Kevin : There you are. Sorry about not replying to your gotta-wrap-my-head-around-this e-mail review, I'd need to study it first before a decent response would be a good idea. But about journalism, etc, that's a different matter. The wheels are well greased for that. About Huffington, sure, there are numerous new choices. Thousands. Huge variety. Alas, quality is scattershot, with the low end predominant. So, there is a new problem for the consumer, how to find the good stuff and avoid the inferior blogs. It isn't easy until you do a lot ( mucho ) searching and locate a few reliable sites you can trust. But since the landscape is always changing you can't assume that today's good choices will be the same for next year or maybe even next month. "Paid" journalists may be a better designation than "professional" in some circumstances, but not always. Here in Retirement Land there are all sorts of unpaid people who nonetheless are professionals, for example, but your point is valid enough. Billy ------------------------------------------------------------------- In a message dated 12/1/2009 6:26:11 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected] writes:
I hope I'm not too much stating the obvious when I say that one of the major issues in this discussion is the problem with the words "professional" and "amateur" each having at least two distinct common meanings. Amateurs are not necessarily amateur, and professionals are not necessarily professional. (I will use the words "paid" and "unpaid" instead.) I think one of the main arguments to be made on the Huffington side is that there are many, many more unpaid journalists nowadays than paid, because of the sphere-o'-blogs. More choice and more competition is always better for the consumer, for two reasons. First, they can filter out the "bad" journalists. Secondly, they have more choices with regard to the kind of journalism that they want. Are there caveats to these? Absolutely. Which is no doubt why Ms. Huffington believes that paid journalists aren't going to go extinct. -Kevin On Dec 1, 2009, at 5:09 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: Ernie : Also in reference to the posting Chris provided- which, BTW, was quite informative. You seem to be thinking in terms of professionals to work with. Maybe you call them amateurs, and as journalists that may be true, but I simply cannot make that kind of assumption. Maybe better, what I know about news publishing per se, as opposed to a business journal or something similar where anyone interested will have serious background and probably ( or certainly ) a college education, this isn't necessarily the case in news. All kinds of folks think they know all about news when, in fact, they don't understand it at all, or only see the surface and little else. Some have less than a college education also, and while this is not an absolute bar, without that kind of learning experience people have 2 and 1/2 strikes against them. Its like an incident I once read about. A psychologist was interviewing an inmate prior to a parole hearing. The question was what kind of gainful employment was the individual qualified for on the outside. "I can do what you are doing," said the inmate. O sure, its a breeze, all you need to do is talk, Uh huh. With actual amateurs this sort of thing is commonplace. They -- a lot of them-- simply don't grasp what its all about. Yet some may well be good sources for X or Y or Z in terms of access to hard to get information. There are professionals in my world, but ask any teacher, there are more non-professionals than otherwise. This is necessarily so, 90% of students are anything but professional . Maybe some year they will get there, and that is the challenge and reward of teaching, but in the meantime, well, they are amateurs, nothing more. In a free speech group who mostly gets involved are de facto students, people who, at some adult stage in life now decide to express themselves about politics or culture, most never having seriously studied any such thing before. I've actually been talking about this with someone who has some of the skills necessary, and my head is filled with ideas to try out, but I still can't say when anything will happen. Whenever it is, though. it won't be with a staff of seasoned journalists, it will be a one man band for a while, until others can see the "product" often enough to get a good sense of what its all about and make judgements about the underlying philosophy. It is one thing to promote a "normal" product, say software or a new device. You can believe in anything you want, from pacifism to anarchism, as long as you are good at making the product, so what ? In news, however, philosophy is the name of the game. But getting consensus about philosophy = nailing Jello to the wall. So, yes, this is "my" problem, but that translates into similar problems for thousands of others with much the same aspirations. Good material to look over, but as much as I think well of Graham's essay especially, and think well of the e-publications, I am still at a more basic level While at the same time being miles down the tracks with concepts I hope to turn into reality some day. Billy ================================================ In a message dated 12/1/2009 3:51:26 P.M. Pacific Standard Time, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) writes: Hi Billy, On Dec 1, 2009, at 3:42 PM, [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) wrote: I like her article. But in terms of the real world problem being posed it comes up short. Meaning it doesn't solve *your* problem. :-P Actually, the real issue you are facing is that you are a *startup*. Thus, you need to start thinking like an entrepreneur: a) What is your primary mission b) What is the business model to make that sustainable c) How can you bootstrap it d) Whom do you need on board to make that all happen Those aren't problems that anyone can solve for you. Though, Paul Graham would be an excellent place to start: _http://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html_ (h ttp://www.paulgraham.com/articles.html) In fact, he touched on this very issue recently.... _http://www.paulgraham.com/publishing.html_ (http://www.paulgraham.com/publishing.html) What happens to publishing if you can't sell content? You have two choices: give it away and make money from it indirectly, or find ways to embody it in things people will pay for. The news isn't very encouraging for those hoping to raise money for journalism, but that's just hard cold reality. Though, Arianna did highlight a few models that seem to be working: And all across the country, passionate entrepreneurs are doing just that, experimenting with new and creative revenue models. _TechDirt.com_ (http://www.techdirt.com/) is monetizing its engaged and highly informed community by turning them into focus-groups-for-hire. _ProPublica_ (http://www.propublica.org/) is using a not-for-profit model to produce impact investigative journalism. And there are many different powerful local journalism models, including _Voice of San Diego_ (http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/) , which supports its award-winning local journalism with a combination of advertising and public radio-style contributions from foundations and users. The new paths to success are still being charted -- and much remains uncertain. But this much is clear: we can't use an analog map and expect to find our way in a digital word. Did you look at any of those to see how they work, and what might be applicable to your situation? _http://www.TechDirt.com/_ (http://www.techdirt.com/) _http://www.propublica.org/_ (http://www.propublica.org/) _http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/_ (http://www.voiceofsandiego.org/) -- Ernie P. = _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/ _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected]_ (mailto:[email protected]) _http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com_ (http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com) Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/ = _______________________________________________ Centroids mailing list: [email protected] http://radicalcentrism.com/mailman/listinfo/centroids_radicalcentrism.com Archives at http://radicalcentrism.org/pipermail/centroids_radicalcentrism.com/
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