Don't Cry
|
| Author | Content |
|---|---|
| ColonelPanik May 01, 2009 10:34 AM EDT |
TC: You Rock! Every word you wrote was true, on target and necessary. And the media will not even get the facts right about it's own funeral. |
| dinotrac May 01, 2009 10:58 AM EDT |
Absolutely. What newspaper types are really bemoaning is loss of control over information flow. They might not have known it at the time, but Matt Drudge breaking "the blue dress" was a harbinger of things to come. I feel no sympathy whatsoever for these "journalists". I wish I knew how many Ted Koppel Town Halls or newspaper ombudsman articles ended up with the conclusion that the real problem is the reader or viewer. THAT'lLLmake you relevant. Not. |
| caitlyn May 01, 2009 12:12 PM EDT |
Call me a Luddite if you will but I still like old fashioned newspapers. The coupons in the Sunday paper more than pay for the paper itself. I find in depth articles that I just don't get online a lot of the tiime. It is also much more convenient than a laptop or netbook on a commuter train or a bus. I can read a paper on an airplane where I can't get online. Call me old fashioned but I just plain like print on paper better. The quality of the journalism is an entirely different point and I mostly agree with Carla there. |
| gus3 May 01, 2009 12:15 PM EDT |
It's nice that you can make a "profit" off the coupons. The disappearing coupons is what convinced my parents not to renew their subscription. |
| dinotrac May 01, 2009 12:20 PM EDT |
caitlyn - I like newspapers, too. People who ride commuter trains LOVE newspapers. At the very least, much more reasonable to carry into the bathroom than your laptop. But... Newpapers shot themselves in the foot when they decided that what they wanted to provide was more important that what we wanted to get. That works when you have a chokehold on the news. Not so much if you don't. |
| caitlyn May 01, 2009 12:21 PM EDT |
I'd probably buy the paper even if there were no coupons for all the other reasons I stated above. Some newspapers still deliver a fair share of what I want, obviously. I agree that they need to listen to customer input more and adapt to the times. That doesn't mean I won't be upset if my local paper disappears. I'd be very upset about it. |
| tuxchick May 01, 2009 12:30 PM EDT |
Caitlyn, that's why I said in the article a print-on-demand newsstand kiosk would be killer cool. |
| caitlyn May 01, 2009 12:41 PM EDT |
tc: It would be. It doesn't exist now, though. Old fashioned newspapers do. Until I actually have a viable alternative I'll buy and support newspapers. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 01, 2009 2:20 PM EDT |
As a journalist caught between the online and print worlds (it should really just be one world, right? Once we figure out how to make money online, that'll happen), the here and now is that a great majority of us either have recently been laid off or are about to be. After years of stability, my paper has just about shrunk by half in the past year. And there's no end in sight. I'm not saying it's right or wrong, or as an industry we didn't have it coming. What I am saying is that the transformation of print journalism from what it was to what it's becoming (less print ...) is accelerating extremely rapidly. Now we have the Seattle P-I and the Rocky Mountain News ceasing publication. Expect quite a few more major-market newspapers to go under real soon. Hopefully all of this turmoil will yield a whole lot of innovation. Nobody has the lock on newsgathering. At the local, state and national level, life will go on, and new forms of media (probably with new people) will fill the gap. But it's going to be a very bumpy ride. The message that we're doing it wrong — and not just because it's print — is being heard by more people in the field than you'd think. There's nothing like shedding half your staff in 12 months that can make an operation rethink the way it goes about whatever business it has left. |
| bigg May 01, 2009 2:27 PM EDT |
Steven: I feel bad for those who work for newspapers. A lot of them (including some of my own relatives) pushed for higher journalistic standards, more careful editing and fact-checking, and adapting to the changing environment. One of the strange things about this is that the publishers cut corners and fought the internet in order to keep short-term profits flowing. All they did was destroy their market. |
| herzeleid May 01, 2009 2:52 PM EDT |
If the newspapers were smart they'd hammer out some sort of deal with amazon to have their daily editions made available to kindle-carrying subscribers. Then these hyper hip, happening subscribers could read the editorial column on their kindle, whilst commuting to work. |
