Thinking the Unthinkable
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| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| ColonelPanik Mar 23, 2009 11:51 AM EDT |
Great article. Covers the whole situation perfectly. It is not like the "Clue Train" never stopped in front of the publishing establishments? Clay Shirky, This is someone who is NOT walking backward into the future. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 23, 2009 12:04 PM EDT |
CP, your title got me thinking about Walter Block's "Defending The Undefendable" http://www.mises.org/store/Defending-the-Undefendable-P136C0... Anyway, indeed, the print media have not so much been "slow to adapt", in my opinion, since newspapers were one of the first companies to put their content online. But their advertising model just isn't easily translated into continuing funding. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 23, 2009 12:17 PM EDT |
Pretty soon nobody will need publishers anyway. I've seen printers the size of a normal copier that can print and bind books from a PDF file for about the same cost as a normal book in the store. I'm waiting for someone to do that with newspapers. In all seriousness, what's the big appeal of a newspaper aside from journalism? It's, well, paper. You can take it, sit on the cough and read it. Or you read it at the breakfast table while you eat your sandwiches and drink your coffee. Wouldn't it be great if there was a website where you could create an account, add various RSS feeds or topics and every morning you get your personalised newspaper with yesterdays news and blog posts in the mail, complete with daily Dilbert and UserFriendly if you want. The technology to aggregate news like that exists. The technology to do automated page layout exists. All we need is a cheap A1 or A2 printer :-) With automated, cheap digital and analogue reproduction all you need is content. As the article points out, we need journalists. We also need editors and photographers and the like. We need a business model to feed those people. Preferably a business model that revolves around quality so the people doing the abysmal "tech journalism" of late don't get fed and more on to something else. |
| alc Mar 23, 2009 12:22 PM EDT |
Another article from my local paper.
http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/opinion/orl-edppitts2303... About 2/3 the way down. That's because the industry's decline is not due to ideology but to the fact that it was slow to recognize and react to the threat the Internet represented. So if we die, it will not be at the hands of righteous conservatives, but because we failed to anticipate and strategize. |
| azerthoth Mar 23, 2009 12:29 PM EDT |
WOW ... two true statements in one sentence from a media outlet ... I'm impressed. Although if you read really closely you'll see that they said something totally different than what the actual words they used would lead you to believe. I'll let the diligent figure it out rather than lay down blatant flame bait, as seems to be the norm lately. |
| vainrveenr Mar 23, 2009 12:36 PM EDT |
Quoting:In all seriousness, what's the big appeal of a newspaper aside from journalism? It's, well, paper. You can take it, sit on the cough [couch] and read it. Or you read it at the breakfast table while you eat your sandwiches and drink your coffee.See also the related LXer threads 'The Death of the Newspaper' and 'I grew up in NYC with the New York Times', found respectively at http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/28478/ and http://lxer.com/module/forums/t/28481/ Probably still a good idea to have newspapers around when riding on public transportation, especially under the increasingly-typical crowded circumstances which city-commuters face daily. |
| tuxchick Mar 23, 2009 2:56 PM EDT |
I wonder if print-on-demand would succeed. Lower distribution costs, and it doesn't lock out readers who don't want to have to pay for computers and Internet access. |
| ColonelPanik Mar 23, 2009 4:02 PM EDT |
USA Today? How do they get the paper to various regions, cities?
There have been several groups going around printing books on
demand for people in poverty areas.
POD is very well developed, just need to figure out how to market. The TV is holding on in the news dept. Not growing as fast now but not flat-lined either. Figures on how much it costs to print and deliver a paper to your house would be nice to know. But that isn't the thing that is killing the news papers. The publishing side of the news business has been the killer. All the news the lawyers and ad sales people allow, that has become the model. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 23, 2009 4:30 PM EDT |
CP, so what do you need? Journalists to write the stories and editors to edit and aggregate them. Like I said in my post above. All we need is a business model to fund them that doesn't rely on ad exposure. |
| gus3 Mar 23, 2009 5:20 PM EDT |
US News & World Report has gone to a web-only model, with zero ads. Their subscribers get access to (bi?)weekly PDF's. |
| ColonelPanik Mar 23, 2009 7:12 PM EDT |
@Sander: I am not against advertising but I am against the advertisers having
a veto on articles that put said advertiser in bad light.
