On 14 December 2011 08:46, Venky TV <[email protected]> wrote: > On 13 December 2011 21:24, Kiran K Karthikeyan > <[email protected]> wrote: > >> Bringing in the only point I was trying to make of people not wanting > >> to pay for what *might* be good for them, I assume you expect doctors > >> to chase down every body over 50 and give them colonoscopies for free, > >> irrespective of whether the "patients" want the treatment or not? > > > > Uh-no. In my mind they're doing their job well if they treat those who do > > come to them. Similarly, nobody who doesn't want to read a newspaper can > be > > well informed regardless of how well journos do their job. > > I agree. So, let me try and clean up your analogy. People going to a > doctor for medicine are analogous to people subscribing to a newspaper > that does quality journalism. These people deserve what they are > paying for -- good medicine/quality journalism. (Like Salil said, if > enough people pay for good journalism, you will get good journalism.) > > On the other hand, if the sick people, instead of going to a doctor, > go to the neighbour ice cream shop because chocolate ice cream makes > them feel good for a while, your position appears to be that it is the > fault of both the doctor and the ice cream vendor -- with the only > people free of guilt being the ones choosing the ice cream shop over > of the doctor as they are not burdened with having to take > responsibility for their own actions. > > Venky (the Second). > > Venky,
I do not think your analogy fits the case. I have no horse in this race (been unsubscribed from daily newspapers for more than a year now, so cannot really comment on their quality) but just going through this thread I think you that is not what Kiran meant. If we would apply your analogy back to news it would be like someone reading Playboy (going to the ice cream vendor) and expecting to get news (I know, I know we read Playboy for the articles; leave that be) That was not the contention here. Here Kiran was saying that we are reading a major daily newspaper and expecting to see a certain 'level' of news. So the right analogy would be that a person goes to a professional who has the certificate of a doctor (like the newsman has the Press tag) and expects to be cured. Now if the doctor prescribes ice cream and palliatives to keep the patient(user) happy and at the same time writes down a set of tests to be done to keep the hospital (management/business) happy then it is questionable ethics, is it not? Granted that the patient should also realize that this doctor is just a hack (no pun intended) and should probably find the right doctor. However that does not remove the onus from the doctor to discharge his duty honorably. Personally I trust all my different online groups to point me in the direction of interesting and important news. People I know are as prejudiced as the next person, but more often than not I do know what those prejudices are and I can filter it out. I find this to be most effective and efficient for me. As for the print newspaper, I did miss it in the early days but now I do not even remember how it felt to read it everyday. My reason for unsubscribing was not because of all the macro news coverage or lack thereof. My major problem was no major newspaper covered the events and news of smaller cities like Pune. To add insult to injury, papers like Pune Times would just recycle articles from Mumbai Times, albeit a week or two later. I think the local language press does a much better job at this than the English press. I strongly believe that if newspapers need to have a relevance in the future they need to focus on the local news. cheers, Brij.
