Saving Journalism With Flash and Java 206
An anonymous reader writes "New York magazine has a story about some of the flashy new ideas that are coming out of the labs of the New York Times. The piece prompted Peter Wayner to dig up some of the old Java applets he wrote to explore whether more promiscuity really stops AIDS and whether baseball can do anything to speed up the games. He notes that these took a great deal of work to produce and it's not possible to do them on a daily basis. Furthermore, they're cranky and fragile, perhaps thanks to Java. Are cool, interactive features the future of journalism on the web? Or will simple ASCII text continue to be the most efficient way for us to mingle our thoughts, especially when ASCII text won't generate a classloading error?"
Can technology aid journalism? (Score:2)
Isn't this a rather obvious question?
Re:Can technology aid journalism? (Score:5, Interesting)
Only if you're looking at the title alone.
I actually work tech at a big media organization, so this is something I think about constantly, and the article is a perfect example of the media missing the goddamn point.
The way to persist is to deliver a better product. Print journalism is by far the most prolific news medium in existence, and traditional print newspapers are still the biggest providers of that content...right now.
But increasingly they're cutting jobs and reducing the quality of their physical product in order to try and retain their profitability, and, magically, it's not helping their product.
At the same time they're investing in ideas like the ones described in the article, which are 100% substance-free, cute little web 2.0 widgets that may occupy a few minutes of someone's time, but don't add any lasting value to the product, and don't pull the new users they need (people like us), but instead appeal primarily to the same technophobes who are their core market already.
What they need to do is push an actual, meaningful, web presence, one with persistence, where content lasts longer than a week or so, and where the web content is clear, clean, and accessible to aggregators and search engines, so they can take advantage of the long tail.
It's inevitable that the print product is going to get superceded by a web product. The industry is dragging its feet, however, on really dealing out a first class web product, and so they're basically guaranteeing that when the first really savvy web-based news organization comes along, that they're going to get their marketshare ripped away.
Re:Can technology aid journalism? (Score:4, Interesting)
I work for a newspaper company. We haven't cut the quality of our physical product, and we're still quite profitable. Then again, we're in the midwest and people here still like physical papers.
That being said, I think the big keys is to have exclusive stories that people want to read.
I read the baseball story linked in the article. The Java app allowed users to see the numbers for themselves, but I didn't feel it was necessary. What really turned me off was how poorly the article itself was written. I think a well written article could have made the case without the need for the java app.
I still think on principle, technology if well utilized will help journalism.
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Yea, we're still making a 20% margin, so we're profitable as well...Damn profitable. If I could invest my savings at 20% today, I'd retire.
But 10 years ago it was a 35% margin and our circulation was 25% larger. What's yer parent company, just out of curiosity?
Don't kid yourself that the industry is going to do an amazing rebound. The demographics suck, the paper and ink costs are steadily increasing, and the internet is eating up a big chunk of the ad pool.
The thing that bothers me is that the applications
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
I work for the Omaha World-Herald. We own most of the papers in Nebraska and Iowa. We just had the second best year of the company (second only to 2007). Ink costs are much higher. Paper costs are much higher. We've installed ink saving software. I really think we could cut down on paper waste.
We also have Omaha.com and we're pushing our web presence more and more.
What makes the print product work is that our advertisers still greatly prefer a physical insert over a web ad.
Circulation is down a bit, b
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Meh, I googled you and the first editor and publisher article was how you cut 12,000 circ this year [editorandpublisher.com]. Even for a big paper like the OWH, that's a hefty chunk, and that sort of measure really kicks your upbeatness in the fork. Not half as bad as the AJC though; those jokers cut almost 6 times that recently.
Nice that you're not corporate owned though. Corporate ownership is the suck. Our profits are eaten up to support larger, less profitable papers, and to pay fat corporate salaries.
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I read the baseball story linked in the article. The Java app allowed users to see the numbers for themselves,
No it didn't. It allowed me to see the BBOD and force-quit Safari is all.
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It is my professional opinion that Java sucks dirty-donkey-parts.
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That being said, I think the big keys is to have exclusive stories that people want to read.
The problem is, you all (the "traditionals", at least in the decisionmaking rooms it seems) are defining "exclusive" as "first" and that becomes "rushed and shallow." You know what aggregaters have taught me? That a huge percentage of newspapers' "front pages" are the same story, in the same words regurgitated, as the wire stories. Those aren't the ones I come back to or spread around... the ones I come back to (and share) are those with considered analysis and thought. First to market "scoops" just do
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Any self-respecting news site should do as a paper does and offer only text with a supporting picture or two. The site should be fully functional with AdBlock and NoScript.