Journalists write stories, then the editor edits them and then the publisher
quashes the story (spikes) for some monetary reason. The "subscription model" hasn't worked very well. Thats true online and in print. I have been following the stuff Dan Gilmor is doing, Citizen Journalists? Right now given all the problems in the media in general I guess I trusts the blogs and shows like the Daily Show more than the "news" shows. Just reread your post, yes I have done what you said, the blogs, websites, RSS feeds on my tool bar form a digital news paper. And there are ads on those pages. NPR? Would that work on a larger scale? NPR and PBS would seem okay to me. What is the equivalent on your side of the lake? |
| gus3 Mar 23, 2009 7:23 PM EDT |
Linux.com would regularly show ads for Microsoft, but it never stopped them from running an anti-proprietary software story. |
| ColonelPanik Mar 23, 2009 8:56 PM EDT |
gus3, Hey, thats cool. Bet it didn't stop m$ from putting up those ads either? When the ad dollars kill stories you have to worry. |
| AnonymousCoward Mar 23, 2009 9:09 PM EDT |
@Sander: we don't need a cheap printer, we need paper-thin flexible screens. At this instant, I'm indulging in a pot of Jalna Vitalize contains-everything-good yoghurt for breakfast (hello from Western Australia) while sitting at the desk in the bedroom reading the "news" on my laptop. While I've invented a simple gadget for propping my laptop up securely so that I can lie abed reading, I would much rather have about an A4-sized flexible plastic sheet which I could carry wherever & prop up adjacent my current task. Technology is oh-so-slowly wending its way in that direction. At the moment, netbooks are the rage. Soon, the experts assure us, they will about halve in price, hordes of non-x86 products will assure us of freedom from viruses, spyware & the licence fandango. The key feature, IMESHO, will be the transition from a dense, rigid, limited-space device to some recognition of HTML as a display language, leading to a literally thin (2mm?) client with a flexible display & maybe a projected keyboard operating by IR (or whatever) finger tracking. Call it a netpaper. Other gadgetry (like aircraft, automobiles, ovens) have migrated from klunky prototypes to appliance-level simplicity, so why not do this for both newspapers & computers by melding them? The next (umentioned) phase in development will be wide aoption of LXer-style reader contributions. |
| AnonymousCoward Mar 23, 2009 9:17 PM EDT |
@Panik: this is a core truth, so let's unpack it a little:
Quoting:When the ad dollars kill stories you have to worry.The two key questions we need to ask about everything we face are simple: "Why?" & "How?" Why brings us a sense of purpose, a general direction. It empowers (whoo, buzzword!) us to decide what we wish to do. How brings us the detail we need to implement our choices. Why does advertising happen? Advertisers wish to gain your attention. Why do they so wish? So that they are able to sell you something. Why should they sell us something? To make a profit; to be given money. So far, so good. Are there ways of them being given money without having to distract us from the comforting flow of information (this is a visuo-spatial learner addressing you)? Undoubtedly. Time for some Why questions. |
| AnonymousCoward Mar 23, 2009 9:20 PM EDT |
Quoting:ways of them being given money without having to distract us from the comforting flow of informationBTW, I've basically just quoted Sander's statement about the business model. |
| tuxchick Mar 23, 2009 10:33 PM EDT |
Being advertiser-supported comes with many perils. Sometimes there is editorial interference, though in my experience not very much. Especially the way online advertising works, which is a giant pool of ads hosted on outside servers, and the different ads appear in rotation, so no single advertiser has a lot of influence even if they did want to butt in. Not that marketers have gotten any smarter-- they have more information than ever on what ads are actually read, and what generates sales, and yet they don't learn and continue to crank out ever-more pointless, annoying, intrusive ads that drive readers to ad-blockers, and even to avoiding sites entirely. Newspaper ads work because they advertise local sales, so they're useful shopping resources. IMO 99% of online ads are wasted crap because they don't give you any reason to click on them. They commit many crimes: they block article text, they load too slowly, they indulge in pointless animations and sound effects-- it's as though their intent is to be obnoxious and repulsive. Pageviews are everything, which which doesn't take insider knowledge to recognize-- you know it when you see a story spread out over four or more pages for no good reason. So the advertisers shoot themselves down, then blame the sites they appear on and everyone is all unhappy. Meanwhile, since readers don't pay anything but get all kinds of great content for free, they don't really have a stake in any particular site, and hop thither and yon without thinking about who pays for all those goodies. Whoever pays the bills is the real customer, and that is why so much of tech is screwed up-- Microsoft doesn't care if lone home users are mad at them because their big paydays come from corporate sales. Hardware vendors don't care if us lil hippie Linux users are mad at them because Microsoft is their biggest customer. If you get mad at a certain online publication and vow never to visit them again, they don't care since most of their traffic is driven by Google anyway, rather than repeat visits from loyal readership, and advertisers pay the bills. It's disconnected, dysfunctional system. |
