IS some real content, do the same thing from the same newspaper, but from an edition from 10 years ago....then 10 years prior to that...notice a trend?
The self righteous sanctimony and distain you have of what is CLEARLY more people than ABC/NBC/CBS and probably CNN combined is interesting.
This is called "argumentum ad populum" and has been recognized as a logically fallacious argument for thousands of years.
I'd love to compare the literacy of say those that watch what is on those channels to that of what is on Fox News.
You want to compare the literacy rate of "those who watch what is on those channels" with "what is on Fox News". Maybe you should work on your own literacy a bit, because that doesn't even make sense. Assuming you meant that you want to compare the literacy rates of viewers of Fox New with the literacy rate of viewers of other news programs, I don't think you'll find the results flattering to Fox. I assume you can agree there is probably a strong positive correlation between those that vote republican and those that watch Fox? Because there is a moderately significant correlation between people who no not pass high school and who vote Republican. That is not conclusive of course, but it does suggest just the opposite correlation you seem to imply.
The problem with people such as yourself, you can't imagine anyone having an opinion that is different than you...
Gee what a compelling argument... that is compellingly pointless and from someone who doesn't know me. I don't have any problem with people who have other opinions, I just also recognize not all other opinions are logical or even reasonable. This isn't grade school and everyone isn't equally right. You have to form opinions rationally and defend them logically and show your work, or you are simply wrong.
...you end up saying that they are ignorant(and racist, and sexist ....)
And this is the ever popular strawman argument. You'll note that you say that I will say people are sexist and racist, when I said no such thing.
I'm not going to read through all of your long and rambling nonsense. Given your writing so far, I don't think you have much of a grasp on the concepts or logic or reason or rhetoric or at least no formal education since you seem to be ignoring all the rules needed for a rational and civil discussion. If you have a problem with what I have written or want to discuss, then by all means, reply to my previous post again. But this time, actually address the specific points I made with specific and reasoned rebuttal. I'll be happy to address a reply in that format. For now, however, I'm writing you off as a nutjob and not bothering to finish reading your nonsense.
I think a fair amount of the media bias is really an urban bias.
Most major news networks are based in and around large cities. Most major news stories reported on come from those cities, and most viewers and reporters are from those cities.
However, it's still largely a national media. The people in rural Ohio watch the same national news broadcast as do the people in Manhattan.
Some issues of right or left, this isn't a big deal. Others it is - just as an example, a reporter from New York City or DC (where guns are almost completely banned for personal, law-abiding use, and no one grows up hunting) is going to have a very different perspective, regardless of any intended bias, from someone who lives were hunting and target shooting are a large part of their life, and that's going to show up when they cover a gun control related issue or a shooting.
You can call it a left versus right bias, but I think that implies consistency on more issues than what you actually see. There are conservatives living in urban areas - but their conservatism is likely to be of a very different kind than those living in small towns. News programs are speaking to a national audience, but they still can only really know a local culture, no matter how many different polls they take. Even if someone is trying to be neutral, his viewpoint of what is "normal" is going to affect which viewpoints he feels he needs to be neutral toward.
What evidence do you have besides that you don't like Fox that people only watch that confirms their presuppositions? Do you watch Fox? Have you ever agreed with Fox on anything?
My hypothesis was that people watch news shows and read news blogs because those shows confirm their presuppositions and challenge them less with facts that contradict their world view. I further hypothesized that Fox was the forefront of this movement. My support for this was the well documented trend of Fox News viewers to not watch any other news channel, when compared to those who view other stations which were shown to be more willing to consume news from multiple sources (not necessarily on the same issue).
I don't watch Fox News (although I did in the past) but then I don't really watch news on TV at all. I mostly prefer to read my news, primarily via internet outlets and aggregation sites like news.google.com. As to whether I agree with Fox on anything, if it comes to that, it isn't news. News is supposed to be presenting facts, not opinions and I'm sure some of the facts Fox presents are, well, factual. I am not willing to trust that however, given their track record. In my mind they lost any benefit of the doubt I would give to a normal news program or agency when they pissed on journalistic integrity in their court case.
The Internet is exposing people to other views because news sites, like /., are not pushing political views -- just their readers.
I don't think I follow you. How is that exposing people to other views? And what makes you think the average person goes to sites like Slashdot instead of special interest sites. My brother might be a good example of an average guy. The websites he visits and gets news from are devoted to AR-15 ownership, Kawasaki motorcycle ownership, and kayaking. The majority of the news he reads comes as articles posted in one of these three forums, with the vast majority being from the first one. He has pretty well self selected himself into getting a very narrow selection of news because of that, and I should think that is actually the norm.
Which, seems to be a trend considering that quasi-non partisan sites are more popular than the traditional ones.
I don't know what you mean in your terminology. What's a quasi-non partisan site? Do you have an example or two?
Furthermore, I don't think there's anything wrong with going to places that you agree with because you believe their[sic] right, not because you're sheltering yourself from opposing views.
We're not arguing the morality of what people are doing here. I was just discussing what I see the trends to be and how I think that has negative results. People tend towards internet sites that provide filtered news with a predetermined slant already injected. I see that as limiting and divisive and simply partitioning our society into smaller groups with less exposure to diverse views and facts that people in their small societal subset tend not to be exposed to.