If video is offered then a link the text version of the scoop should be offered as well(I mention this because CNN.com will have an interesting-looking story with no way to read it because it links to that obnoxious media player, and still we have to sit through commercials to watch the video, and s
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I'm right there with you. Who wants to watch 10 minutes of video instead of an article that could be consumed in 90 seconds? (30 seconds for CNN)
I have no problem with video being made available as an extra...If you've got a journalist somewhere, have 'em shoot a little tape while they're there, then post it online with their story, and use that to drive traffic to your website.
But taking away the text article and replacing it with flash or video? That sucks.
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The site should be fully functional with AdBlock and NoScript.
Yes on the latter, a resounding "no" on the first.
Why? Because they're making their money off the advertisements. I know you want everything for free RIGHT GOD DAMN NOW, but people still have to make money. And the way most companies on the web make money (if they do at all) is via those advertisements. I host and operate a web-based browser game, and I have exactly three advertisements (a skyscraper ad on the right side of the login page, a banner ad at the bottom of every page, out of the way of all relev
Re:Can technology aid journalism? (Score:4, Informative)
But for the love of god, I do not want annoying prompts to update java or flash. ever. period.
Re:Can technology aid journalism? (Score:5, Interesting)
Except consumers want video. Our web site was going down the tube, and another local site was getting more hits than us. Video was the #1 reason. Now we produce our own video.
Re:Can technology aid journalism? (Score:4, Insightful)
Consumers also want text. I can read 5 articles in the time it takes to watch one. But if you don't provide text I won't come at all.
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I prefer text for that reason, but ask people who run media sites and they'll tell you that video is what is in demand right now.
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It can, but it doesn't always do that. Sometimes it makes it worse by adding more fluff, like the flashy touchscreens and "holograms" on CNN.
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People often don't know how to utilize technology, but big media has somewhat embraced bloggers, crowd-sourcing, etc. I think technology enables the media to discover new revenue sources and new outlets. Technology enables the media to better push immediate, breaking news. And technology enables the media to get more immediate feedback from their users to better track what users want.
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We're being presented a summary of a story in text. The linked articles are all blocks of text with some images, and a few links to the aforementioned interactive features. I read about these interactive features. The text makes them sound really interesting. But ironically, since the text told me exactly what I was going to find when I played with the interactive simulations, I didn't feel any particular need to actually
Flash is evil... (Score:4, Insightful)
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How dare people try to display information other then forms that can be represented with keys on the typewritter keyboard.
Flash Won... Deal with it. Faster and Fancier then JavaApplets. They try to play nice across platforms. Hey all those flash adds makes them that much easier to detect and disable.
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Is it Flash-based? My plug-ins are disabled yet it displays the two graph bars.
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That saddens me. Flash video is very slow, gives me very high CPU usage, and doesn't support overlay.
As usual, the product with the most bling (flashiest, if you will) beats the one with the best functionality.
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Flash is a supplement not a replacement to HTML. You use HTML for most of your data except for when you need to represent data graphically and animated, It is better then using an animated GIF
i for one... (Score:4, Funny)
I welcome our new ASCII overlords, wait, it's New York Magazaine, I welcome our new AXCII overlords.
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Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
No one as used ASCII in years, really. And UTF-8 is only backwards compatible if all your needs were covered by ASCII.
It is the way forward, though.
Re:i for one... (Score:5, Funny)
No one as used ASCII in years,
At least ASCII has the letter "h".
Re:i for one... (Score:4, Funny)
I'm sorry, but I can't seem to read your post.
Did you forget to use UTF-8?
Re:i for one... (Score:5, Funny)
Isn't it time we dumped ASCII and moved over to Unicode?
Nay, it's time we dump all other languages and move over to English!
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it's time we dump all other languages and move over to English!
Fine by me. Let me know where to find a good x86 English compiler and I'll start coding in it from now on.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Isn't it time we dumped ASCII and moved over to Unicode?
Nay, it's time we dump all other languages and move over to English!
You really ought to try Unicode pr0n. It's much better than ASCII.
saving is not the right adjective (Score:5, Informative)
So far the media's use of flash and java has been a major reason for the development and wide-spread use of browser plug-ins to disable those technologies. I reject your reality and substitute my own.