| DiBosco May 01, 2009 4:11 PM EDT |
Quoting:Caitlyn, that's why I said in the article a print-on-demand newsstand kiosk would be killer cool. Like in Babylon 5. That is real isn't it? |
| gus3 May 01, 2009 5:13 PM EDT |
Not yet, but we're working on it. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 01, 2009 8:44 PM EDT |
Our company has two newspapers on Kindle: San Jose Mercury News and Denver Post. If any of you have Kindles and subscribe to these newspapers, I'd love to hear what you think about them. Judging from the user comments at Amazon.com, most users aren't all that happy. I suspect that it's a lot of work for very little payoff, i.e. they're not making any money on it. There doesn't appear to be any plan to put any more papers on Kindle at this point. The main problem: You can't sell into it. It's seemingly not set up for advertising. I was all hopped up about getting our paper on Kindle, but when I learned that somebody else in the company was already doing it and it wasn't going so well seemingly, I turned my attention elsewhere ... |
| ColonelPanik May 01, 2009 11:27 PM EDT |
Our vacationing Sander said it well, online we can build our own
news papers. I have six sites that I start the day with and continue
to hit several times a day. There are another six or so that I hit
at least once a day. And two for bedtime reading. The news I
want, the news I need. I never hear a word about Hollywood, Life is great. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1176040/Jack-Ripper-... |
| Scott_Ruecker May 02, 2009 12:18 AM EDT |
All of this reminds me of my own take on it.. http://lxer.com/module/newswire/lf/view/115710/ Sorry for the blatant self promotion.. |
| caitlyn May 02, 2009 12:35 AM EDT |
Scott, you have nothing to apologize for. A little self-promotion is fine. It's when folks go overboard... You never seem to do that. Colonel: I know what you mean. Much of my family is overseas. Between that and my career I've traveled more than most. I like being able to get international news and an international perspective on the news from overseas news sources, both in English and in a couple of other languages I can muddle through with. The thing is, that was always available somewhat. I used to buy the weekly international edition of The Jerusalem Post on the newsstand when I lived in New York, Florida, and San Francisco. My mother used to pick up French papers now and again and if I was around I'd read them too. Shortwave radio was and to some degree still is another good source of foreign sourced news. If you have satellite TV the world is also your oyster if you want overseas sources. Yes, there is more on the web than all of the above put together. That's a good thing. I still like having newspapers around for commuting or just for getting away from the electronic world. |
| Scott_Ruecker May 04, 2009 3:47 PM EDT |
I take what you said as a high compliment Caitlyn, Thank You. Here is an interesting take on it.. http://scoopingthenews.blogspot.com/2009/05/five-realities-n... |
| Scott_Ruecker May 05, 2009 11:00 AM EDT |
Here is an article I found online from The Nation, I agree with them that even if Government intervention is bad, its needed. http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090406/nichols_mcchesney |
| Bob_Robertson May 05, 2009 11:15 AM EDT |
> even if Government intervention is bad, its needed. So how much poison can the body take and still live? Seriously, the article points out the way that government intervention in radio-TV have actively benefitted the rich and centralized content. I would also point out that the broadcaster has an incentive to not piss off their political masters who can yank their license. What Jefferson et. al. were touting were not papers as paper, they were pointing out that the maximum freedom to present opinions and facts, "freedom of the press", was what was critical for liberty. While it's easy to rationalize propping up failing businesses because we're accustomed to having them around, it also means taking money from my pocket to support, for example, the New York Times, a theft which actively harms me twice over. Let the towering monoliths of by-gone eras fail if their business model is no longer profitable. That way there is room for others who have a business that CAN profit. Caitlyn, you like newspapers, great! Buy them, donate to them, patronize their advertisers, whatever you want. But how do you justify taking money from me to support them just because you like them? Microsoft is a big company that has touched many people's lives, that may not be profitable all that much longer. Shall we have government subsidize them if they find themselves unable to compete with the "new environment"? If you can rationalize coercively supporting one failed business model, how can you not rationalize coercively supporting all failed business models? |
