Fundamental Disconnect The thought just hit me : The reason for the format makeover at the Washington Post and the Christian Post, and probably other newspapers that have online editions, is due to the format needs of portable small size computers. There are two ways to look at this development : ( 1 ) Marketing --make your product accessible to the most people you can. Cater to the tastes of your customers ; acknowledge the reality that portable electronic devices are nearly pervasive and serve millions of people for their news needs. ( 2 ) News readerships that matter when thinking in terms of influence on public policy, culture, and scholarship. That is, there may be fewer readers who effect political decisions or who are major influences in the arts or education, but these people matter far more because of their social leverage. It is rare when a newspaper can use a serious format and out-compete with the so-called popular press. Hence Murdoch's successes with newspapers ; he has, all along, focused his attention on money-making journals that, by no-one's standards, are the equivalent of the NYTimes or the formerly excellent WPost. The one exception to the rule is the WSJ, which is in a class by itself. Actually this may not be all that rare. The Denver Post survives and it was the Rocky Mountain News that folded even though its format was similar to those of some tabloids. The Chicago Tribune continues to out-compete the more-or-less tabloid format Sun-Times. But there is something to be said for the view that popular format newspapers sell better than serious newspapers. The question before us concerns tradeoffs. All newspapers want "numbers." Readerships have to be large enough to sustain them financially. The trouble is that newspapers also need respect --which is just about impossible to quantify but which is a publication's most valuable asset. In so many words, the W Post has a bad case of "AOL disease." This affliction consists of forcing disruptive and hated changes upon all users / readers and if they don't like it, ignore them and don't listen to their complaints. This affliction can be
the result of youthful stupidity or a half-educated mindset that may date in origins to the 1950s or possibly as late as the 1980s. That is, the new W Post format may make it easier to read the paper on a device that is the size of a wallet or that easily fits inside a woman's purse, but it is ridiculous when viewed on a standard desktop. Indeed, it looks so amateurish on a desktop that a publication's credibility becomes instantly damaged --which, incredibly, the W Post seems to have completely overlooked. Hence comments to the effect that kids have taken over the editorial offices and are ruining everything out of youthful stupidity and ignorance. Well, here is yet another case of the price one pays for not trying to look into the future to discern probable consequences of decisions. The paper could only see the upside, more tablet readers of the paper, while totally ignoring the very foreseeable downside. When all is said there is a Fundamental Disconnect between serious journalism and made-for-tablet journalism. Not that there aren't some kinds of serious work that can be carried out on small portable devices. It is easy to think of examples --reports from a petroleum geologist in the field, analysis on the spot from a crime lab in its investigations, communications from archeologists on an important dig..... However, and I feel certain that Ernie will correct me if he thinks this is wrong, otherwise serious research and writing is almost a joke when considering portable devices. Scholarship and professional research is the domain of the desktop --for many obvious reasons. Portable devices may have all sorts of social advantages ; this is unarguable. But in terms of serious journalism they are uncompetitive. Does a newspaper want readers who matter or simply a lot of readers whose worldviews mostly consist of unresearched and untested opinions ? TV offers two close analogs. The History Channel has become the popular culture channel and offers a host of virtually worthless pap to its viewers. This formula seems to have worked in terms of viewer numbers. C-Span has never risen much beyond 20 million viewers per week. But it is a serious news-and-views service that is deeply respected. The History channel deserves almost no respect. It seems clear to me which direction we should go. Billy -- -- Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community <[email protected]> Google Group: http://groups.google.com/group/RadicalCentrism Radical Centrism website and blog: http://RadicalCentrism.org --- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Centroids: The Center of the Radical Centrist Community" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to [email protected]. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.