I'm not trying to argue partisan politics here either. I think the Democratic and Republican parties are both very wrong about half the time. There isn't even a third party that lines up well with my values and understanding of the world. When I'm on Google news and I see five different papers have an article on something, I click on the BBC first, because they don't provide much opinion in their news and tend to do a professional job with the facts (and because their take on US news tends to be a bit less slanted). Fox isn't on my shitlist because of what their political affiliations are any more than say NBC. They are there because they have such strong political affiliations which does not make for credible news. They are leading the charge towards slanted partisan news and they have rejected of any sort of journalistic integrity. If tomorrow NBC were in court arguing they had a legal right to lie to their v
Someone already pointed out that this is an argumentum ad populum type of logical fallacy and so I will skip right to this:
If by "literacy" you mean "knowledge about the current affairs", then ask and you shall receive.
From there: the 2nd least informed and most confused (about basic geographic, geopolitical and other everyday facts) class of viewers: Fox News Viewers. Beaten only by the Network Morning Shows, of the "How to make Cookies with Martha Stewart and 3 other bimbo celebrities" variety, firmly holding the rather dubious honour of being the dumbest audience ever.
Conversely, most informed audience: The Daily Show with Jon Stewart. Oops.
Somehow I do not think this is what you were looking for.
And the rest of the drivel you posted goes down hill from here, to the point that it is not even worth responding to.
This isn't grade school and everyone isn't equally right. You have to form opinions rationally and defend them logically and show your work, or you are simply wrong.
You've just proven the point you were trying to deny. They aren't "different", they are "simply wrong". And you're the one holding the red pen grading other people's opinions, so you get to decide if what you don't believe could be "logical" or "rational". No possible bias there.
There isn't bias in deciding what is logical and rational because it is a formalized method. I have no problem with people who have different opinions than I do and people with access to different facts or who have a fundamental difference of value can reasonably and rationally disagree. The rhetorical method of discussion is how people discuss and issue to do one of three things:
You see, some people simply are wrong in their opinions, wrong as in incorrect not wrong as in immoral (as that is subjective). I am happy to acknowledge the opinions of others as just as valid as mine, but I expect the same rigor in discussion that I present. If people aren't forming their opinions according to a logical process then they have no basis for presenting an argument to others and should not bother to try.
I saw a poll the other day. Don't remember where. Maybe here. 70% of people now believe that the mainstream media have a bias.
Everyone has bias. It's inherent in our nature. That's why we develop formal processes to limit the effect it has on our formal communication with others. The news is supposed to be using journalistic methods and reporting facts, not their opinion of facts. I postulated that this is becoming less and less the case because the public prefers bias. They prefer to be given not just facts, but a comfortable opinion as to how they should interpret those facts.
For now, however, I'm writing you off as a nutjob ...
Yes, he must be "simply wrong", and if you can't prove it logically and rationally, you'll write him off as a nutjob.
In the opening lines of his rant he committed several logical fallacies. That is incorrect, but moreover, he was not addressing the points I made in his writing, and that's not even an argument, it's some guy going off on a rant without addressing the statements that led him to go off on a rant.
So yes, he is simply wrong in that he argued that because most people believe something it must be true. He is simply wrong in that he attacked what he claims I was going to accuse him of in the future. He was wrong in that his writing did not address what I wrote and was thus not relevant. He was not wrong in that he did not bother to educate himself well enough to form a rational opinion and present it, but he was deficient and I don't see a lot of point in presenting reason to people who don't understand it or reading a lengthy rant obviously written by someone who is irrational. But I did not refuse to have a discussion with him, I just presented reasonable boundaries if he wants to have a civilized discussion and asked him to adhere to them.
That, and lack of knowledge about various "trivialities", like science etc, is the sure-fire path to mind-boggling religious woo-woos, assorted New-Age hokum, and sooner or later to "spiritual" stock market Ponzi schemes.
Which is truly great if one needs one's transmission overhauled. Of course when one is interested in what Chavez is up to ... then not so much. Which is precisely the point. People who care about their transmissions far more than about the geo-political goings-on, should not then act surprised and violently upset when their opinions on the global affairs are summarily put into the "laughable nonsense" file.
You see, what you are trying to do here is the classic case of "have your cake and eat it too". Either you are willing to invest the time and effort to get informed, at which point you get the chance of your opinion having some probability of being correct, or you are pretty much guaranteed to be wrong and thus justly treated like the ignorant hillbilly you seem when you try, loudly, very very loudly, to enforce your "view" on those who actually spent time trying to learn the stuff. A fact which most anti-intellectuals refuse to accept (which is why they are anti-intellectuals and why they watch Fox). Which, incidentally, was historically always quite popular at times, the "an-angry-and-menacing-mob-is-always-right" (particularly when confronting wimpy "intellectuals", "professors", "scientists" and the like) branch of philosophical approach to scientific debate never quite having gone out of style.
To put it in the terms you mentioned, it is like having some salesman show up and demand that you take his advice as to the exact procedure of removal of that hypothetical transmission, despite having never seen one up close, never you mind knowing how one works. But he claims that he doesn't need to know so because he has far more respect for people who know how to calculate compound interest lease payments in their head, than some "trivial" "transmission repair" knowledge.
You see, he goes for the Mammon "spirituality" view of the world, where Everything Is A Sale (sadly I am not kidding, I personally knew a salesman who actually believed that life was one gigantic, never-ending series of Sales).