| dinotrac May 05, 2009 11:36 AM EDT |
Hate to agree with Bob, here, but the next sentence wraps it up pretty well:Quoting: After years of neglecting signs of trouble, elite opinion-makers have begun in recent months to recognize that things have gone horribly awry. "Jouranlists" have played to the elites more than to the audience. If readers/viewers didn't like what they saw -- too bad. Reader and viewer error, not the fault of journalists. Without wanting to downplay the role of technilogical change, screw the customer only works as long as the customer sees not viable alternative. |
| Bob_Robertson May 05, 2009 11:44 AM EDT |
> "Jouranlists" have played to the elites more than to the audience. I find it edifying to keep in mind that it was the journalists like "The Drudge Report" using the new media to bypass the "mass media" and get stories out that would otherwise not have seen the light of day, that heralded the fall of the "mass media". > screw the customer only works as long as the customer sees {no} viable alternative. Back on topic to Linux, I see. |
| dinotrac May 05, 2009 12:01 PM EDT |
>Back on topic to Linux, I see. Give us long enough, we're bound to meander in that direction! |
| bigg May 05, 2009 12:01 PM EDT |
I, too, hate to agree with Bob, but in this case he is right. I find it hard to justify aiding a former monopolist that suddenly faces competition. Much the same as I will find it hard to justify sending government money off to help Microsoft in a couple of years. |
| Scott_Ruecker May 05, 2009 12:21 PM EDT |
I am not disagreeing with any of what you all have said, and I do not condone saving monopolists either, but there has to be a stopgap of some kind, no? The journalistic landscape has changed, and it will not change back to what it was. I being a journalist and having never written anything that has ever (and probably never will) been printed on dead trees and in charge of this website, am proof of that. Still, even I read the paper and access my local paper's website everyday to get the news on what is going on in my town.. |
| gus3 May 05, 2009 12:43 PM EDT |
Scott, a "stopgap" serves the buggy-whip makers, but in the end prolongs the shift in the economy, and the uncertainty that goes along with it. |
| azerthoth May 05, 2009 12:45 PM EDT |
I havent picked up a dead tree news paper in a few years, which doesnt mean that I dont hit the online version regularly in one tab, while I have LXer and a few other news sites open in others. There is the problem, dead tree versions dont allow you to easily multi-task. More and more people make that discovery, and find that they find one thing that catches their interest you just open a new tab and send google on its merry way looking for additional information. Newspapers are like bi-planes, very similar in function and design to what we use now and yet completely abandoned as a viable technology. A business that can not change and adapt does not deserve to be in business. I can sympathize with the people. However journalism majors, like english and political science majors, should be prepared for the most common phrase for those who chose that collegiate direction. "You want fries with that?" |
| tuxchick May 05, 2009 12:47 PM EDT |
Well Scott, I can't help but wonder what's so magical about the Internet and print-on-demand that makes it a non-paying proposition? Only the medium and methods of delivery change, and IMO are considerably better and cheaper. Most of what I've read about this barely mentions content, and the quality, or lack thereof. It's a nostalgia-fest. What makes print-only more attractive to advertisers? The bottom line is numbers of eyeballs, not numbers of future fish-wrappers. The fundamental problem of the both the old and new models is the confusion over who the real customers of news publications are--- they say their readers, but you know the golden rule: "the one with the gold makes the rules." Readers are paying only a small fraction of the real costs of delivering the news, or nothing at all. Advertisers are the big funders of modern journalism, and that has always been scary to me, because it puts accountability in the wrong place. One pipsqueak advertiser potentially has more influence than thousands of readers, and