Google's Plan To Save the News Through Reinvention

eldavojohn writes "It's no secret that Google doesn't create content, but rather helps people find it. And Google News is no different. So what does the company plan to do about complaints from the news industry that profits are dropping drastically? In a lengthy and comprehensive article, The Atlantic diagnoses the problem and looks at Google's plan to 'save' the symbiotic organism it is attached to, which older generations have traditionally branded 'the news.' The answer, of course, hinges on moving news from dead tree print to the information age via Google's many projects: Living Stories, Fast Flip, and YouTube Direct. But Google is also exploring the more traditional options of displaying ads and designing a paywall so users can easily migrate back to subscriptions like the newspapers of yore. You may also recall that last week the Internet was abuzz with the idiocy of suggestions the FTC had aggregated from inside the industry. Ars brings mention of other proposed plans, both good and bad, from the FTC's report on ideas that newspaper companies are kicking around."

Comments

Want me to read the news? Even subscribe?

[fyngyrz]

Then let me tell you why the news industry lost me. It wasn't paywalls. It wasn't paper or plastic or bits.

It was:

• Opinion dumping instead of fact reporting outside the editorial bailiwick
• Ridiculous woo-woo "alternate" POVs
• Ultra-light content - there are others besides IQ 90 people out there! Let me remind you of this actual news format: [headline, easily comprehended summary, detailed exposition that actually covers the issue at hand well]
• Web-fail: No or minimal links to relevant data, reporting. It's the LINKS, stupid.
• Absurdly low-resolution images, if there even were images (1024 is quite low these days... you make newsies use decent resolution cameras like the Canon 5DmkII, then you give us these freaking 300...600px thumbnails... thanks for nothing!)
• On the other hand, if a news story doesn't allow comments... how can the public discuss it? You inform. We talk it over. That's the way it's supposed to work.
• "Hover" crippled sites - If I don't click, DON'T raise menus, windows. My mouse moves to get from here to there, not to find out the definition of your "keyword(TM)" somewhere along the way. And contrary to the presumptions of your moron web site designers, we do know how to click our mice when we want something oh-so-sophisticated (like a... menu.)

I would honestly rather read some resourceful person's blog where they have gone to the trouble to find interesting, reasonable resolution images; linked to supporting information for their factual claims; and don't try to put in crazy "alternative" ideas like the idiocy of creationism, scientifically unsubstantiated claims of vaccine/autism, cellphone/cancer, angels, auras, and so on down the line of malarkey, and where I may comment upon the subject matter, provoking others to respond, which in turn often digs up more information, etc.

To watch Fox News is to watch the poster child for the failure of an entire industry. To watch CNN is to listen to Kindergarten level expositions on celebrity hi-jinks when wars are raging. The web sites these companies have created are true lowest-common-denominator designs that are painful to anyone who can think their way out of a paper bag. If you're going to aim your content at only half the country, maybe you should be aiming at the half that can think. Or is that too frightening?

And the news industry wonders why its income has dropped. Sheesh.

PS: Spell check and grammar check too... maybe an intern could do that while you FACT CHECK and EDIT OUT YOUR OPINION!