Monday
Oct192009
This just in - Newspapers are dead
Monday, October 19, 2009 at 10:49AM The newspaper industry deserves to die. Or at least be substantially cut down. And this is yet another example of why. Another article by Zosia Bielski. It's basically another gender role-boosting opinion piece that is framed as being based on fact, when in reality it's just a puff piece for a couple authors that make money off reinforcing stereotypes.
I could rant for hours about this but I'll attempt to control myself. Stay on target. My point is that this shouldn't be in a newspaper. This is a blog post, not real information. And a huge amount of what I see in newspapers falls into this category. They might as well not even have a technology section, by the time they write an article about anything I've already heard of it months ago and know all the details. The same goes for most of the actual news as well. In a world with Twitter and Google Reader I know about eveyrthing the moment it happens, waiting till the tomorrow to get a piece written yesterday makes no sense.
"What about real journalism?" Well this argument may be slightly valid if the media did real journalism anymore. They don't. Most news outlets these days are composed of reprinted AP pieces, reprinted corporate press releases, week-late coverage of YouTube memes, sports commentary, and celebrity cutlure info lifted from Perez Hilton. In any given paper there might be one or two genuine articles that don't fall into one of those categories. And frankly, there are bloggers that are willing to produce this information much more quickly, more accurately, and for free.
If the news system did not currently exist no one create it in it's current form. Who would suggest employing hundreds of people for the purposes of writing a piece, having it edited for format, edited for content, shrunk to fit within a certain portion of a physical piece of paper, sent to a factory for printing onto pieces of deadtree in massive quantities, then place this deadtree into trucks to physically distribute it throughout an entire country within one night. No one would do that. Because instead of all of that mess, you could take just the writer themself, give them a blogspot account, and they have instant worldwide distribution for free. Oops, I just broke your business model, time to get a new one.
But they aren't getting a new one. Instead they are trying to force that existing massively unnecessary infrastructure into the digital age and then bitching that it isn't working. Rupert Murdoch wants a pay-wall to get into all his news sites to force people to buy their content. He has already decreed it will be so. (I think it's quite telling of their maneurvrability that it's still not implemented 8 months later, but I digress.)
Almost no one is going to pay for online news. It won't happen. I'll pay for National Geographic because it's beautiful and well produced unique content. I will pay for an in depth piece on the movie industry in Nigeria and how it functions without effective copyright. But I will not pay any amount of money to hear the latest update on balloon boy. In fact, I'd pay NOT to hear about that. (Maybe there is a business model there, having people pay to not be subjected to your bullshit pointless slow-news-day stories.) And that's the problem, those first two are not anywhere in The Globe and Mail, the third was front page.
The music industry dealt with the threat to their business model by adpating slowly, while frequently using their monoploy over artists and the copyright club to beat down any new competition. The news industry has no such weapon and are not adapting nearly fast enough. At the moment they are pretty much only riding on the fact that old people don't like the internet, and advertisers haven't yet completely abandoned them. They have to lean down and start producing real journalistic content that surpasses that of your average blogger, or they'll be driven out of business in the next 5 years. My bet is on the latter rather than the former.
The newspaper industry deserves to die. Or at least be substantially cut down. And this is yet another example of why. Another article by Zosia Bielski. It's basically another gender role-boosting opinion piece that is framed as being based on fact, when in reality it's just a puff piece for a couple authors that make money off reinforcing stereotypes.
by bitchcakesny
I could rant for hours about this but I'll attempt to control myself. Stay on target. My point is that this shouldn't be in a newspaper. This is a blog post, not real information. And a huge amount of what I see in newspapers falls into this category.
They might as well not even have a technology section, by the time they write an article about anything I've already heard of it months ago and know all the details. The same goes for most of the actual news as well. In a world with Twitter and Google Reader I know about everything the moment it happens, waiting till the tomorrow to get a piece written yesterday makes no sense.
by respres
"What about real journalism?" Well this argument may be slightly valid if the media did real journalism anymore. They don't. Most news outlets these days are composed of reprinted wire pieces, reprinted corporate press releases, week-late coverage of YouTube memes, sports commentary, and celebrity culture info lifted from Perez Hilton.
