March 16, 2009

• A good read. I think that there is some confusion about what journalism/whatever is (to me), it seemed to concatenate the two. To my mind, the former is a profession (that creates) and the latter as an industry (that consumes and regurgitates). The advantage the former has over the latter (if they are in truth, in combat) is that journalists create and will continue to do so, regardless of the medium (the medium must continually reinvent itself).
• The really worrisome thing is the risk to good investigative reporting. There simply couldn't be a Watergate-level investigation these days, even if journalism was not the slurry of infotainment it has devolved into, because even ignoring the potential costs of litigation, investigative reporting is damned expensive. Daily Kos is never going to have a Deep Throat. TPM is never going to have people reporting from the front lines of a war. There's some hope, though, in the rise of non-profit journalistic organizations -- a number of journalists have jumped ship from major papers to places like ProPublica, but only time is going to tell if they thrive well enough to handle serious journalism. I hope they will, because if the money's good enough for them to really do their jobs, I can't imagine that finally divorcing journalism from the profit motive can be anything but a positive change.
• Good point, but speaking anthropologically, I think the industry will shape the profession. That's the current impasse. It's true new ideas about the profession, which could be from entrepreneurs or academics, can shape the industry. However, the industry, the institutional momentum (or lack thereof) can be a huge factor. I remember talking about this divide with physicists, not only theoretical and experimental physicists, but those in academia and those working in, say, the energy industry, What I got from this is that the journalistic organization, which can be an industry, is heavily intertwined with the publishing industry. No surprise there. However, in determining excellence and journalistic standards (the ideals of the profession) with a new medium, the main working model of the profession, the "industrial model" if you will, is that of the publishing industry. How much of that organization is legacy and how much is needed to make journalism work online, or in the age of Twitter?
• Whoops, busy typing, that was a comment to tellurian's post. Good to hear about ProPublica. I recall listening to some interview where a commentator was talking about news organizations moving towards non-profit models.
• @middleclasstool--I'm reminded of the chapters in the Daily Show's "America: the Book," about the place of the press in a democracy. The chapter starts twice, first with a still from the movie "NETWORK" and the famous quote "I'm mad as Hell, and I'm not going to take it any more!" before devolving into a rant about how the news industry has compromised the principles that previously made journalism vital and great...then the chapter starts over on the next page, with a group of smiling, airbrushed anchorpeople in place of the Network still, and the quote, "We look forward to an infinite future of Taking It." Which is funny and sad, as the best satire is. Anyway, I was bummed that last week our state-wide daily stopped publishing its "Books" section. But not terribly surprised.
• The main newspaper for the state of Idaho has turned into USA today. Or rather, about 1/2 it's size, 1/4 it's content.
• Well. I've only had 3 hours of sleep, so I'm not going to be very coherent, but this was very interesting and seems to me to be related to this article I ran across earlier today, about the demise of television as we know it. It was putting forth a similar premise - that the internet is bringing down television stations, because people can just go online and watch what they want, when they want. What my fatigue-toxin riddled brain is wondering is this: How are advertisers going to effectively advertise in the future? Hardly anyone watches TV, and those who do tend to fast forward through the commercials. No one reads the paper. Everyone knows that ads on web pages rarely penetrate the viewer's consciousness. So aside from large posters on the sides of buses, how will companies get their messages to the masses?
• And for that matter, how do current companies that provide services but don't seem to carry much (or no) advertising survive? I'm thinking of things like Pinger, or Pandora, and I'm sure there are others.
• Excellent discussion here... I believe that we all reached the advertising saturation point there a long time ago. Consider how much information the average person living in an industrialized society is exposed to on a daily basis... how much of it really gets through? I know that I barely glance at the ads flying by online, and I treat pop-ups like unwanted insects. Does anyone really "get the message" anymore? How many messages can we get? That said, I'm fortunate to live in a town where the dailies are holding their own, and I'm grateful. I cannot cope with electronic media of any form while I eat breakfast, but I LOVE my morning paper. Heck, I stare at a screen all day long. Most importantly, if there were no papers, how would I keep my parrot's cage clean?
• Really sexy visual ads will keep getting noticed and remembered, even distract from the front article and send off viewers on a tangent. Or am I being too cynical here? If I'm right, advertising will continue to flourish. As for journalism, it's mainstream truth quotient bottomed out a long, long time ago. Corporate mergers created only these middling gigantic, hapless, corrupted Gullivers. Now if they're also really *too big to let fail* I'll be a monkey's uncle!
• Most importantly, if there were no papers, how would I keep my parrot's cage clean? I predict upscale newspaper stock to be sold, beginning to yuppies, for just such a purpose. Hey, anyone have venture capital? It could be a MoFi business. (-:
• Unused newspaper racks clutter a storage yard in San Francisco, California on Friday, March 13, 2009