| ColonelPanik Mar 23, 2009 10:51 PM EDT |
TC: That seems to say: "We need a new model". "Clue Train Manifesto" It covered all of this many years ago. They predicted this media/advertising problem and saw several answers to the problem. |
| gus3 Mar 24, 2009 12:03 AM EDT |
Highly recommended reading: Money for Content and Your Clicks for Free by J. D. "Illiad" Frazer, of "User Friendly" fame. You may not agree with all his advice, but he writes from experience. |
| gus3 Mar 24, 2009 3:07 AM EDT |
Here's a thought that's been bubbling in my mind for about 24 hours now: A lot of what's wrong with Old Media on the 'net, is that it so obviously shows its Old Media ways. There is a vast difference between a Moog synthesizer and MIDI, and the performance techniques for each require different thinking.(*) So also the old ways of media become a dry, stale, academic exercise when transferred to the Web. On the home page of my hometown newspaper's website right now, after filtering it through Privoxy, I see animated GIF's for advertisements, three main stories that rotate at a 5-second interval, and black text on a white background with blue gutters on either side. Fortunately, they haven't overridden my font choice. So what's wrong with all this? Well, the pages are designed by print-oriented people, the advertisements are designed by ad people who think they're putting a commercial on TV, and these two mentalities clash. When Salon.com put up Flash ads for non-members, they took care to separate them from the articles--a very smart move. Having constant movement in such close proximity to stationary text detracts from both. I don't mind Web commercials too much, as long as I have the option to turn them off, just like a "Mute" button for the TV. The content columns don't expand or shrink, just like a newspaper doesn't expand or shrink. But browser windows DO! More print-media thinking imposed on a Web site. (Thank you, LXer, for getting this one right.) Worse, the client-side scripting betrays design by a Web programmer who has zero experience in interface usability. Who else would replace the teaser THAT I WAS READING with another story that I'm not interested in? At least they provide a button to lock on a single story and stop making my eyes cross while I'm reading the lede. Finally, all the articles exist in isolation. There is not a single link for more information, related stories, or even relevant Google searches or Wikipedia articles. The story content is just as dry as if it were printed on paper. There are probably more examples of Old Media thinking; with more time I could verbalize them. A big part of the reason New Media is crushing Old Media, is because New Media knows what makes something pleasant to read/watch on a computer monitor. A news blog I read frequently sometimes has embedded YouTube videos in its articles, but the videos don't play automatically. The reader must take specific action to play the stream. The blog designer knows that, just because he can put dancing monkeys on his page, that doesn't mean he has to, and even if he does, he lets his readers choose whether to watch them or not. He organizes and links his articles coherently, so that readers who wish to research the reference material, or look at a time-line, may do so at a click. His animated GIF count: zero. His text columns don't expand or shrink, but he keeps the main content column at about 565 pixels, narrow enough to fit on the narrowest VGA monitor. In short, his site design is far better than that of my hometown newspaper. He has approached the Web as a medium in its own right, not merely a re-work of an older system. Yes, that's the whole point of Mr. Shirky's essay, but there's more to it than just the business model. The Old Publishers look at the Web and see one more outlet. The New Publishers are looking at the Web and see possibilities for having fun. (*) If you want to know what MIDI expertise sounds like, find George Pollen's transcriptions at the Classical MIDI Connection. Nothing cheesy in his tracks, nosiree. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 24, 2009 4:36 AM EDT |
