The Noisy and Prolonged Death of Journalism 388
The war of words between the old and the new media is heating up some more. Eric Schmidt has an op-ed in Rupert Murdoch's WSJ (ironic, that) explaining to newspapers how Google wants to, and is trying to, help them. Kara Swisher's BoomTown column translates and deconstructs Schmidt's argument, hilariously. A few days back, the Washington Post's Michael Gerson became the latest journo to bemoan the death of journalism at the hands of the Internet; and investigative blogger Radley Balko quickly called B.S. on Gerson's claim that (all?) bloggers simply steal from (all?) hard-working, honest, ethical print journalists.
Not the Death of Journalism ... (Score:5, Informative)
The Noisy and Prolonged Death of Journalism
In Schmidt's piece, he used the word 'journalism' once:
I believe it also requires a change of tone in the debate, a recognition that we all have to work together to fulfill the promise of journalism in the digital age.
Don't ever kid yourself that journalism will die. It's certainly changing but the thing that might die is the old model of power structures and funding around journalism. Journalists will still do reporting and writing for a monetary sum. The channels where that money comes from are rapidly changing ('rapidly' is relative to how historically slow change has been in this world). This friction is creating the death throes of (most) companies involved as money makers in the traditional channels.
It's change, it's probably for the better (as Schmidt notes) but one thing's for sure: it's unavoidable. Adapt or die.
One more thing:
Eric Schmidt has an op-ed in Rupert Murdoch's WSJ (ironic, that)
Never forget that Murdoch still sells eyeballs--at all costs. If it meant betraying a political party or betraying his core values or even displaying another side of the debate, he's here for one thing: money. What we see in the op-ed piece is actually one of the few positive effects of Murdoch's greed. I offer him my rare applause if he had anything to do with this being printed in the WSJ although I'm certain the WSJ printed it to generate revenue and he merely approved of it.
Re:Rupert Murdock... (Score:1, Informative)
Re:hard-working, honest, ethical print journalists (Score:3, Informative)
perfect example is the congressman from california a few years ago who was thought to have had an intern killed that he was supposed to have an affair with. the media "alleged" he was guilty before he was even arrested
Re:Rupert Murdock... (Score:2, Informative)
Not quite. It's one thing to make an emotionally charged comment in the middle of a discussion and another to make an emotionally charged comment to, as you state, illicit a response. Only the latter is trolling. Intent is the main factor in trolling.
A more appropriate reason, IMHO, to not respond is because it's pointless to try to defend your intentions with statements about your intentions, especially to people who have already decided how they wish to interpret your statements. The one general exception is a miscommunication, but that involves rewording what one says, usually.
Providing some substantive to the conversation and how people view you aren't necessarily related. Consider how people would view Charles Manson's comments in a discussion of manipulation of others. Quite simply, emotion tends to override the better judgment of many people, regardless of how relevant or insightful comments are. It really doesn't matter how politely you state what should be said. Of course, I agree that whining doesn't interject anything useful.
Re:Rupert Murdock... (Score:4, Informative)
The problem is that the FCC gutted the requirement that broadcast networks run their news divisions as a community service, even if this was at a loss. Once network news divisions became profit centers rather than pro-bono losses, they were financially required to present as news that which people wanted to see, not what is actually true. (i.e., corporations have a fiduciary responsibility to shareholders to maximize profit - they can't run their news division at a loss without the risk of shareholder lawsuit).
It is sad that what most people want to watch as "news" is not actually true, but there is and always has been a corrective to this: require that that which is labelled "news" actually be fact checked and balanced, and require networks to provide such real news as one of the requirements for holding a broadcast license.
Return news divisions to their former status - i.e., one of the community service requirements for the granting of a broadcast license - and we will return to the days of responsible, fact-checked, balanced journalism.
Re:the real threat will be government intervention (Score:2, Informative)
Probably going to piss off some Neocons, but....
How do you Ronald Regan "all government is evil" fan-boys
Reagonites are about small government, they don't necessarily categorize it as good or evil. Their theory is that a smaller government is less wasteful, and it probably is. But here is where it goes off the rails: while they may be saying they are for less spending and a less invasive government, their actions have been the opposite. What they have done is outsourced what would have been done by the government and reduced the tax burden of the wealthy. Or maybe we just misunderstood, and 'trickle down' was referring to the debt burden.
Some examples would include; warrant-less wiretaps, Haliburton/KBR getting contracts for services the military was already equipped to do (mess facilities, water purification), and civilian military base security.
When the Treasury Department reported the national debt in Sept 1980 we owed $900 billion. In Sept 2008 it was $10 trillion.
President..Overspent..% Debt Increase
Carter.....$ 287b..... 46%
Reagon.....$1,695b.....187%
Bush Sr....$1,462b..... 56%
Clinton....$1,610b..... 40%
Bush Jr....$4,351b..... 77%
On the actual topic of news, I would argue that there is more potential demand for their product thanks to the internet, they just haven't figured out how to monetize it. From my personal experience, I never read newspapers. And I'm old enough that if I had been inclined to develop the habit, I would have before internet news was established. But I read international news online daily, and it includes a lot that would not have made it in a single newspaper. I'm not necessarily against paying for quality news, but no one is offering a compelling solution.
Re:the real threat will be government intervention (Score:3, Informative)
I watch U.S. public television myself, and I like a lot of the programming, but I would still support eliminating it because I don't think it's a good use of public money.
Do you realize you are talking about .013% of the federal budget? This means that if you paid $10,000 in federal taxes last year, that $1.30 went to the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. That's $400 million in total federal tax funding vs. 5.6 billion that the UK government gives to the BBC.
Re:Rupert Murdock... (Score:3, Informative)
C-Span is an example of something that doesn't have an opinion; not Fox or CNN or CBS or ABC or PBS or MSNBC or anybody.
Somebody find some mod points for C-span! If you really want unbiased coverage - at least in the coverage itself if not in the choice of what to cover - you need to watch C-span. If you spend a week or two following their coverage, you'll soon discover who is a talking-point party monkey and who isn't, because they air the briefings without edits.
You'll often see the spokesman for party X briefing reporters about the issue of the day using an obviously poll-tested turn of phrase that you've never heard before. That night on the news you can flip channels and hear all of your favorite unbiased news anchors using exactly that turn of phrase in their own "unbiased and objective" coverage of the news. (and I am talking about news here, not opinion pieces)
You'll even get to see source of the latest phenomenon in news - the story of the day or week. Ever hear those commentators telling you that "the White House will be focusing on Issue X this week"? Ever notice that the unbiased and objective news organization suddenly shifts their stories to cover Issue X, even though nobody at all was talking about it last week? Watch C-span and you'll actually see that sausage being made. You get to watch the policy makers tell the media what issues to cover and which sources and angles to cover. Then you can tune in your favorite stations and watch them do exactly as told.
I guess it might have always been that way, but C-span certainly gave us all a new level of visibility to the lack of personal initiative in the press corps. Both left and right you can come up with examples of this strategy at work.