Here we go again.
First I got a tweet that drew me to Grift. OK. The newspaper discussion. Maybe we can get beyond "blogs bad papers good" this time. Alas.
I guess that whole "you get more with honey than you do with vinegar" thing is passe. Sad really, because most of the bloggers I know are news hounds with great respect for the role and traditions of journalism.
Meanwhile, The Seattle Post Intelligencer prints its last issue today. It will now be a web-only paper.
Comments (4)
I'll say it. I don't like the path we're on. It's not a knock against blogs or bloggers per se, it is, however, a knock on the current state of blogging qua news. I don't like the fact it appears how internet news is currently disseminated may soon replace the void left by newspapers.
Then again, considering how balls-less the press has been lately--for whatever reason--I can only say, "meh." Like, seriously, how the WaPo still gonna call what we did "torture" rather than what it was: torture.
If the press were to nut up again, it wouldn't have as many problems. IMO.
I couldn't agree with you more, IRE. I have grown weary of the "paper bad v blog good" and vice versa argument. The fact is that the printed newspaper is becoming less and less popular and marketable. Instead of crying as they die before us, perhaps we should be thinking about what form we'd like to see our news take for the future.
Well first off, you need to stop agreeing with me. I've kind of got a theory, don't really have time to write it out and I can't articulate it as well as I ought to, but, I think newspapers will ultimately be fine and will survive. HOWEVER, they will be very different vehicles, serving a very upscale clientele, a la The New York Observer.
Think about it. Who reads a hard copy of the paper? It's lawyers, journos, etc, and some plebeians who ride mass transit.
If newspapers retool themselves for the upper echelon of readers, similar to what the NYO does, you'll have a vehicle for high level ads that *directly* reach consumers with disposable, or at least, discretionary income. You can charge more for ads because you A) Higher end services want in and B ) you know exactly who is reading.
Does that make sense? If someone wants to refine that and claim it as their own; go for it.
The next 10ish or so years of news is scary. If we can have more sites in the model of TPM then good and I'd have no problem with the new medium. But right now, that's far and away the exception.
Beannachtai na Feile Padraig!