Quoting:@Sander: I am not against advertising but I am against the advertisers having a veto on articles that put said advertiser in bad light. That's not the only problem with advertising. Tuxchick points out the greatest problem of all: It's all about the pageviews. So you get rubbish, sensationalist stories spread out over many pages in order to maximise pageviews. I think we need to find a model based in quality instead of pageviews. Whether or not that can involve regular advertising is up to the people designing this new model. Quoting:@Sander: we don't need a cheap printer, we need paper-thin flexible screens. That's just gadgetry. Besides, it doesn't even exist yet. Not even as a million dollar prototype. There are a few flexible screens out there but you wouldn't want to read large amounts of text on them. There's also E-ink displays which you can read comfortably but they're horribly slow and can't be made flexible (AFAIK). Plain old paper is still the best medium to read from. Despite having a gazillion books available over the internet in text and PDF format I still have a collection of well over 2.000 books at home. Quoting:The content columns don't expand or shrink, just like a newspaper doesn't expand or shrink. But browser windows DO! More print-media thinking imposed on a Web site. (Thank you, LXer, for getting this one right.) That one is actually highly debatable. The problem with elastic and liquid layouts (i.e. those that scale with the browser) is that they get too big pretty fast. Readability of text drops sharply when the lines get too long. The maximum line length is about 12 words per line. Any longer and reading becomes difficult. On my 1280x1024 monitor the LXer forum posts have good readability. The newswire posts are too wide and I have trouble reading them (the forum posts are smaller because of the usernames on the left side). It is extremely hard to design a website that scales with the browser but still keeps text readable on wide screens. |
| gus3 Mar 24, 2009 11:11 AM EDT |
Quoting:The problem with elastic and liquid layouts (i.e. those that scale with the browser) is that they get too big pretty fast. Readability of text drops sharply when the lines get too long. The maximum line length is about 12 words per line. Any longer and reading becomes difficult.@BEGIN(css) div.content { width: WWW; min-width: MMM; max-width: NNN; } @END(css) For people whose eyes aren't as strong as they used to be (like mine), enlarging the text should let the column width enlarge with it, up to max-width. Conversely, adjusting the browser window should allow some flexibility, to accommodate lower-resolution displays. Judicious use of percentages and em-width values can leave the user's reading requirements in place. For an example to the contrary, just go to Yahoo. Their base body font is Arial thirteen pixels, not points. Their claim is "to achieve consistent font-styling and line-height characteristics," but they don't take into account different monitors' DPI values. As a result, their rendering is anything but consistent from one system to another. Speaking to your specific example, LXer lets you adjust the column width by adjusting your browser window's width. If it's too wide, make your window narrower et voilà! the content becomes more readable for you. This is far better than my hometown newspaper's attitude that "content width is 900 pixels, no changin' it, get stuffed if you don't like it". |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 24, 2009 12:03 PM EDT |
@gus3: If only min-width and max-width worked reliably cross-browser. Unfortunately, a non-trivial portion of the web is still using IE6. Also, it only works in IE7 when using XHTML-strict and the latter is not everyone's cup of tea. Under XHTML-strict your document is often rendered as XML so, one typo and BAM you get an XML parse error instead of a mostly correct page. That really wreck havoc on sites that have any sort of user generated content (i.e. these forums). |
| Steven_Rosenber Mar 24, 2009 2:06 PM EDT |
I'm a journalist, and I work on the Web side of a daily newspaper. Right now there's no model that will sustain even a severely hobbled operation, and we've had a 40 percent staff cut in the past year. It's that bad. Now that most newspaper operations have had free-access Web sites for at least five if not 10 years and are not making significant money from them, I think the pay-access model will start coming back. The thing is, somebody's going to get it right, and then the rest of us will follow like sheep. That's how it's gonna be. We're all just waiting for somebody, somewhere to come up with a model that's compelling enough and cost-effective in such a way as to generate more money than it costs to run it. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 24, 2009 4:00 PM EDT |
Quoting:We're all just waiting for somebody, somewhere to come up with a model that's compelling enough That may be the rub. You're all sitting and waiting for someone else to come up with The Next Model(tm). Why not experiment yourself? It's not like it can get much worse :-) |
| ColonelPanik Mar 24, 2009 4:35 PM EDT |
Sander: YES. Do something is a great plan.