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Dang right and some times it would be Ok if the video was interactive a little bit so we can try different methods to understand a point... Oh wait never mind.
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They can be abused just as much as Flash or Java can be.
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Straight up text and regular pictures or video even isn't appropriate for everything. They can be abused just as much as Flash or Java can be.
Yes, but not nearly so annoyingly.
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That's not a fair comparison at all.
They didn't even have rounded corners back then.
Re:saving is not the right adjective (Score:5, Funny)
It's real progress when many web developers don't know about the BLINK tag anymore. Oh god... it still haunts my dreams.
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Yo dawg, we heard you like blocking plugins so we made a plugin-blocker plugin so you can block plugins while you plugin.
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Agreed, the only advantage for using flash is so you have an embedded video player that can play a relevant clip. As far as interactivity goes, posting feedbacks/discussions can generally be done without the use of applets or flash and is the only thing that adds any value.
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I disagree. The web's capabilities with dynamic content was great during the US elections, during war reporting of changing borders, or in anything with charts that allow collective/isolated comparisons.
I think the use of the tools can be annoying: when it's flashy and overly attention-grabbing, stuff unrelated to story content or when it's the only way to get the information presented - text should always be available.
The use of any dynamic content, video or not, is - i think - sticking t
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I think the use of the tools can be annoying: when it's flashy and overly attention-grabbing, stuff unrelated to story content or when it's the only way to get the information presented - text should always be available.
Like those horrible "top/bottom 10 cities for X" with slides showing 'distinguishing' images of sidewalks, grey buildings and streetlights.
On the other hand, I've seen a great Java graphic application which explained mortgage amortization really well. I've seen a gif animation which demonstrated housing bubble's tendency to create "donut cities" and I'd love to see or write an applet which demonstrates money, tax and labor flow/counter flows in an economy, property values over time [papereconomy.com], the tendency for bub
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Flash and Java: Two things that can save print journalism for sure. When's the last time a physical newspaper had 8000 popup ads, browser incompatabilities and trying to load & play entire videos for no reason?
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BBC news, my local (crappy) newspaper, and NPR are my online news sources now. The only thing that will save journalism is when news organizations stop fucking around, and start doing their god damn job. C
Defferent ways of perception. (Score:2)
We have different strengths in understanding idea. Reading is only one way of doing this. However for many people reading doesn't create a picture in the minds eye (myself included). Pictures do help set the minds eye about the information to help get the settings in correctly. But interactive methods of displaying ideas could really help portrait information. Playing a game to show a theory or method for a few minutes, can help get a better understanding of abstract concepts then trying to read them.
Wrong question. (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Wrong question. (Score:5, Interesting)
In fact, it fails to distinguish between being a publisher and being a journalist. Publishers can use Java applets to teach or illustrate educational points, and again - this has nothing to do with journalism as a profession.
We conflate these ideas because so many people who call themselves "journalists" are nothing of the sort. They are tv reporters who make phone calls. Most local news is just taken off the AP wire, or maybe culled from the web. It's broadcasting, it's bullshit, and more and more, it's infotainment.
Newspaper reporters, real reporting simply needs to migrate from printed paper to online. Most of the beat reporters, the guys and gals who dig up stories, chase leads, do the Woodward and Bernstein shtick - they still have a place - a valuable place - in society. For them, the web is even better, as they can mix media. Use an applet to make a map during an invasion, drill down into local reports, even get into designing news user interfaces, something that cnn.com likes to do.
The real problem in the United States is that investigative reporting, digging around, doing follow-up, attributing sources, getting people to go on record - is hard work and nobody wants to do it. The fluffers of news need to find other work. The Bush administration cowed most hardline journalists. 60 Minutes and Frontline are just as home on the web as they are on tv, even more so. But now they compete in an arena where they don't have a monopoly, so they must be worth something independent of CBS or PBS - and they still need REAL journalists.
What we are seeing now is that there are too many newspapers in the world, and so it's just consolidation to the best ones. When I moved to Denver I never read anything local, it was all shit. I read the NYT online. Denver is a shit town for journalism.
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The real problem in the United States is that investigative reporting, digging around, doing follow-up, attributing sources, getting people to go on record - is hard work and nobody wants to do it.
There are lots of people who want to do it. The problem is that they can't earn enough to live on while they do it.