the only defense against that is the "Chinese wall" between editorial and marketing. Advertiser support ruins everything it touches. Even good Web sites with great content shove the content into smaller and smaller corners to make room for ads. Pro sports long ago rolled over for television and their sponsors, and are tailored to keep TV and advertisers happy. We have long enjoyed free TV and radio thanks to advertisers, and now we have an entire Internet full of great stuff for free, but what price have we really paid? A huge one: lack of creativity, censorship, loss of choice, and little influence on programming and content. What's the dominant feature of Times Square? Giant TVs spewing commercials. and so on.... |
| Scott_Ruecker May 05, 2009 1:12 PM EDT |
Multi-tasking and content, Azer and Carla, you hit the nail on the head. But we are different than most and we are not as resistant to change as others around us might be. Because the Interwebs are full of evil bad people who only want to sell us something or take out vital information and buy stuff with it. You would be surprised at just how many people still believe that kind of crud.. Mulit-tasking; I agree that in the time it takes me to read through what I would want to read in a paper I could already have gotten all the news I want from the dozen or so sites I peruse. But to use my father as a example, he only just started using the Internet to get his news in the last year or so and only because where he stays when he is on his boat in San Diego stopped getting his local paper and he could not get it delivered himself. So he went online due to the convenience of it. He ad to be dragged into reading the news online, now after some time, he wouldn't want it any other way. Content; Wait, you mean there is supposed to be information disseminated to the public for their edification? Pure crazyness. What this whole thing is going to do is make people very aware of the hole that is left by the news that they want, that they are not going to be able to get. That fact alone will make things happen, makes things rearrange themselves in a new way, what will it look like? A lot like LXer is my guess.. |
| tuxchick May 05, 2009 1:20 PM EDT |
Quoting: makes things rearrange themselves in a new way, what will it look like? A lot like LXer is my guess.. Welcome our new Galactic Overlord, Chief Scott! |
| Scott_Ruecker May 05, 2009 1:25 PM EDT |
I like it..Galactic Overlord Scott..LOL!! "..I see your schwartz is as big as mine.." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S25Zf8svHZQ |
| gus3 May 05, 2009 1:29 PM EDT |
Funny you should mention that: R I P Dom DeLuise. |
| Bob_Robertson May 05, 2009 1:41 PM EDT |
> Advertiser support ruins everything it touches. And the alternatives are? Or maybe a better way of saying it, The only way we will find out what works better is to let people make those choices for themselves. HBO demonstrated that the subscription model can work. I expect that every type we can imagine to work "can" work, in its own niche. I know of a new, dead-tree paper doing very well, printed for a specific market. |
| Sander_Marechal May 06, 2009 11:59 AM EDT |
I see confusion in this thread. Why do people like newspapers? It's not the journalism. As many linked articles have said, the quality of journalism (i.e. "the news") has only decreased. But newspapers do something else too. They organise and edit content. I think Scott is spot-on that the newspaper of the future will be more like LXer. The primary benefit of a newspaper as a medium is all kinds of content neatly organised and edited in a format that's easy to read and carry around and costs very little. And I think that is the future of the newspaper. Not as writers of news but as organisers and filters. People online get their news by visiting half a dozen websites daily and a few dozen more at least on a weekly basis. That's a lot of stuff to keep up with. And half of the things you read probably aren't as interesting anyway. I know that I only really read about half of the stories that get posted to LXer. The rest I either skip, read just the lead here on LXer or even just read the title. Most people are not willing to spend that much time to seek out the news. They want the news to come to them and that's exactly what a newspaper does. It's also what makes sites like LXer, Digg and Slashdot popular. They act like filters. They make finding the news easier. That's what newspapers should do. Split the newspaper businesses into two separate businesses: One that writes the news (journalism) and one that collects, organises and edits the news (publishing). The business model for the publishing part is dead easy. Without having to maintain and pay an army of journalists, running a newspaper becomes much more financially profitable. The real trick is finding a good business model for journalists (one that leads to high quality content instead of the sensationalist sub-par journalism of late) and getting the stories form the journalists to the publishers. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 06, 2009 2:17 PM EDT |