Do nothing but talk will not get you very far. From another LXer post: http://www.cnbc.com/id/29861548 |
| ColonelPanik Mar 26, 2009 11:21 AM EDT |
http://www.stevenberlinjohnson.com/2009/03/the-following-is-... http://www.theweek.com/article/index/93866/Is_writing_for_th... Seems this is a popular topic. And people are seeing possibilities. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 26, 2009 12:54 PM EDT |
That first link is an *excellent* article, thank you. I recommend everyone to read that (for the lazy: one of the first comments on that piece links to a video of the speech). |
| Steven_Rosenber Mar 26, 2009 8:41 PM EDT |
One thing the Web does is make it crystal clear what works and what doesn't. Any given writer, and any given story can easily hide in the pages of a newspaper, and since readers buy all or none of a day's paper, we never know if it connects or not on a per-story basis. But on the Web, there's no hiding. Stuff that doesn't work gets no traffic. All sorts of excuses are made about the Web audience being different, but the truth hurts -- and it should. News operations are finally at the point where they will be remaking themselves, changing their missions and reinventing what they do day to day in order to survive in a post-newsprint world. An economy in free fall is making any transition even more complicated than it already was. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 27, 2009 8:13 AM EDT |
> An economy in free fall is making any transition even more complicated than it already was. But even more urgent. Just as one-size-fits-all papers obfuscated problems, so does an economy during the easy-money portion of the "boom". Then comes the correction. There's a good reason it's called a "correction", lots of dead-wood gets pruned. Of course that dead-wood falls on some people's heads, but if the easy-money hadn't created a "boom" then at least all that dead-wood wouldn't be falling at once. And this looks like it's going to be one hell of a correction. |
| Scott_Ruecker Mar 28, 2009 11:21 AM EDT |
Here is a link that came to me.. http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2009/03/28/sirota/ |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 28, 2009 11:43 AM EDT |
Great article Scott. When put together with the articles that the Colonel posted above it gives rise to an interesting question. Who will pay for good journalism? The Week claims that people write for free but what you'll get is the gossip that Salon refers to, not the kind of high quality journalism that we want to see. Not three days ago Carla remarked in one of her articles that her rants attract the most viewers. So, when income depends on ads and they pay for the number of viewers then the model is obviously broken. It's the typical short-term thinking that causes this entire financial mess to begin with. In short term thinking more rants and gossip equal more viewers and higher ad income. But as Salon points out, on the longer term your readers will turn to something else. This leads to wonder, if the number of readers you get on a story isn't an appropriate measure, what is? Figure that out and you have an idea that you can build a business model around. |
| gus3 Mar 28, 2009 12:10 PM EDT |
Substituting "music" for "journalism," the question becomes: "Who will pay for good music?" And the oft-quoted example of the Grateful Dead comes to mind. They encourage people to copy their albums, but also ask that they buy concert tickets and swag. Translating that back into journalism, I would say tuxchick is on a similar track. Read the articles, read the rants, but buy the book. So, tc, how's it working out for you? |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 28, 2009 1:28 PM EDT |
I don't think that would work well. Good journalists aren't necessarily good book authors. Moreover, not all journalistic content makes good books. For Carla this appears to work. But how about the local news journalist? What would they write a book about? Books could support some journalists in some fields but I don't think it can carry the big load of journalism we need. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 29, 2009 7:23 AM EDT |
It certainly works for the FFF, Independence Institute and Mises.org. They all say that, by putting their materials online for "free", sales of the hardbound versions go up, sometimes substantially. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 29, 2009 8:17 AM EDT |
