Slashdot Mirror
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!
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.
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!
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
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