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What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

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Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#151

Post by ryuker16 »

ChoHag wrote: post #138
1812calif wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because once your government is the arbiter of "journalism", anyone who disagrees will be marginalized? Even the threat of it can affect what is / is not covered. Once the government has significant power over journalism, you end up with Russian state sponsored journalism. It's not perfect over here, and needs much improvement. Access is contingent on certain rules. It can get much worse.

Because once your government is the arbiter of "plumbing", anyone who can squeeze a pipe together but doesn't need to qualify to work with gas will be marginalised (and unemployed)? Because once your government is the arbiter of "electrician", anyone who thinks the rules are ridiculous (they are frequently way over the top) will be marginalised (and unemployed)? Because once your government is the arbiter of "program…

Skilled trades dont have a political bias in terms of skill application. There is no isis way of plumbing or dark art of wiring.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#152

Post by makomk »

orbitingpluto wrote: post #65
EGreg wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This may not be the news world we need But this is the news world we deserve :)

I think your comment is very apt. If you don't pay for the news, you being manipulated is the product. You have to support people who inform for our actual benefit. I subscribe to a couple digital periodicals. My last paper subscription lapsed about four months ago.

Even if you do pay for news, you being manipulated is still the product - the barrier to entrance just ensures you're a higher-quality, more attentive product. Paid newspapers have always had ads, always been subsidised by newspaper barons with their own interests at heart. Here in the UK, the newspaper chain most aggressive about online paywalls is also the one that openly brags about influencing elections. "It's the Sun wot won it", and you can't get the Sun for free.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#154

Post by CosmicShadow »

dbcooper wrote: post #96
betenoire wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My plumber isn't allowed to call himself a plumber unless he follows the rules for plumbing. Same for my accountant, doctor, electrician, and lock pick. I get the "free speech" argument, but I still cannot understand why we don't have rules about who can and cannot call themselves a journalist. Coming up with these rules might be tricky, but shouldn't we try? Or have we and I'm just uninformed?

Perhaps we should have strict rules about who can call himself an engineer?

We do in Canada.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#155

Post by pixl97 »

moultano wrote: post #41

It seems like we've seen a shift away from people caring about local news in favor of national news. That seems bad for the country.

Many local news papers were bought up and started carrying mostly syndicated AP content with little local content.

Another problem was the rise of the 24 hour national news network that pushed everything as a 'breaking alert' or 'emergency right now'. In general your local news is going to be slow, most places don't have a lot going on. The national news is instead a 24 hour stream of 'news drugs'.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#156

Post by pixl97 »

EGreg wrote: post #34

Basically, just like booksellers and other vendors, the move to online caused Newspapers to compete in a global marketplace, where the unit is the story. And the more outlets, the bigger the competition. This is the result of all that. They are now all chasing a fixed advertising pie, but the barrier to publishing has been greatly lowered I suppose the same could be said of the printing press getting more available w…

>They are now all chasing a fixed advertising pie, but the barrier to publishing has been greatly lowered

Possibly shrinking advertising pie.

Before papers made lots of money selling classified ads locally. Ads for cars, houses, and random junk may have sold for $20 each, but they had hundreds of them. And each market was different leading people to pay double or triple market boundaries (say places with more than one large paper).

Then comes Craigslist and a few other services (even Ebay is a good example for junk not getting posted to the paper). These places allowed lots of people that used to pay, to post for free. Others profit after the sale is completed, leading to little risk to the poster.

Let's say that between these hundreds of papers the combined amount of money coming in was $10,000,000 (this is completely made up, I'm sure I could get realistic numbers if I put a lot of time into it). Each one was making enough money to stay alive. Now, with the new online selling services charging very little, the combined online services made only $1,000,000 a week. But because of their low cost distribution model they still profited hansom. There was a theoretical contraction of $9 million a week in advertising revenues among all the papers, which means a huge number of them had to consolidate or go under. With people not reading the paper for those ads (which I still remember being highly popular in the 80s and 90s) distributions fell even further.

Simply put, nothing could save the papers as they were. It had nothing to do with the contents inside of them, but how they were funded.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#157

Post by Bellthorpe »

dredmorbius wrote: post #60
jacquesm wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just checked out their homepage, let's just say that isn't exactly evident from the content there. I'm going to assume your comment was sarcastic unless there is some proof to the contrary. Some samples: Oh, boy. 34 of the best products from shark tank. 23 texts that will make you laugh way harder than they should. How much do you actually know about drugs? Find awesome gifts for friends and family. 27 Ingenious Ha…

Buzzfeed, who are way up my shit list for clickbait crap, have nonetheless done some phenomenally good reporting on the TPP and ISDS issue, including multi-part deep coverage. You've got to dig for the good stuff, but it actually is there.

That report was alarmist, factually wrong in some places, and draw some ridiculous conclusions.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#158

Post by Senji »

ryuker16 wrote: post #151
ChoHag wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because once your government is the arbiter of "plumbing", anyone who can squeeze a pipe together but doesn't need to qualify to work with gas will be marginalised (and unemployed)? Because once your government is the arbiter of "electrician", anyone who thinks the rules are ridiculous (they are frequently way over the top) will be marginalised (and unemployed)? Because once your government is the arbiter of "program…

Skilled trades dont have a political bias in terms of skill application. There is no isis way of plumbing or dark art of wiring.

On the contrary.

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#159

Post by betenoire »

rhizome wrote: post #136
betenoire wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

good questions. I think the methods applied are what needs accredited, not the results themselves. If an organization calls itself news or whatever nomenclature we agree to, they are claiming to follow accredited guidelines that we collectively trust. At the end of the day, it comes down to heuristics around trust. It's not the message I want to validate, it's the means of preparation that bother me more. I can draw…

What is it about journalism that requires standards like plumbers, doctors, and accountants? More to the point, if you look at the reasons why plumbers, doctors, and locksmiths are held to standards, which ones apply to journalism? Note also that journalism is the only one of your mentioned professions that is specifically called out for protection in the Constitution.

> More to the point, if you look at the reasons why plumbers, doctors, and locksmiths are held to standards, which ones apply to journalism?

Which ones don't?

The freedom of the press is the same thing as free speech, it applies to all of us. Correct me if you are referring to something else and I'm misunderstanding.

There are best practices in journalism, no? Disclosure, ethics, etc. How can I know if someone I rely on for information follows these rules. That's all I'm asking.

Doesn't canada do this? Aren't there requirements for calling yourself a news agency?

Re: What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

#160

Post by takingflac »

betenoire wrote: post #79
nkozyra wrote: post #10

The conclusion that a drop in readership is proof that moving to the web was a mistake is extraordinarily shallow. "Readers continue to leave print newspapers, but they’re not migrating to the online editions." Because they have more options. Print products were often monopolies, especially in the early to mid 90s, a hey day for newspapers. There was often a single publication per DMA. What happened then is newspaper…

My plumber isn't allowed to call himself a plumber unless he follows the rules for plumbing. Same for my accountant, doctor, electrician, and lock pick. I get the "free speech" argument, but I still cannot understand why we don't have rules about who can and cannot call themselves a journalist. Coming up with these rules might be tricky, but shouldn't we try? Or have we and I'm just uninformed?

Names are only protected if there is an associated license or certification process. These processes are generally in place to insure that your doctor/lawyer/electrician is competent enough to do their job, there are major ramifications if they fail to do their job correctly and they can be punished by the system, take away their license, if they fail to meet accepted standards. The way I see journalism is your sources and reputation is what gives you credibility in place of a license, do a bad job and people are less likely to listen to what you have to say.
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