True Bob. But what kind of book could a simple journalist covering local news sell? |
| gus3 Mar 29, 2009 8:29 AM EDT |
It also works for Phil and Kaja Foglio. http://www.airshipentertainment.com/buckcomic.php?date=20070... They're using the Internet to boost their visibility. They already have a decades-old fanbase, but the Internet has grown it to the next level. Kaja stated in her weblog something to the effect that, if they had known how much the Internet would bring in the sales, they would have gone online years ago. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 29, 2009 8:43 AM EDT |
I think it will come down to ad sales, just as a newspaper does. For example, have you seen RidleyReport.com? He uses YouTube for his media, reporting on local issues very much like a beat reporter would be doing for a newspaper. Each of his videos has a "Brought to you by..." at the start and end, and a URL in the text description. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 29, 2009 9:14 AM EDT |
Hey Everybody! No more worries! They're going to bail out the Newspapers! (several links in the article, easier to just copy the text) http://www.lewrockwell.com/blog/lewrw/archives/026089.html Mainstream Media Bailout Bill Introduced Posted by David Kramer at March 28, 2009 05:27 PM NEWS FLASH!! As the United States of Socialist America continues its Bizarro World freefall towards Great Depression II, we now have word that the "Honourable" Benjamin Cardin, U.S. Senator from the great state of Maryland, has introduced into that "august" body known as the U.S. Senate a bill entitled "Newspaper Revitalization Act." “We are losing our newspaper industry...the economy has caused an immediate problem, but the business model for newspapers, based on circulation and advertising revenue, is broken, and that is a real tragedy for communities across the nation and for our democracy. It is in the interest of our nation and good governance that we ensure they survive” said Senator Cardin. The act would grant newspapers tax-free status as non-profits¹, a deal similar to that enjoyed by public broadcasting outlets, which survive on tax-deductible contributions from listeners. The newspapers, however, will also be able to enjoy tax free advertising revenue." Since all newspapers might soon become non-profits, perhaps we can convince the great Jerry Lewis to hold a telethon for The New York Times--and I know the perfect day to hold that telethon on: May Day. ¹As far as I'm concerned, I don't think any Establishment newspaper has ever been profitable--at least in the sense of any thinking person having found it "profitable" to read an Establishment newspaper. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 29, 2009 10:10 AM EDT |
Quoting:I think it will come down to ad sales, just as a newspaper does. But as sales drive down the quality of the journalism, as both Scott's link and Carla's remark show. Gossip and hubris brings in more viewers than high quality journalism. People tend to optimise what they get paid for. Joel Spolsky has some nice things to say about that: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/news/20020715.html That's software related, not newspaper related but it's the same economic principle at work. |
| montezuma Mar 29, 2009 10:40 AM EDT |
It is also what appears to drive cable television. Infotainment in the form of shouting matches and rants plus sensational stunts draws much greater ratings than does serious discussion and investigative journalism. The ratings to effort ratio for serious journalism just does not make it viable so it has slowly disappeared. Serious journalism has retreated to magazines and specialist websites. In the end the there needs to be a charge model and a serious syndication charge on compilation sites like Drudge and Huffpost (selected at random to avoid political overones). |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 29, 2009 11:34 AM EDT |