In any given paper there might be one or two genuine articles that don't fall into one of those categories. And frankly, there are bloggers that are willing to produce this information much more quickly, more accurately, and for free.
by Bill McIntyre
If the news system did not currently exist no one create it in its current form. Who would suggest employing hundreds of people for the purposes of writing a piece, having it edited for format, edited for content, shrunk to fit within a certain portion of a physical piece of paper, sent to a factory for printing onto pieces of deadtree in massive quantities, then place this deadtree into trucks to physically distribute it throughout an entire country within one night.
No one would do that. Because instead of all of that mess, you could take just the writer themself, give them a blogspot account, and they have instant worldwide distribution for free. Oops, I just broke your business model, time to get a new one.
by AKMA
But they aren't getting a new one. Instead they are trying to force that existing massively unnecessary infrastructure into the digital age and then bitching that it isn't working. Rupert Murdoch wants a pay-wall to get into all his news sites to force people to buy their content. He has already decreed it will be so. (I think it's quite telling of their maneuverability that it's still not implemented 8 months later, but I digress.)
Almost no one is going to pay for online news. It won't happen. I'll pay for National Geographic because it's beautiful and well produced unique content. I will pay for an in depth piece on the movie industry in Nigeria and how it functions without effective copyright. But I will not pay any amount of money to hear the latest update on balloon boy. In fact, I'd pay NOT to hear about that. (Maybe there is a business model there, having people pay to not be subjected to your bullshit pointless slow-news-day stories.) And that's the problem, those first two are not anywhere in The Globe and Mail, the third was front page.
The music industry dealt with the threat to their business model by adapting slowly, while frequently using their monopoly over artists and the copyright club to beat down any new competition. The news industry has no such weapon and are not adapting nearly fast enough. At the moment they are pretty much only riding on the fact that old people don't like the internet, and advertisers haven't yet completely abandoned them. They have to become leaner and start producing real journalistic content that surpasses that of your average blogger or they'll be driven out of business in the next 5 years. My bet is on the latter rather than the former.
tagged News, Rant, death of print, newspaper in Rant
News, Rant, death of print, newspaper in Rant 
Reader Comments (3)
*claps*
I'm taking credit for my music industry example, huzzah! But solid points, Hacke. Solids points.
Let's look back on this in 2 years and see where we are.
Your first statement "there are bloggers that are willing to produce this information much more quickly, more accurately, and for free"
Your second statement "you could take just the writer themself, give them a blogspot account"
Do you see any contradiction here? With journalists where would bloggers get their information? Without a corporation supporting a news outlet, bloggers cannot do original/investigative journalism.
Investigative journalism is alive and well. Don't believe me? Look at the Polk awards.
http://www.brooklyn.liu.edu/polk/glance07.html
HOw many bloggers are there on that list? None. Rather you see newspapers and media outlets funding journalists to do investigative reporting.
Here is the truth. If we want to continue to have investigative journalism, we will have to pay for it. Bloggers aren't journalists. They rely on them. Your model is backwards.
One day everything will be digital, but the format is irrelevant. What matters is whether there is a desire in the community to fund journalists.
I didn't really say anything negative about investigative journalism, or even journalists in particular. I said that the way newspapers function is broken, and 90% of the content that they produce is not worth the money they want to charge for it.
I'm all for investigative journalism. I will pay real money for good content. But almost everything in your average newspaper is either well-edited blog-level content (op eds, home/garden stuff, movie reviews, etc) or it's reprinted wire pieces from the AP or Reuters. I'd rather just pay Reuters directly.
And bloggers can be journalists. Look at Current.com. Almost all of their content is independently produced, and some of it far more "investigative" than anything you'd see in a Toronto paper.