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What If the Newspaper Industry Made a Colossal Mistake?

politico.com

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

#101

Post by GuiA »

jdietrich wrote: post #95
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?

Where do you draw the line on what constitutes journalism? Are politics bloggers journalists? Are bloggers who occasionally talk about politics journalists? Are people who livetweet a news event that they're involved in acting as journalists? How do you safeguard the political independence of the licensing of journalists? How do you ensure that a future government doesn't abuse the licensing regulations to suppress p…

> Are politics bloggers journalists? Are bloggers who occasionally talk about politics journalists? Are people who livetweet a news event that they're involved in acting as journalists?

No. They are respectively a blogger, a blogger, and a Twitter user.

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

#102

Post by trhway »

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?

>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?

Russia has basically done it. Any web resource with more than 3000 monthly visitors gets the "mass media" status with additional rules and restrictions and related punishments. I'd not say that this is a good thing to say the least.

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

#103

Post by poshli »

programminggeek wrote: post #61

I think the problem is a simple assumption - people will leave the print version of My Local Journal and go to mylocaljournal.com when in fact they go from My Local Journal to Buzzfeed or the Yahoo! homepage or Google News or Twitter or Facebook or RSS of their 10 favorite blogs etc... For example, I don't have a newspaper. I also don't check the local newspaper website. My wife, friends, relatives don't seem to eith…

Let's revisit this thread on January 20, 2017!

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

#104

Post by brudgers »

For the typical newspaper, the online experience is horrible. The LA Times heats up my laptop. SF Gate is a heap of latency. My local paper is one Media General sold to Buffett: it's slow, buries the lead, wants me to sign in when I want to read the news and the front page is historically enthusiastic about Classmates.com.

The web has made newspapers so bad that even the New York Times lies to me about ten articles a month without batting an eye if I haven't recently deleted cookies. The Wall Street Journal and Financial Times tell me I must subscribe...except when I click on a link from a Google search.

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

#106

Post by appleflaxen »

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?

I don't think that contemporary journalists are any more virtuous than a blogger. Journalism quality is terrible, and it's not because amateurs are dragging down the mean: almost everybody lives down there.

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

#107

Post by K_REY_C »

GuiA wrote: post #101
jdietrich wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you draw the line on what constitutes journalism? Are politics bloggers journalists? Are bloggers who occasionally talk about politics journalists? Are people who livetweet a news event that they're involved in acting as journalists? How do you safeguard the political independence of the licensing of journalists? How do you ensure that a future government doesn't abuse the licensing regulations to suppress p…

> Are politics bloggers journalists? Are bloggers who occasionally talk about politics journalists? Are people who livetweet a news event that they're involved in acting as journalists? No. They are respectively a blogger, a blogger, and a Twitter user.

And yet if they're at the same event I'm quite likely getting something that, in combination, is much closer to what I'd call journalism.

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

#108

Post by 1812calif »

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?

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.

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

#109

Post by specialist »

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?

Journalists attempt to tell the truth, gets second sources, endures fact checking, and correct any mistakes made.

Pundits are just loud mouths. Truthiness is irrelevant.

Propagandists knowingly lie, distort, omit, whatever.

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

#110

Post by nercht12 »

GuiA wrote: post #101
jdietrich wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where do you draw the line on what constitutes journalism? Are politics bloggers journalists? Are bloggers who occasionally talk about politics journalists? Are people who livetweet a news event that they're involved in acting as journalists? How do you safeguard the political independence of the licensing of journalists? How do you ensure that a future government doesn't abuse the licensing regulations to suppress p…

> Are politics bloggers journalists? Are bloggers who occasionally talk about politics journalists? Are people who livetweet a news event that they're involved in acting as journalists? No. They are respectively a blogger, a blogger, and a Twitter user.

Then what's a "journalist"? Someone who gets paid to go do the research? "Journalist" is derived from "journal" (duh, but important) - bloggers are nothing more than online journalists. The fact that they are called "bloggers" is only because society has elected to stick with the term "blog" for an online journal.
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