Re:Wrong question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Investigative journalism will certainly still be a "needed skill" and "useful to society" if all the papers die. That's the whole issue. See, right now, those papers and magazines provide most of the infrastructure and career opportunities for journalists. Want to be the next Woodward? Well, you go to journalism school, then get a job at whatever paper will take you and (hopefully) work your way up to the NY Times or whatever prestigious news organization.
You need print media, and not just a few "elite" papers but a whole bunch of options, if you want journalism to remain even a semi-viable choice of profession for smart and motivated individuals. (And "semi-viable" is generous; most of the journalists I know are lucky to stay above the poverty line.)
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People always say this, and I never know what they mean.
No more journalists? Seriously? No more people who go find out news and then write about it? The demand for that content is obscene, and the web is only increasing that demand.
Print media is hindered primarily by their physical capital. Maintaining the zillion dollar presses, delivering the paper, creating the paper, the gigantic circulation infrastructure, the accounting infrastructure.
That stuff accounts for more of the costs than the circulation rev
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No, that's not what the grandparent said. He said jouralism "outside the structure of traditional media" -- ie. journalists who do not work for a news station or paper directly.
Think of it as 10,000 Clark Kents and Lois Lanes, typing away on their blog (rather than at their cubicle in the Daily Planet), and the "headlines" being the articles selected by s
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Oh I understand the concept. I just think he's underestimating the amount of actual skill and work it takes to create a significant story, as well as the amount of financial backing that is required to support a journalist who is working on investigative stories that can take months.
There is also the issue of legal backing; protecting them from the inevitable people who choose to sue on flimsy pretexts because something made them look bad...Or alternately, providing those legal resources to prosecute lawsui
Right answer, Wrong question. (Score:5, Insightful)
Display Applications are for web sites.
Research applications are for research.
Content is for journalism.
Journalism receives data from research.
Journalism provides raw materials to the web.
The web presents them to us.
IT and developers create that web and hence its doodads.
Journalists (and other creators) then populate that web and doodad with content. ...
The point being: No, java / flash / doodads won't save journalism. And journalism isn't dying. It still exists but has a WEALTH of new contributors, which leaves demand for the few highly trained contributors low enough that many are leaving the field. Yet we still get our news.
I don't like doodads. When I want news I want content. Not buttons. Not animations (unless they are truly pertinent).
Journalists that create doodads are trying to salvage their career by doing something that is not PART of their career. Just like Developers who try to create content.
So ... long answer given the short answer is: No, doodads won't save journalism. But journalism is evolving, not dying.
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Ah,
the time cubed theory
anti-godism doodad careers. We,
MOM & DAD & I concur.
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That's a myth... can't find the source right now (truthfully, can't be bothered to search for it :)), but it turns out that most of the "new contributors" you mention don't meet the modern definition of journalist; they also don't contribute any new information. Most, instead, rehash others' stories. Even the big orgs mostly just use newswire feeds.
Rigorous investigative journalism is dying, because it simply costs too much t
yes, but... (Score:5, Interesting)
However, the story is the key. What we need much more of, what the real savior of newspapers will be, it hard-hitting, in-depth investigations, and scoops. This worked for Hearst, among others. And the World really needs critical, trained, intelligent people examining what our corporations, our governments and their agents are up to, now more than ever in history.
Any blogger can paraphrase an AP feed, it doesn't take brains. This is what newspapers have been concentrating on in the past few years, while ignoring actual journalism.
Also, there's plenty examples of how technology is misused in TV media. Bugs, hyperbole-laced graphics, and skewed graphs. Let's not replicate that either. Let's not see powerpoint presentation news. By all means illustrate the facts, but make sure you have the facts too.
ebooks (Score:5, Interesting)
Really, they should partner with Amazon to get their papers delivered to the Kindle automatically for a subscription fee.
Also, Amazon should release an ebook reader designed for netbooks.
Both would go a long way toward getting revenue for their publications.
Call me old fashioned... (Score:5, Insightful)
I feel like I am in the majority when I say that most of my news-reading comes during work during the few minutes I get every hour or so when waiting on something (like a compile). I don't really have the time to tinker around with a simulation exploring the possibilities. And even if I did, my patience will likely wear thin unless the simulation is either really exciting (not the case in the article) or something I'm really interested in (also not the case in the article).
Yes, it's kinda cool. But changing the face of modern journalism? I think not.
Re: (Score:2, Interesting)
When the choice came to "Select a Role," I was thrilled. I was even more thrilled when I was asked on how to proceed. "I wonder what the consequences of my actions will be..."