The aggregate model -- think Google News -- is a powerful one that many newspaper companies are beginning to explore. We've always used wire services, and leveraging both that content along with other Web content (blogs, RSS feeds from various places, reader input, etc.) is something that newspaper Web sites are very much interested in. The L.A. Times even has a Web page that runs my paper's (L.A. Daily News) RSS feeds. And most of my coding these days is in deploying wire and RSS on our site so those parts of the equation take care of themselves (i.e. no production needed) and we can concentrate our staff effort on the original, hyper-local content that should be our main focus. And while print remains a potentially profitable medium -- online even with a lot of traffic just can't generate enough revenue unless you're Google, which makes up for it with tremendous bulk. Thus whatever you originate online, even blog content, needs to cross back into print to fuel that medium (and the ads it attracts) in the interim. |
| Sander_Marechal May 06, 2009 2:38 PM EDT |
Quoting:The L.A. Times even has a Web page that runs my paper's (L.A. Daily News) RSS feeds. But that's aggregation, not publishing. A publisher would read the article in your RSS feed, determine it's value to the readers and then (if he thinks it's worthwhile) put your article in the "Tech news" section of the newspaper, possibly a bit trimmed and with some typo's fixed. Publishers aggregate, filter and organise. Google News only aggregates. That makes sense for Google because aggregation is easily automated. Filtering and organising are not. That's where newspapers can add value for readers. |
| techiem2 May 08, 2009 2:52 PM EDT |
As an interesting addition, one of my friends ran across this (slightly old) article today: http://www.businessinsider.com/2009/1/printing-the-nyt-costs... |
| Steven_Rosenber May 08, 2009 6:07 PM EDT |
Well, publishers can't turn their backs on the money that can be made with aggregation in addition to publishing. Google doesn't make money 'cause they're so gosh darned cool. It's volume. Lots and lots of volume. |
| Sander_Marechal May 08, 2009 7:14 PM EDT |
True Steven. But I think much more money can be made with organising and filtering. People can get utterly overwhelmed by the sheer volume of news. They'd love someone to filter out just the stuff that they want from that bulk. Those are the kind of people that pay for newspapers. People who can easily handle the raw volume already read their news online in bulk aggregators. |
| chalbersma May 09, 2009 2:31 AM EDT |
Journalism as we know it is dead. It's time to move to an online model. Something like Lxer with original content plus lot's of aggregate content for various subjects. Something like the old linux.com. Where they had articles written by staff and a decent aggregate rss feed (pity they quit that but on the other hand I wouldn't be an lxer.com guy if they didn't). Yes there will be a lot of sources just like in the old days of newspapers. But now there will also be that robustness that you just don't find in the newspapers of today. I say good riddance print news. You always got my hands inky. Now the only thing I have to deal with is cheetos! |
| ColonelPanik May 09, 2009 6:08 PM EDT |
Journalism is not dead at all. Journalists themselves may be among
the un-living though. We have been talking about what "we" want or like, that isn't what is going to happen. This is not science or math. The presenting of the news is going to keep changing for ever. What has worked, and what will work may not be remotely related. One would think that the big concern should be that our "news" not be tainted by the wishes of the advertisers or an overbearing government. If it is not true it is not the news. |
| Bob_Robertson May 09, 2009 6:21 PM EDT |
> should be that our "news" not be tainted If I may make a comment on this point... I'm all for bias. I think bias should be right up front where everyone can see it, and know it's there. Because the bias is there anyway. By lying and saying "fair and balanced", or "all the news that's fit to print", all that's being done is to hide the bias so that the consumer cannot take it into account when evaluating the story. |
