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Former WaPo Staffer Rob Pegoraro Talks About Newspapers' Decline (Video)
Newpapers. Remember them? The printout editions of websites like NYTimes.com, WSJ.com, and Rob Pegoraro's former workplace, WashingtonPost.com? Rob still writes for USAToday.com and its printout edition, but as a freelancer, not on staff. He's one of few newspaper layoff victims who has managed to hustle up enough freelance work to make a decent living. He's even on Boing Boing and Discovery.com. Where else? Tiny shots on various TV news programs, and one-off articles here and there. He's a hard-working and prolific guy, and he's had an insider's view of the decline of the newspaper industry and the rise of the online news business. In this interview he talks about both -- and adds a few cautionary notes for Rob Malda, the Slashdot co-founder who is now a Washington Post employee.
People have bought newspapers over the years for many reasons, and thanks to the Internet, almost all of them have dried up. I can get news from any of a hundred or more countries from the comfort of my computer. No longer am I captive to newspapers to tell me how yesterday's stocks did, find a used car, or look up movie and stage showtimes. Meanwhile, local print news outlets have been bought by major news companies and turned into watered down versions of their parent company's product, with a few local fluff pieces.
If there's a niche for print news left in the world, they'd better find it quick. If they don't, someone else will find it and put it on a website.
In SOVIET RUSSIA... erm...NSA AMERICA, the Internet logs onto YOU!
So, it has come to this.
You're a temporary arrangement of matter sliding towards oblivion in a cold, uncaring universe
A transcript would be awesome...
Ironic that you can't actually read Mr. Pegoraro's comments. Sometime in the last five years or so it became easier to videorecord something than it is to write the same something down. Which may have something to do with the decline of newspapers.
why should i pay $$$ to read about stuff that happened a day or two ago? seriously, one time i saw one of the NYC tabloids have a sunday baseball game on the cover of their TUESDAY paper
News is supposed to be about new stuff happening NOW
...now, if only I could figure out which of the 9 randomly linked words in the summary actually points to it.
If Rob Pegoraro is this bad at getting traffic perhaps he should have been fired.
Python coder | PyQt Applications | Writer
There are a few stories where newspapers have comeback, kind of like the local hardware store after a Lowes or Home Depot comes to town, they have to bend their business to fit want the customers want to survive... http://www.couriernews.com/view/full_story/23040254/article--Guru--contends-newspapers-have-future
So many of the papers leaned to the left so far, that many moderates and conservatives said "Forget about it." Amazing that he makes no allusion to that as a possible cause. I have subscribed all these years but am aware of how many lefties staff the newsroom and the editorial boards.
In a nutshell, the lead-up to the Iraq war. This all happened as I was just getting into politics and at the time I was a voracious consumer of news, up to even trying to read legislation (not with much success as I have no legal training). It was blatantly obvious to anyone who followed the news at any beyond a cursory level that we were all being conned into a war and all of the major news outlets were in on the fix. Either they were enabling or simply too afraid to dissent. Even the mighty New York Times had Judith Miller serving as a government mouthpiece.
It seems to be even worse now. I gave up on 60 minutes after watching Lara "look at my tits" Logan do everything short of fellate an Army general in an interview where he was selling unpopular US military strategy.
I swear to God...I swear to God! That is NOT how you treat your human!
Rob was basically the technology editor at the post for over a decade. I occasionally worked with him via phone calls and emails, but he and Mike Musgrove took me to lunch one day at The Madison across the street to talk about how they wanted their ISP database set up. Walking into The Madison for lunch is kind of like walking into The White House, decor-wise, so it was kind of overkill for what we were looking to accomplish, but I was a kid at the time and thought it was the coolest thing ever.
My first thought when I learned Rob had left The Post was, "he just lost one of the shortest, coolest email addresses in the world." Back in the late 90s, I was proud of my @washingtonpost.com email address, but envious of Rob's @twp.com address.
I remember talking to Rob on the phone one day as he was writing his first article about Google. It must have been '98 or '99. We were talking about something else, but he was so excited about Google he kept getting sidetracked and telling me I had to check these guys out. I specifically remember him saying: "These guys are going to rule the world."
Glad he's doing all right in his post-Post life.
The instructor did talk about his job and about others that had been fired from staff at places like the NYT (I think he's the main shooter for food for NYT)....
He said while it was sad to see people lose those jobs, it *did* open new opportunities for the former employees AND for new and younger folks to come in a prove themselves as freelance writers and shooters.
Frankly, I like the idea of freelancing it...yes, you have to do a bit more hustle for jobs, but what's wrong with that?
I've done plenty of 1099 consulting in the past for IT, and I like the freedom and $$ can can be earned that way. You have to stay on top of your game, sure....and have to be more of a people person and network, sure, but what's wrong with developing those traits?
It sure is nice to NOT have to fscking "earn" your vacation hours, or sick leave (when contracting, you figure those into your bill rate, and take off when YOU want to)....and since you wisely incorporate yourself, you get to write off so many things on your taxes, and setting up a nice HSA (not use it or lose it like a FSA) you can sock back a ton of money pre-tax for your routine medical needs....
Sure, it takes a bit more work, but if you're willing to hustle a bit more, it can be extremely rewarding.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Geez. Mr. Pegoraro barely gets a word in here and there. And on top of that the whole interview gets bogged down in uninteresting irrelevant crap about circumventing paywalls and AdBlock. What could have been an interesting interview with Mr. Pegoraro regarding the paper to phosphors transition of the news industry was squandered with Roblimo telling us how cool and smart he is.
