Forums | MacLife

It's not doomed until they come up with a substitute that won't be ruined if I happen to spill my coffee on it at the breakfast table.

(And, seriously, some of the big, big papers are in trouble. But I have a feeling that small-market local rags will still make a go of it as long as they keep their budgets down and survive mainly on local advertising. The lousy daily in my town is - unfortunately - not going anywhere anytime soon)

If ET was good enough for my grandpappy, it's good enough for me, dangit.

DevoDoc wrote:

I worry that if the big newspapers go under then credible journalism will suffer.  I worry more that most American's probably don't care about credible journalism.

Americans don't read.

Isn't why we invented the Daily Show so we dont have to read papers anymore? Heck, we dont even watch the news anymore, we watch a series of public relation pieces and gossip reports and sports and weather.

Last edited by StaticAge (2009-03-12 5:53 pm)

My local paper (albeit owned by an East coast conglomerate) starting today just cut out big chunks of the Thursday paper, having late last year already whittled down the Mon and Tues paper to a slim cigarette.

My articles are in the Tues paper.

Actually the right info is all their to be had on the web but so is the wrong. You can read and learn of the interrelations that result in conflict in Iraq (and learn possible insight) or learn how to build a pipe bomb, all on the web. The question is, are you a smart or a stupid person to begin with as the knowledge is there regardless.

I'd argue that Americans read plenty -- that, in fact, these days we may be reading more than ever. Discourse is changing, and so, even, is the language, but we're reading non stop. A Barnes and Noble just opened literally across the street from a Borders Books not far from my parents' house, and both places are always jam packed. Even most of my students read like smurfing crazy.

I think there are two reasons newspapers are suffering. One, all the news is always smurfing terrible and depressing; and two, there's no such thing as truth anymore. If all you're going to get is bad news -- and you're either not going to be able to trust the source of that news, or you're going to have to have conversations with idiots who believe the spin and disinformation from other sources -- then what's the point? It's too depressing. Too infuriating.

Another aspect is that our world of words is more interactive than ever thanks to the Internet, but newspapers can't provide readers the voice that we all expect to have these days. It's all one-way communication, which is unsatisfying, especially when what you're reading is so outrageous all you want to do is scream back at it.

A solution that I'm just pulling out my arse right now: Newspapers should should figure out how to merge blogs/forums with investigative reporting. Make it all available via Kindle, iPhone, Blackberry, etc. The "top level" of each article should be "light," almost blurb-ish, but then make sure it's obsessively linked to as much hard fact and raw data as possible. That way readers can read, research, and argue, all in one spot. Sort of like if MiniThink hired reporters and then saved us the trouble of having to google incessantly for fuel for our fights.

Frankly, I am surprised they've lasted this long.  Newspapers are obsolete and do nothing more than waste paper.

-mark

I've only read USAToday; mostly since I travel frequently and the hotels drop them for free.  I do not think I'd ever buy a newspaper.  Although ironically, I had a paper route as a kid and kept getting sick, turns out I was allergic to the ink they were using at the time.   I suppose in my sub-conscience I hate them.

-mark

Freakout Jackson wrote:

The Seattle Post-Intelligencer is on it's way out.
The Seattle Times isn't far behind either.

The city of Boeing & Microsoft about to be newspaperless

Nah they have those indie rags still.  I think "The Stranger" is one of them.  I was just there.

-mark

via daring fireball
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/ne … thinkable/

...
The problem newspapers face isn’t that they didn’t see the internet coming. They not only saw it miles off, they figured out early on that they needed a plan to deal with it, and during the early 90s they came up with not just one plan but several. One was to partner with companies like America Online, a fast-growing subscription service that was less chaotic than the open internet. Another plan was to educate the public about the behaviors required of them by copyright law. New payment models such as micropayments were proposed. Alternatively, they could pursue the profit margins enjoyed by radio and TV, if they became purely ad-supported. Still another plan was to convince tech firms to make their hardware and software less capable of sharing, or to partner with the businesses running data networks to achieve the same goal. Then there was the nuclear option: sue copyright infringers directly, making an example of them.
...

good read

Yes, the RIAA's campaign have saved the music industry!