> But as sales drive down the quality of the journalism, as both Scott's link and Carla's remark show. Gossip and hubris brings in more viewers than high quality journalism. So what? If that's what people want, then so be it. I'm not going to rob someone to pay for a service I like, even if I think it's worthy to continue to function. So "real news" is something you (and I) like? Then someone will stand up and offer that service because there is a demand to be filled. If there is not enough demand for "serious journalism" that it cannot support itself, then there is no overwhelming mandate for it to be "provided" by force. But then, hey, this is a website for Linux news. Remember Linux, software created and established by amateurs? Could be that "real news" will take the same path. If experience is any guide, doing so will only make it better. |
| ColonelPanik Mar 29, 2009 1:56 PM EDT |
Best Sunday sermon I have heard in years, thanks Bob! |
| jezuch Mar 29, 2009 5:00 PM EDT |
Quoting:But what kind of book could a simple journalist covering local news sell? Local news will be saved by Scott Adams: http://dilbert.com/blog/entry/how_i_saved_newspapers/ |
| jdixon Mar 29, 2009 7:05 PM EDT |
> But what kind of book could a simple journalist covering local news sell? Stories about the material they cover. One of our local journalists has a couple of books out about hunting and dogs. A sports reporter has memoirs of the players and teams he's covered. Whatever it is you cover, if there's enough interest for a newspaper column, there's probably enough interest for an in depth examination in print, especially one that emphasizes your perspective and experience. |
| Sander_Marechal Mar 29, 2009 8:38 PM EDT |
Quoting:If there is not enough demand for "serious journalism" that it cannot support itself, then there is no overwhelming mandate for it to be "provided" by force. Gossip is cheaper to produce and attracts more readers. With ad supported journalism as is happening now only very few people would want to do serious journalism. I think there is enough demand to support serious journalism but there won't be enough supply because the suppliers can make more money off gossip. A better business model would not just support serious journalism. It should make serious journalism at least as attractive as gossip, from an economic and game-the-system point of view. |
| tuxchick Mar 29, 2009 10:10 PM EDT |
Eh, this is the perennial conundrum. We have more information and news available to us than ever, and yet significant numbers of citizens choose to believe totally unbelievable bogus nonsense. We're spoiled by receiving decades of advertiser-subsidized newspapers, magazines, and radio and TV programming. Professional sports are completely controlled by advertisers. Public TV and radio used to be all proud of not running commercials. Oregon Public Broadcasting boasts of being something like 60% member-funded, and yet they run commercials and the corporate contributors get all the attention. Linux Weekly News has consistently delivered the highest-quality content for years and almost went out of business. Now they survive on both reader subscriptions and advertising. gus3, my bigger paychecks come from article writing and editing, not books. Books are fun and I think they're useful contributions to the Linux ecosystem, but I couldn't live on them. The Dead had an economic model that worked for them, but it doesn't fit everyone. Why shouldn't a band be able to make a decent living selling their recordings? Touring is brutal, the folks who say "give the recordings away and make money performing!" have no idea what they're saying. Books are hard to copy, but as electronic editions become more popular that is going to change. Then what? Fans of 'Blade Runner' might remember how exaggerated it seemed when it was first released, with giant screens running giant commercials day and night, and rampant, unavoidable advertising everywhere. It doesn't seem so over-the-top anymore, does it. |
| Bob_Robertson Mar 30, 2009 8:24 AM EDT |
> giant screens running giant commercials day and night, and rampant, unavoidable advertising everywhere. Just like downtown in many a big city now. Does "real news" sell? Is 20/20 profitable? 60 Minutes? Being a happy consumer of the Mises Institute and their ilk, do their economics and history books make money? Does Ridley Report make money? (he SEEMS to anyway) Yes, yes, and yes. Real news does sell. That's why newspapers were invented in the first place. But the "broadcast" and "get your news here" aspects have been superceded by the 'Net, that's all. |
| tuxtom Mar 30, 2009 8:25 AM EDT |
Quoting:It doesn't seem so over-the-top anymore, does it.Neither does 1984. |
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