But then the game ended and I wa
Cranky and fragile, due to Java? (Score:5, Insightful)
Dear Java Hating Slashdot Editors,
Java is not responsible for "generating class loader errors", any more than Perl is responsible for all the HTML errors on the Slashdot front page.
Here's the link to the W3C HTML Validator [w3.org], go get yourself a clue.
Re: (Score:2, Flamebait)
Dear Java Hating Slashdot Editors,
Java is not responsible for "generating class loader errors", any more than Perl is responsible for all the HTML errors on the Slashdot front page.
Here's the link to the W3C HTML Validator [w3.org], go get yourself a clue.
You are correct. However Java applets are an incredibly brittle technology for provisioning software services.
I would go so far as to argue that Suns initial attempts to introduce Java as a technology for creating dynamic web content has been the single greatest thing working against the adoption of Java in the industry.
Java is a very powerful language and it definitely has its place in my tool-belt, but it certainly ain't for client-side applets.
Re:Cranky and fragile, due to Java? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Cranky and fragile, due to Java? (Score:5, Informative)
Useless. (Score:4, Interesting)
The linked articles are exactly what's wrong with newspaper sites.
I go to the newspaper for two things: become informed about current events, and laugh at the horoscopes. I have no use for silly little games and whatnot.
If newspapers want to become relevant, they need to expand their NEWS horizons and print news that matters to ME. A fire across town is NOT news; it's gossip about people I don't know. If said fire concens you, you're going to know about it before the newspaper does.
The Governor getting impeached is news, as is the reasons for his iompeachment. The Libertarians' and Greens' Presidential candidates' stances on the issues was news, and it wasn't even covered.
They have become marginalized because what they print is largely worthless.
Now, computer simulations in the other link are a different story altogether. IF it's not just done for show. Unfortunately most of them are just for show.
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What bothers me is, just as you sketched already, what is considered news today. The prez getting impeached is news. The opinions of some party leaders, even if it's minor parties, is news. You may put the "lesser important" party opinions onto a linked page if you don't feel that the majority of your readers may be interested in it, but it is news and maybe relevant to see where other parties stand. How about interviewing a few congresspeople or senators and ask for their opinion? Could we get a few words
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I go to the newspaper for two things: become informed about current events, and laugh at the horoscopes. I have no use for silly little games and whatnot.
You don't think that how people feel is relevant to current events?
If newspapers want to become relevant, they need to expand their NEWS horizons and print news that matters to ME. A fire across town is NOT news; it's gossip about people I don't know.
I'm sorry to have to tell you this, but your expectations are not normal.
Most of us actually care about what goes on in our community.
Maybe you should stop reading your local paper and subscribe to a national paper.
Whoa there! (Score:4, Informative)
If you think plain ASCII text can't cause a system failure on loading, you need to spend some time grading undergraduate essays. Or reading corporate memos. Or, for that mater, some of the more egregious /. article summaries.
-- MarkusQ
P.S. If you think plane ASC 2 text can't on loading cause failure off your system, need too spend sometime grading undergraduate written by essays. Ore reading corporate-memos. Ore, four that matter, sum of teh more eggreigious article sumaries on this cite.
Form over facts (Score:5, Interesting)
Bluntly? If your news page is filled with flash and java, I'll close the browser never to return. If you have no content and have to mask it with flashy graphics, I don't want to hear your story.
It's the same with news networks. Ever watched the news recently? It's flashy "breaking news" jingles and enough FX to make the average hollywood movie drop its jaw in awe (which, btw, also rely more and more on flashy explosions and FX to hide that the script is thin enough to fit in a standard envelope), but where's the beef?
JibJab [youtube.com] summed it up quite nicely.
Gimme news! Gimme information! And keep your flashy crap!
Style versus substance. (Score:2)
There has always been an inverse relationship between substance and style in print journalism. The more pictures a newspaper has almost always means the less substance a newspaper has. I've seen the same with Web sites. The less educated will not have the knowledge to realize that flash and scripting blockers are available.
It can be done right. (Score:4, Informative)
I've seen very helpful Flash visualizations on news websites that helped understand the story better.
For example, this interactive map [latimes.com] of drug war related deaths in Mexico is very well done. It doesn't just clarify the conflict, but encourages the reader to analyze and research the topic independently in addition to linearly reading the text of an article.
