Ernie's Plan to Revitalize Newspapers You said : I think you and the author are half right.
First of all, the entire economics of newspapers - and traditional media - was based on captive audiences and irrational advertising expenditures. With their monopoly gone and advertisers having both choice AND information about what works, that model isn't sustainable. Newspapers have to aggressively experiment to increase their value to society or disappear. The model you propose is one valid option, but there are many others. One I'd love to see is somebody in the news biz get off the high horse and recognize that the Internet unleashed a flood of citizen journalists, who at their best do just as much investigation as the bulk of existing journalists. If the newspaper journalists are really smarter and more objective than us plebes, why haven't they provided the sort of cogent, in depth analyses that would sway the blogosphere which "leeches off them"? Or is the real problem that their current model was such a slave to their economics that they've forgotten what real journalism could and should be? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------- Did they ever really know ? It is possible to have serious doubts. Not so much with respect to the old war horses, but concerning many Johnny come latelies. But even with the war horses, many cut their teeth on city desk ( crime, mostly ) reporting. Consequently their analyses--and patterns of thought-- tend to have all the strengths and limitations of that approach, with emphasis on the weaknesses part. A city desk approach to , say, Islam or the issue of abortion or education, etc, is guaranteed to miss the point at least 3/4ths of the time. This said, very thoughtful comments. My sincere thanks. Hence the title, to save the e-mail for my files and possibly to use as part of another of my projects. But I'm not as sanguine about the Blogosphere as you seem to be. A lot of it is first rate, of course, and papers like the LA Times have a regular section on "hot" blog commentary. So does Real Clear Politics, the bible of many journalists these days for its comprehensive "depth" coverage of all important news stories --from multiple points of view. Well, maybe not all, since even Real Clear doesn't "get" religion or culture, for that matter it is lame when it comes to serious science also, but otherwise there is nothing like it. But, yeah, a lot more could be done using "citizen journalists." Will that happen ? There I am skeptical. Those who are "in" now have a stake in protecting the status quo and possibly a worse time with another necessary function of news decision makers, spotting new talent and bringing new people on board. They tend to see it as zero sum, not as synergy and win / win. But there is much to think about in your reflections. Billy
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