I don't often complain about /., but this is the interview quality I'd expect coming from an average high school freshman. Completely not worth your time to watch.
Cyrano de Maniac
Older guy here. I grew up reading the papers including The Washington Post (and the Star before it went under) and locally the Denver paper (the Post?) I currently do pick up the local city paper when I find it.
I do understand that ads drive the business but since the loss of the Classifieds, the papers have inundated us with ads including under the fold and sticker ads on the front page that rip the page when you try to remove it. The ads inside were the worst though. A single column or less of news (mostly from some other paper or the AP, specially selected) and the rest was an ad or two or more. And the middle four pages were completely ads. Even the editorials were mostly from other papers (in the Denver paper).
And the delivered paper would end up under the car or in the bushes or in the puddles assuming it arrived at all. (Honestly that didn't happen all that often but often enough to be noteworthy and annoying).
I changed to a 4 day subscription (Thurs, Fri, Sat, Sun) mostly for the cat box material :) Last year I finally just stopped my subscription. I get regular coupon packages and coupon mailers in the mail and the various grocery stores send me targeted coupons based on my purchases.
[John]
Shit better not happen!
The Idiocracy has won; take a look at what passes for news, it's just junk. Let's see, the standard "Cure for (insert horrible disease) is close at hand!". That's always popular. Or how about "West coast whore and her baby-daddy blah blah blah". And so on.
These "news" organizations have cut their own throats by cutting their staff, killing investigative journalism, and subscribing to the Idiocracy news feeds.
Great example: I always enjoyed reading a Wall Street Journal when I saw one laying around, so I looked into a subscription and see they have an online version. Cool, I thought, a bit pricey but what the hell. So I give it a try, and then start noticing stories about, for example, how so-and-so's new workout routine got her this fabulous bikini-body that will look great in her wedding dress.
Fuck me. Subscription: CANCELLED! The idiots have spoken, and what they demand is idiocy. Count me out.
It's easy to follow the big national and international events with on-line sources. If anything, it's hard not to have them shoved down your throat (I'm almost surprised /. doesn't have an article about the Kate Middleton giving birth to the new heir; there has to be a techy, geek angle somewhere). What isn't so easy to get on-line are the local interest articles that you didn't know you were interested in. Things like the local city council discussing a change to zoning that will allow a Wallmart to be built across the street from where you live and road "improvement" projects that will make your currently pleasant commute into a trip through hell. Also, there is usually lots of coverage of local and state level politics that we probably all should pay a lot more attention to. That sort of thing.
What on-line lacks is the ability to flip through the news pages linearly. Most news sites are arranged in a tree-like structure that allows users to drill down to a specific article on a particular subject if they know what they are looking for. What they don't allow you to do is quickly scan articles looking first at the headline and then at the next couple of lines if the headline is interesting to determine if you want or should keep reading. And who goes looking for what local road projects are planned that will mess with their commute before the "road closed" sign shows up?
Cheers,
Dave
They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither safety nor liberty.
Ben
> Jerkin' Dicks.
There are better alternatives.
I'll see your senator, and I'll raise you two judges.
It sure is nice to NOT have to fscking "earn" your vacation hours, or sick leave (when contracting, you figure those into your bill rate, and take off when YOU want to)
Unfortunately, freelance writers do not typically get to set their own rates in any significant way. You're generally paid by the word, or by the assignment, at a rate predetermined between you and your editor (and your editor holds all the cards). I have never heard of a freelance writer being paid hourly. And when the editorial budget gets squeezed and the rates go down, you always have the option of taking your talents elsewhere -- if you can find somewhere -- or you take what you're offered. In this market, there is seldom any room to negotiate.
Breakfast served all day!
TFA isn't really about the dead-tree edition. He's talking about news-gathering and -publishing in general.
And there's still demand for that, but people have grown to think of that as "free". It continues to exist, paid for by online advertising, paywalls, and the remaining print subscribers. He's talking about the limitations and futures of those things, and what that's going to mean for news-gathering.
NYT surfing is trivial. It just works with Privacy Mode in IE. (Does anyone surf WITHOUT privacy mode anymore?) It also works with AdBlock integration in the MS content filter.
Why do you surf the NYT? If the answer is 'They have content I'm interested in' then I have to ask why you are unwilling to pay to support their writers, servers, bandwidth and everything else?
I subscribe to the newspaper because there is no better place to get in depth political coverage for my state and community. Bloggers don't fill the void. TV news doesn't fill the void. Because it's not "sexy" news. It's just the stuff that is most likely affect me on a day-to-day basis. I'm 28, and I support my local newspaper in order to keep my local politicians honest.
when was the last time a major newspaper or network broke a political scandal that wasn't sex. When was the last time they drove it home? Where were they when the Weapons of Mass Destruction turned out to be a few dud rockets? Where were they when Glass Steagal was gutted? Where are they when voter suppression is a fact of life in most of the Southern United states?
They don't matter anymore because they're wholly owned subsidiaries of corporate America. Why would I care about anything they have to report? Why would I give a rats ass about the Zimmerman trial if I wasn't in that community? Did it need round the clock coverage while a bill is working it's way through the house that would change how immigration works while adding 10 million new workers to an already depressed economy?
Hi! I make Firefox Plug-ins. Check 'em out @ https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/youtube-mp3-podcaster/
When will the publishers agree to a Netflix like model?
Well, maybe not this deep in the thread, where people won't see it. And maybe not this week, when I look to be running in circles on a few stories all due at about the same time. But I'd be happy to do some sort of extended Q&A here.
(I'm not cool enough to do an AMA on Reddit, right? :)