Just reading an article, listening to the radio or watching a news program often gives the illusion of learning and understanding new information, whereas in reality very little is retained.
Innovative and interactive ways of presenting information solve this problem.
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Yes, it can be right. Just like good FX can spice up a good movie to make it great.
But FX is a bit like MSG. Yes, it can enhance the flavor of your food. But it's just so tempting to use it differently, to mask that there is no flavor and just toss it in to make it taste like there is any.
The same applies to visual enhancement tools like flash. More often than not, you see it used to mask the fact that there is too little content and the whole graphics overload should distract you from that.
Solution: Give people information they need (Score:2)
The most important thing I learned in journalism was that you have to figure out how to give your readers information that's useful to them.
For example, if somebody has cancer, he's very interested in a story about a new treatment for cancer. The more reliable, the better.
Nothing else counts. If flash and blinking lights will help do that, fine. If not, kill the lights.
If you don't give them useful information, it doesn't matter how much lipstick you put on it, they won't read it.
AIDS, promiscuity, and flash (Score:5, Funny)
The article focused on a hypothetical heterosexual world in which all the men but only a few of the women were promiscuous. In this situation, the promiscuous women quickly caught the virus and became a sort of viral clearinghouse, spreading HIV to every man with whom they had contact. The men, in turn, brought it home to their wives. If the number of promiscuous women increased, the Landsburg-Kremer model posited, each man would be less likely to find an infected woman in his nightly wanderings, and the spread of HIV would slow.
Not sure of the link to flash (only skimmed TFA), but flash has apperantly cured AIDS AND made women more willing to sleep with me. Either one really would have made up for all the annoyances, both together? Can we declare Flash a saint?
Question from journalist for /. readers (Score:2)
As a journalist, I always want to know: What kind of information do my readers want to know?
What do you want from your newspaper?
When's the last time you saw a good story that was worth reading? That would have even been worth paying for?
What would you like to know about that you're not getting?
Trolls are OK. I'm willing to sort out the bad jokes from the useful answers. I do that all day anyway.
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I subscribe to a traditional print paper, so I do pay something for news. If there's government corruption or incompetency, I want to read about it. If there's a war going on, I want to read about it. I want to read about major - or even minor - crime and accidents, depending on how close to home they occur. I want to read about changes in law that affect me. I want to read about major economic and business stories (e.g., "IBM terminates several hundred contractors"; "UNC drops effort to open airport")
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If you get a serious answer to that question, please do your readers a favor and ignore it.
I had a discussion about this a few years ago with someone who worked at the local paper. I had remarked that the World section had gone from being a full section of the paper to taking up an area about the size of a postcard buried part way through the front section on a page that was otherwise completely filled with advertisements. It was very easy to miss that it
Web semantics 101 (Score:2, Interesting)
For most web applications, a developer should think of three layers:
1. Semantic information (Mostly HTML/XHTML, although other semantic content such as movies or games work as well)
2. Basic layout (CSS, non-semantic images)
3. Interactive/Dynamic features(JavaScript, Flash, Applets, and anything else strictly used to dynamically enhance the user experience)
This ensures graceful degradation and flexibility. In general, the larger the percentage of web applications using this model, the better.
If you're able
Journalism suffers (Score:4, Insightful)
Perhaps journalism is suffering because unsubstantiated lies are repeated so often people think they're true.
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Or because they are repeated so often that nobody believes anything they say any more. Or a mix of the 2.
Enough Java Bashing (Score:4, Insightful)
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Saving Journalism (Score:2)
4022 journalists saved.
No survivors.
An all-Flash newsmagazine (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a pretty well-funded, all-Flash newsmagazine published by real journalists: http://www.flypmedia.com/ [flypmedia.com]
There's only one thing that can "save" journalism (Score:3, Interesting)
and that's reporting subjects with some real research and analysis, without fear or favour, not beholden to corporate or government interests and without being biased by the prevailing memes.
In my opinion, people are moving away from "traditional" journalism not so much because of the format or media but because they are sick of recycled, verbatimly quoted press-releases and propaganda pieces being constantly repeated with almost no variation by every media outlet.
The attractiveness of "alternative" media seems to be the increased variety of opinion available.
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The only thing that could possibly save journalism would be for them to report the news in an unbiased and objective form
Eh, if that's what you wanna see then get your news from sources that actually manage to do that. PBS and NPR do a better job than most at this, IMHO -- as evidenced by the fact that you'll find people on both the left and the right attacking them ;)
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I'd add John Stewart to that list.