| ColonelPanik May 09, 2009 8:54 PM EDT |
B_R, No thanks. Truth is good enough for me. |
| Bob_Robertson May 09, 2009 9:15 PM EDT |
CP, how do you know truth? If I say the truth is that coercion is absolutely wrong, the institution of coercion, "government", is by its very nature evil, that every "service" government provides can be provided better and cheaper by voluntary interaction of individuals, that is BIAS. Then I point out police abuse where other news outlets are saying the same incident is one of heroic police coming to someone's rescue. But I'm reporting what is true, while other sources are glossing over police abuse because for them the bias is that police can do no wrong. But unlike me, those other sources pretend not to be biased. They pretend to be fair and balanced, while they are really very pro-state. Will you trust them because they pretend to be "fair"? Or will you not trust them because they hide their bias? It would be nice if all that were reported was the "truth". But the fact is that "truth" is different for different people, depending upon their bias. If you don't know their bias, you can't judge what they report as "truth". |
| ColonelPanik May 09, 2009 10:10 PM EDT |
B_R, You are right! I don't any news now. |
| dinotrac May 10, 2009 1:13 AM EDT |
CP - The key is not to trust or not trust any news -- it's to realize that people can lie a mile high but, even with the very best intentions, can only report the truth as they see it. That's why diversity is a good thing. Most reporters these days come from journalism schools, and those tend to ummmm...shall we say....lean in the same direction. But...the internet opens up a world of sources, literally. More work, but pretty interesting to see how different people in different places see the same thing. |
| Scott_Ruecker May 10, 2009 1:29 PM EDT |
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/10/opinion/10rich.html?_r=2&h... |
| Bob_Robertson May 10, 2009 2:04 PM EDT |
> http://www.nytimes.com Speak of the Devil... http://blog.mises.org/archives/009926.asp |
| Scott_Ruecker May 12, 2009 1:34 PM EDT |
http://scoopingthenews.blogspot.com/2009/05/no-1-us-newspape... |
| jacog May 13, 2009 4:36 AM EDT |
http://www.theonion.com/content/node/29503 |
| Bob_Robertson May 13, 2009 3:52 PM EDT |
Maybe I should coin a new "law" akin to Godwin's Law, that once the subject has been satirized in The Onion, they get the last word. |
| jezuch May 14, 2009 1:57 AM EDT |
Quoting:Maybe I should coin a new "law" akin to Godwin's Law Zweibel's law? |
| Scott_Ruecker May 14, 2009 1:11 PM EDT |
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-kindle7-2009may07,0,97... |
| Scott_Ruecker May 18, 2009 12:42 PM EDT |
http://www.tnr.com/story_print.html?id=c84d2eda-0e95-42fe-99... |
| Sander_Marechal May 18, 2009 6:01 PM EDT |
From groklaw: The myth of the parasitical bloggers http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2009/05/18/parasites/... |
| Scott_Ruecker May 20, 2009 2:32 PM EDT |
Here is a good story on how Journalism organizations are changing with the times too now..I can vouch for the Online News association and the SPJ, I am a member of both.. http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=101&aid=163202 |
| Scott_Ruecker May 21, 2009 11:19 AM EDT |
Magazine anyone? http://www.newspaperdeathwatch.com/malaise-spreads-to-magazi... |
| Steven_Rosenber May 21, 2009 12:04 PM EDT |
Scott, I've seen the "new" Newsweek (I subscribe to Time, Fortune, the Atlantic and now formerly the New Yorker — they refuse to give me a deal). Horrible redesign. The whole thing looks like a "special advertising section," with a lot of wasted space, extremely poor use of photographs and a general blandness. |
| Scott_Ruecker May 26, 2009 10:37 AM EDT |
http://tech.yahoo.com/news/ap/20090526/ap_on_hi_te/us_tec_on... |
| Sander_Marechal May 26, 2009 11:49 AM EDT |
Got another link for that Scott? Your link gives a 404 at Yahoo. |
| NoDough May 26, 2009 12:24 PM EDT |
I got a 404 on the first attempt, and the article on the second. Apparently Yahoo is having some issues. |
| tuxchick May 26, 2009 12:36 PM EDT |
Quoting: Apparently Yahoo is having some issues. Mmmm, more of that cloud-a-licious goodness! |
| Sander_Marechal May 26, 2009 12:54 PM EDT |
I got it too now. Thanks. |
| Steven_Rosenber May 26, 2009 4:59 PM EDT |
Quoting:Apparently Yahoo is having some issues. Twitter is worse. Lots of Amazon EC2 and S3 there, too, I've learned. |
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