According to The Economist's survey this week on the new media, blogs are a conversation. They are interactive. Teenagers (... and some of my adult friends now that I think of it) are using them to chat with each other and make plans, rather than using email or IM, and newspapers should be using them to allow their readers to interact with reporters, editors and each other (more on that later).
So with that in mind - and assuming I have at least a couple readers (as evidenced by comments from Daddy Yankee and Bo Bice, which I particularly enjoy) - I'd like to solicit input. I considered sending an email out to my friends, but considering this blog is called "it's better than a mass email," this might be the best forum.
I am looking for music suggestions. Since discovering the ease and excitement of music downloads, I need some new music. Plus, I like to send out year-end best-of CDs and so far, all I've got so far is Reggaeton and Bachata and I am not sure I want to do an all Latin music best of. So what are you listening to? (I realize this blog has never been a spot for tons of comments and interaction, but I thought I'd give this a try....)
The survey also got me thinking about the state of affairs in the newspaper business, and despite some of the discouraging outlooks both in The Economist stories as well as pretty much every where you read about newspapers, I don't think it's dire. One person predicted that the last newspaper would be read and recycled in 2040 (which I don't fully buy), but that doesn't mean the industry will be dead. Maybe newspapers as we know them - printed each night on newsprint so it arrives when we wake up - but assuming they get their act together, chances are they will be around for a while to come.
The average profit margin for the largest papers is around 20 percent, compared with some 7 or 8 percent for most Fortune 500 companies. So they are making money, and just need to rebuild the industry. Enter the opportunity for interaction with readers through the Web sites - and perhaps eventually putting content only online - and taking advantage of online ad dollars, which I understand many papers aren't doing.
It seems to be a stubborn industry, hesitant to embrace or even research the changing media world around them. Many reporters fear bloggers will take away their jobs (while bringing down the standard of journalism with lack of credentials or editing), but rather than working with the changes, they are largely rejecting it and will soon find themselves getting left behind. What papers seem to have going for them is a trusted name and a reputation, and if they bring this into the current climate, I think they can continue to present news and analysis in the new media world.
Maybe I am trying to be optimistic as I continue to look for a job in this damn media industry, and I don't want to think the money I spent on grad school was wasted....
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
10 comments:
1) I'm ashamed to admit I just downloaded Bubba Sparxxx's "Miss Booty." It's amazing.
2) funny, b/c my publisher is constantly updating us on this Internet/ad/circ war. And I think it's definitely true that papers don't utilize online advertising enough, I don't believe ours does. And I know a lot of co-workers, mostly designers, who see the print newspaper dying in coming years. Still hard for me to grasp that, it really is. Just b/c you're still going to have your commuters, your guys who jump on trains to go to work, with their papers in tow. I don't know -- I know it's changing and it will continue to change. But I just don't see the ink dying in my lifetime.
It's killing me 'cause I really want to talk about this on my blog (and I think you should keep blog-form, btw), because I've been in several closed meetings where we've explored this at great length.
But I think I can be a bit more free on your comment board. Building off what Mary Kay was just saying, the paper I work at is definitely in transition, and a lot of the old-time print writers understand the necessary changes and don't fight it, but they do bring up legitimate concerns about how this does present a challenge to sustain the standards associated with print if we basically start changing to a 24-hour news-update cycle. What about the time-tested process of writing, then holding your daily story to the fire by a regional editor, a metro editor, an asst. mnging editor, a mnging editor, etc. etc? What happens when you just slap stuff up there, before this editing takes place? Sure we go into this with a "print" reputation (good or bad, depending), but how long before that begins to change?
Our paper is looking to become some nebulous print/online update/wire service-type organization, complete with interactive blogs, message boards and pod-casts. Basically, their solution is to throw a lot more f*cking work at us... [grumble grumble!]
Speaking of, I'd love to go on, but I've avoided work long enuff...
Dick, I appreciate your thoughts on the newspaper thing.
I see the concerns, but putting stories on the Web as they break doesn't mean they won't be edited. I worked for a magazine (albeit a weekly so different from the daily stuff) but we would put news stories up on the Web and then develop them further for print. It was tough but it made for better stories.
Also, rather than suffer, the reputation of the papers just has to change. Maybe the papers don't have to become a full-on wire service, but there should be more interaction. I support the idea of message boards and blogs and podcasts, but also retaining the other piece of what people go to newspapers for - good stories.
And finally, Dick, what music are you listenting to?
These days I'm getting more into ... My Morning Jacket, Eliott Smith, Kings of Leon, Los Amigos Invisibles ... I'll probably have cooler answers to this after tomorrow's Coachella Festival. (My usual squareness should stay intact, though.)
My CDs! Awesome! I'm glad they are being enjoyed... Although I could sure go for some Bon Jovi or Built to Spill right about now...
Great new CD. Just got Ghostface Killah -Fishscale. Its phenominal. I've been listening to a lot of Luna recently (I recommend Rendezvous). Oh - and the new Pearl Jam CD is great!
the clientele!
Before we go prophecizing the demise of newsprint, let's remember other media technologies that were supposed to be dead now. Vinyl records please stand and be recognized. It now appears that vinyl is the best medium on which to save sound (I shit you negative). Vinyl degrades gracefully with age and retains the highest fidelity over time compared to other media (yes, even to CDs).
I also seem to remember forecasts of the demise of books as well. Something along the lines of "The internet is revolutionizing our entire modern lives! Pretty soon we will read everything on the screen. This new economy is so radically new that it is fundamentally indestructable". yeah.
My point here is that vinyl and newsprint are time-tested, reliable technologies. It is at our own peril to rid ourselves of analog media (books, music, newsprint) to make way for the new. The persistence of media without electricity is vitally important, and I think somewhat underestimated.
New music that yous might like:
http://www.myspace.com/purplereign
The problem with physical newspapers is that I can't read them at work. For instance... just now, El Jefe came in to ask me about some bla, bla, bla work item. Of course I was reading your blog. Had I been reading my newspaper, which is on the front seat of my car, I may have received some strange looks or a scolding. Instead, I continue to type this letter, while he is talking about the Penske account or something. It’s not that I don’t want to work. I think people are overworked these days with no time to read the daily news. When I get home at 8:00 tonight, I read the paper which is by then, old news. So I’m a day or so behind. I am one who is hanging on to the paper product, but I don’t see it lasting either. My eyesight is prematurely failing due to staring at the flashing computer screen and my concentration isn’t far behind. Rue the day when I can’t flip the pages of the newspaper, look for codes in the writing and sketch my thoughts on the articles.
By the way – it’s all Reggae these days.
D, good point on the vinyl, and I agree about the need to still have analog media.
But I think books are different, in that their shelf life is so much longer than newspapers. People keep books around and re-read them, but a newspaper is essentially out of date by the time it hits your doorstep, making it perhaps one analog media that could go?
That said, I am also still hanging on to the paper product, and relish in sitting down to the Sunday paper. But during the week I go online. So maybe it's the content and its approach to readers and the story that has to change.
And thanks for all the music suggestions, folks.
Post a Comment