Seriously.
That's from someone who subscribes to multiple newspapers, and whose idea of a fun afternoon is re-reading articles in The New Yorker and Harper's Magazine. Assuming there's nothing on CSPAN, of course.
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I'd add John Stewart to that list.
I enjoyed him more when he spent more time lambasting the traditional (particularly cable) news media for their stupidity and less time pontificating his own political views. Still, he's pretty amusing to watch. Glad they put up full episodes online for those of us who don't have cable.
I actually got to go see a taping of TDS back in January. We learned that John Edwards had dropped out when Jon Stewart asked the audience what they thought about it. Still waiting to get a chance to see a Colbert taping.
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I'd add John Stewart to that list.
The Green Lantern? Seriously?
Seriously.
Wow.
That's from someone who subscribes to multiple newspapers, and whose idea of a fun afternoon is re-reading articles in The New Yorker and Harper's Magazine.
But apparently not reading the titles of TV shows nor their credits.
Assuming there's nothing on CSPAN, of course.
Or Boomerang.
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A fellow Java defender? On Slashdot? Gasp!
Working with Java every day (and having worked with many other languages and platforms) has shown me that most of the frequent attacks and abuse it receives are really unnecessary and are usually made by people repeating propaganda. For non-Java developers out there: Swing != Java and API != Java.
And finally: please, please, please do not confuse JavaScript with Java. They are completely different beasts and share very little but a name.
Re:always blame java... (Score:4, Interesting)
I blame java because "compile once, run anywhere" was sold as an attribute of the language, not the developers.
In my experience, whenever I try to use a different Java applet, it's better than even odds I'll have to spend an hour installing the specific jvm for which it was built. Of the two applets pointed to by the article, only the baseball simulation worked with my Mozilla 3.0 plus Sun built jdk 1.6 RPM.
Perhaps if I were running Windows, life with java would be easier, but that's like noting that khat is easier to obtain in Somalia than the U.S.
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So if I stick my peen in MORE girls it LESSENS my chances of finding one with AIDS?
No. Obviously not. The idea is based on a fictional, purely heterosexual world. The point was if there were MORE promiscuous women, your chances of getting AIDS from any one of them is much lower than if there were fewer promiscous women. But the converse is not true. Not matter how many promiscuous women there are, no matter what percentage of promiscuous women have AIDS, your chances of finding one with AIDS will always increase with the number you 'stick your peen into,' young padawhan.
That's the wh
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Unless the kind of man who sticks his peen into multiple women, tends to find different partners than those who don't...
What's most noteworthy is that there are two settings for male behavior in the simulator. Each of them is totally unrealistic, and they give completely different results. ... So, what am I supposed to learn here?
Not to mention that there's nothing too new about the results, and somehow people in the 60s understood them without a java applet. Basically what happens is that promiscuous women
Re:Short answer: (Score:5, Funny)
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Long answer: because it's more portable that way. I don't have a fancy-shmancy iPhone where I would have ubiquitous Internet access (but it doesn't matter anyway because it can't run Java or Flash!) so taking RSS feeds on my gadget with me on the run works best. No need for pictures (most of the time), gimme the vanilla information.
Re:Short answer: (Score:4, Insightful)
what difference does it make whether you have a constant internet connection or not? if you're going to download RSS feeds from the internet onto your gadget, you could do the same with a Java applet or Flash. it's not like streaming video where you need an internet connection to view it.
they're just another form of digital multimedia. and just like photos, not every article needs them, but when it's appropriate they can add a lot to the article. i mean, why hold back when the technology is available, costs nothing, and is easy to use? if there's a story on a new space mission, why not let readers see the accompanying photos or video footage?
this isn't the 90's. we're living in an age now when almost everyone has a cellphone or some other sort of portable device with storage capacity measured in gigabytes and capable of displaying rich multimedia like images/video and play CD-quality audio. so if you're writing a game review, why not include a video clip of the gameplay? if necessary, content publishers can use a format (like MIME) that degrades gracefully. if your device can't play video, it'll just show the images and rich text--or just plain text.
images will probably still be the most common type of media accompanying news stories, but there's no reason for us to arbitrarily limit ourselves to text and images. it's not going to "save" journalism (because there's nothing to be saved), but it would be cool to read a story about a new space vehicle and be able to view a rotatable 3D model of the vehicle.