The Great NYT Whale
What would I do if I were the New York Times and an entire news and information ecosystem depended on me?
Hmmmm...
The reason this question is asked is because newspapers as we know them are definitely dying out. A big reason for that, cited in digcomm class is that newspapers have lost a lot of credibility with the general public. That's the reason blogs are becoming so popular, however, blogs are still largely dependent on the reporting of big news organizations like the NYT. So we can't really resign ourselves to a total purge of all newspapers and just focus on blogs to get our news.
Well, I still can't come up with an answer after a day and a half of semi-serious thought. I agree that we can't do away with newspapers. Part of that is my old-fashioned side that still screams newspapers are still trustworthy (I'm sure I get a lot of that from the fact that I too am a journalist and consider myself a largely trustworthy one at that). I honestly don't see newspapers making many more changes from where we are now. I think the New York Times Select edition will become more of the norm in American newspapers everywhere, as more and more people get fast internet access and prefer the speed and convenience of online (I think the same people who used to pay for printed subscriptions will eventually get around to subscribing to well-developed online ones). TimesSelect is basically a news filter, allowing readers to quickly navigate through stories that they're the most interested in (TimesSelect involves more than that, but that's the stripped-down explanation). Eventually everyone will get around to getting wired and using stuff like this.
As far as newspapers and their credibility, I think credibility is evolving. In much the same way that the American people lost a lot of faith in their elected officials after the Watergate fiasco in the 1970s, newspapers will run a similar course and eventually people will start to trust them again or stop reading the news altogether. In our crazy world, none of us has the time to gather the news for ourselves. Unless we develop a governmental news-gathering association (a la the BBC, which is well-run and could serve as a potential model should we ultimately pursue that route), we're just going to have to go on reading what major news organizations publish for us.
One other government-related idea: Pass legislation that more strictly regulates and privatizes news outlets, in a similar fashion to the Communications Act of 1996 but for print and with tougher standards. It ain't happening, as long as soft money and political lobbying groups still exist in America, but it would be worth looking at.
Hmmmm...
The reason this question is asked is because newspapers as we know them are definitely dying out. A big reason for that, cited in digcomm class is that newspapers have lost a lot of credibility with the general public. That's the reason blogs are becoming so popular, however, blogs are still largely dependent on the reporting of big news organizations like the NYT. So we can't really resign ourselves to a total purge of all newspapers and just focus on blogs to get our news.
Well, I still can't come up with an answer after a day and a half of semi-serious thought. I agree that we can't do away with newspapers. Part of that is my old-fashioned side that still screams newspapers are still trustworthy (I'm sure I get a lot of that from the fact that I too am a journalist and consider myself a largely trustworthy one at that). I honestly don't see newspapers making many more changes from where we are now. I think the New York Times Select edition will become more of the norm in American newspapers everywhere, as more and more people get fast internet access and prefer the speed and convenience of online (I think the same people who used to pay for printed subscriptions will eventually get around to subscribing to well-developed online ones). TimesSelect is basically a news filter, allowing readers to quickly navigate through stories that they're the most interested in (TimesSelect involves more than that, but that's the stripped-down explanation). Eventually everyone will get around to getting wired and using stuff like this.
As far as newspapers and their credibility, I think credibility is evolving. In much the same way that the American people lost a lot of faith in their elected officials after the Watergate fiasco in the 1970s, newspapers will run a similar course and eventually people will start to trust them again or stop reading the news altogether. In our crazy world, none of us has the time to gather the news for ourselves. Unless we develop a governmental news-gathering association (a la the BBC, which is well-run and could serve as a potential model should we ultimately pursue that route), we're just going to have to go on reading what major news organizations publish for us.
One other government-related idea: Pass legislation that more strictly regulates and privatizes news outlets, in a similar fashion to the Communications Act of 1996 but for print and with tougher standards. It ain't happening, as long as soft money and political lobbying groups still exist in America, but it would be worth looking at.
posted by Jeremy and Ashley Wood at 7:38 PM
2 Comments:
regulate print? aaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh! no, no, no. we do NOT want that. if you can get a license, you can have it taken away. broadcast? sure. finite spectrum. print? may it never be.
the answer to building back credibility is transparency. here's the recipe, from spokane:
http://journalism.nyu.edu/pubzone/weblogs/pressthink/2005/11/21/spk_ss.html
trying the link again:
from jay rosen's pressthink
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