Thursday, March 12, 2009
Media / Silverman The Prophecy of Orson Welles: Which City Will Be the First Zero-Daily Metropolis?
Posted by Jack Silverman on Thu, Mar 12, 2009 at 1:50 PM
Comments (6)
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I still pickup a print paper, but generally only to do the crossword puzzle (hint hint, Nashville Scene). The rest of my news comes through an RSS reader.
I think subscription models have the most potential versus pay-per-view. How many people view cable television as a necessity versus on demand programming? I would actually pay some amount of money for access to an RSS feed from a local news source that earned my money by vigorously investigating and reporting on goings on in the local community. I would not pay any money for the content of the current Tennessean or Scene. The new sources most likely to survive are those that embrace disseminating their content in as many ways as possible and that make sure that content is exclusive or otherwise unavailable from other sources. Real courtroom reporting, legislative reporting, etc. On the internet, specialization over generalization, every time.
(I, by the way, work for a successful "new media" company.)
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I've long subscribed to two print dailies [The Tennessean and the NYT] seven days a week, and the WSJ online. I recently got my paws on the Kindle 2, though, and have found it really convenient to get the NYT that way. I don't get quite everything, and the graphics are the pits, but if I want to look at a graphic I can go online and get it better than print [e.g. the recent interactive unemployment map, offering county-level data at the point of a mouse]. The Kindle is handily portable, and the e-ink and adjustable font size are easy on my sixty-something eyes. I spent last weekend in the wilds of rural Missouri, and still had the NYT for breakfast, downloaded wirelessly. It's fairly pricey at $14/mo, but that's a heap less than home-delivered, and hugely less wasteful of trees and less of a recycling burden--plus I don't really mind paying for news. I may well dump the dead-tree version except for Sunday [the Sunday NYT isn't just the news, it's a ritual]. I also get the Financial Times on Kindle at $10/mo. I may get disillusioned with my new toy soon, but right now it's a boon.
Most of the papers that are failing are doing so because they have failed in their duty in being the watchdog of the public's interest. Instead they became partisans for the Democratic party and thus lost their credibility. Look no further than the Obama campaign or the global warming propaganda campaign to see what I mean. News organizations that maintain a balanced view like the WSJ, Economist, and Fox News will continue flourish.
You say "For all of their (our?) faults, if there's no regular public forum to keep the powers that be in check, isn't that a recipe for disaster?"
What do you mean "...if..."? The observable evidence is that there is no "if" in your question. Laker is right on.
Laker, you actually made a couple of reasonable, or at least potentially viable points, which you completely undermined with statements so absurd that I'm wondering if you're kidding. Your first sentence in particular has some validity.
But global warming propaganda? Seriously? No reputable scientist in their right mind suggests global warming is not a real and serious concern.
And then, as news organizations that maintain a balanced view, you cite WSJ, which I will agree presents a relatively balanced, if slightly right-leaning, view. But then you say The Economist, which is widely accepted on all sides to be an example of advocacy journalism, just like The Nation or Mother Jones is on the left side of things.
But Fox News? You can't be serious. Even most people I know who lean right find Fox to be a laughingstock. I'll be the first to admit MSNBC leans left, but if you can't see Fox leans so far right that it's practically lying down, anything else you say is suspect.
