Slashdot Mirror
Pay-Per-View Journalism Is Burning Out Reporters Young
Hugh Pickens writes "Young journalists once dreamed of trotting the globe in pursuit of a story, but the NY Times now reports that instead many are working online shackled to their computers, where they try to eke out a fresh thought or be first to report even the smallest nugget of news — anything that will impress Google's algorithms and draw readers their way. The New York Times, The Washington Post, and The Los Angeles Times all display a 'most viewed' list on their home pages; some media outlets, including Bloomberg News and Gawker Media, now pay writers based in part on how many readers click on their articles. 'At a [traditional] paper, your only real stress point is in the evening when you're actually sitting there on deadline, trying to file,' says Jim VandeHei, Politico's executive editor. 'Now at any point in the day starting at 5 in the morning, there can be that same level of intensity and pressure to get something out.' The pace has led to substantial turnover in staff at digital news organizations. At Politico, roughly a dozen reporters have left in the first half of the year — a big number for a newsroom that has only about 70 reporters and editors. 'When my students come back to visit, they carry the exhaustion of a person who's been working for a decade, not a couple of years,' says Duy Linh Tu of the Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism. 'I worry about burnout.'"
See subject.
is a credible scenario given the failed exploits of the current DemocRATS. Newt Gingrich upon first impressions is an affable old man. However, it will take only a few minutes to conclude he is a pompous political operator who is only interested in a larger bank account. Morover, his idea of health care reform is to eat responsibility.
This is to voice my dissatisfaction with Newt Gingrich's blandishments. Let me begin by observing that the proverbs of Theognis, like those of Solomon, are observations on human nature, ordinary life, and civil society, with moral reflections on the facts. I quote him as a witness of the fact that I have a New Year's resolution for Gingrich: He should pick up a book before he jumps to the dour conclusion that his philosophies are Holy Writ. Take a good, close look at yourself, Gingrich. What you'll probably find is that you're misguided. One of the ill-tempered remarks we often hear from him is that he is the arbiter of all things. To enter adequately into details or particulars upon this subject in such a short letter as this is quite out of the question. Hence, I will only remark here, in a general way but with all the emphasis of earnestness and truth, that Gingrich was a pestiferous scatterbrain when I first encountered him. Gingrich is a pestiferous scatterbrain now. And there is no more reason for believing that Gingrich will ever cease to be a pestiferous scatterbrain than there is for supposing that censorship could benefit us.
As a dynamic, historical current, antagonism has taken many different forms and has evolved dramatically in a variety of ways. People have commented that there may be a gap in my logic there. I don't think there is, and I've gone to great pains to explain why. One of the enduring effects of Gingrich's crotchets is the way they will institutionalize materialism through systematic violence, distorted religion, and dubious science. It's our responsibility to end Gingrich's control over the minds and souls of countless people. That's the first step in trying to balkanize his pugnacious terrorist organization into an etiolated and sapless agglomeration, and it's the only way to weaken the critical links in his nexus of childish opportunism.
Almost without exception, some day, in the far, far future, Gingrich will realize that there is no possible justification for the argument that obscurity, evasiveness, incomprehensibility, indirectness, and ambiguity are marks of depth and brilliance. This realization will sink in slowly but surely and will be accompanied by a comprehension of how Gingrich has been trying for some time to convince people that diseases can be defeated not through standard medical research but through the creation of a new language, one that does not stigmatize certain groups and behaviors. Don't believe his hype! Gingrich has just been offering that line as a means to cause pain and injury to those who don't deserve it. While there's no use crying over spilled milk, for the nonce, he is content to rule with an iron fist. But sooner than you think, he will lead us into an age of shoddiness—shoddy goods, shoddy services, shoddy morals, and shoddy people.
In public, Gingrich vehemently inveighs against corruption and sin. But when nobody's looking, Gingrich never fails to drain our hope and enthusiasm. I guess that my take on this is that if he can give us all a succinct and infallible argument proving that women are crazed Pavlovian sex-dogs who will salivate at any object even remotely phallic in shape, I will personally deliver his Nobel Prize for Uncouth Rhetoric. In the meantime, there is a simple answer to the question of what to do about Gingrich's "compromises". The difficult part is in implementing the answer. The answer is that we must reinforce the contentions of all reasonable people and confute those of prissy troglodytes. There's a lot of daylight between Gingrich's views and mine. He believes that science is merely a tool invented by the current elite to maintain power while I thi
What Motivates People.
Yeah. There've been some interesting studies on this lately. And I know it's bordering on the realm of pseudoscience. Personally, I'd like to see some more rigorous work done, maybe wider studies, replicate these results, back it up with some hard neuroscience. Seriously. Because it makes a lot of sense - and I'd like to see whether this is just a culturally isolated phenomenon, or if it's all of humanity, or what. I'd like to see it proven. Really really proven. Or debunked.
Because it really turns our whole carrot-stick approach of work-ethic morality upside down.
Frankly. I mean, if it's true, do we (as a civilization. . . humanity), really need money?
I mean - our money, globally, is imaginary now, as it is. We don't even bother to PRINT 99% of it on paper. It's electronic bits. Some of which represent orders of magnitude of individual currency units. And the SICK thing is. . . 99% of us? Will never have a chance in hell of ever owning 99% of this imaginary "property". No matter how hard we work. No matter who we know. No matter how lucky we get.
Yet, we're supposed to be working and slaving away for it?
We're in-debt for it?
We're starving, hating, killing, and warring over it?
We're making decisions that short-change our future, our children, our planet's ability to sustain life. . . over imaginary units of . . . numbers used to measure financial transactions, that are used mostly for. . . what, um. . . the vast majority is basically hoarded.
And the only reason why I can figure out why anyone would want to hoard imaginary bits of currency, is to either just be MEAN, and keep it from everyone else, or just out of the mistaken belief, that they can motivate everyone else to work hard, if they can con everyone into thinking they can get some.
And this stuff isn't even really good for motivating us to do our best work.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc&feature=autofb
. . . apparently.
These are my friends, See how they glisten. See this one shine, how he smiles in the light.
How may comments does a story about "Dell says windows is better for new users that linux", "X is evidence of global warming" or the favorite "Group Y makes up new reason why evolution should be taught as 'just a theory'" ?
People love to come on and talk about how bad things are going, the downfall of this and that, etc.
Compare this to a story about some achievement - the worst are ones about releases of new software and book reviews. Hardly anyone cares. News organizations, same as slashdot, exist primarily to make money, or a least would not exist if they didn't make money. They are just giving people what they want.