newspapers

[Dallas Tex]

While I certainly agree the print era has passed, sure hope you are wrong about the passing of the news paper altogether.

Instant reports on Twitter and other on line sources are as often wrong or misleading as not. Investigative reporting takes a commitment to retain the best professionals with available resources to find and follow through on leads and alternative angles to come up with the full story. Many of the start up online news sources either cannot or do not want to go beyond flashing a photo or video with a caption.

Over reliance on sound bite news yields some remarkable disconnects between the public and reality. Case in point today's Krugman column on a google poll where the majority thought the current federal deficits continue to increase when they are actually decreasing.

I hope that I am wrong too, and I expect in one form or another, there will be some version of the NYT available in printed format.

But don't dismiss twitter. Twitter is as reliably as the person tweeting. When the pope tweets something, or a respected reporter, you most likely have immediate, minimalist, accurate information.

[j44ke]

Twitter is not journalism. In fact, it is the complete opposite.

What newspapers do well is act as the fourth branch of government from the ground up by writing complex analysis of the machinations of power that lead to subversion of the intent of citizens or the laws of the land. Note carefully that the weaker and less viable papers get as a business, the more brazen and blatant the activities of governments become. The Internet by definition marginalizes even the best reporting, because only people with a computer AND an Internet connection can read it. A paper can be read by every single person who sits down on a park bench in the middle of Central Park for as long as that paper sits there. And believe me, people still read newspapers that have been sitting on a park bench all day long and passed along from person to person to person. The Internet may be shrinking the world in some positive ways, but it is shrinking the world in negative ways as well.

[vertical_doug]

Twitter is not journalism. In fact, it is the complete opposite.

What newspapers do well is act as the fourth branch of government from the ground up by writing complex analysis of the machinations of power that lead to subversion of the intent of citizens or the laws of the land. Note carefully that the weaker and less viable papers get as a business, the more brazen and blatant the activities of governments become. The Internet by definition marginalizes even the best reporting, because only people with a computer AND an Internet connection can read it. A paper can be read by every single person who sits down on a park bench in the middle of Central Park for as long as that paper sits there. And believe me, people still read newspapers that have been sitting on a park bench all day long and passed along from person to person to person. The Internet may be shrinking the world in some positive ways, but it is shrinking the world in negative ways as well.

If anything should give us pause, it is watching the whole NSA double speak moment on Washington. First, Snowden chose to leak to the Guardian and not the Wapo. The Wapo of Watergate is long gone.

Second, Obama has promised us an independent review of NSA program from outside experts. What do we get? James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence who misled congress with the famous least untruthful response to questions. The panel is already morphing from investigating abuses to focusing on risk from unauthorized disclosure. Double speak.

It really feels like 1984. In 1984, everything was necessitated from Oceanian being at perpetual war. Sound familiar?

Twitter can be a great voice, but filtering the fact from the noise is pretty hard. You should not underestimate the disinformation on the feed too.

[nahtnoj]

Home delivery of NYT daily. Sunday delivery of Philadelphia Inquirer. Inky is mostly useless. NYT is good. Wife subscribed in law school, 7 years later they've never bumped her up from the student rate. Someday they'll conduct an audit. We're both 31. I can read pretty much anything online but prefer the paper when I have time to read it.

[Dallas Tex]

If anything should give us pause, it is watching the whole NSA double speak moment on Washington. First, Snowden chose to leak to the Guardian and not the Wapo. The Wapo of Watergate is long gone.

Second, Obama has promised us an independent review of NSA program from outside experts. What do we get? James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence who misled congress with the famous least untruthful response to questions. The panel is already morphing from investigating abuses to focusing on risk from unauthorized disclosure. Double speak.

It really feels like 1984. In 1984, everything was necessitated from Oceanian being at perpetual war. Sound familiar?

Twitter can be a great voice, but filtering the fact from the noise is pretty hard. You should not underestimate the disinformation on the feed too.

Yeah, dead on.

When I was a kid all the novels & movies about a grim future had the goverment restricting and censoring the press. Well the future has arrived and the exact opposite is true. There is so much press and information available that none of it matters. That, coupled with the fact that people simply don't care anymore, and may have gotten stupider.

The goverment is secretly monitoring your phone calls? This fact becomes common knowledge and basically no one cares.

[zetroc]

I read the WSJ, paper version, daily. The San Francisco Chronicle was my previous daily read, but steady thinning over the past 10 years means I generally finish reading it in about 45 minutes and that isn't enough. That, plus the low standards (really, the corrupt former mayor gets his own column to blather on about his suits while veteran reporters get laid off?) means I haven't bought a paper copy in 4 years. Every time I think about subscribing I pick up a copy at the newsstand and am reminded of why it hasn't happened.

The Journal is still good, but I wish they hadn't changed from honorifics on the sports page. Have been thinking about an NYT subscription but haven't been able to justify the expense.

[zetroc]

Also, this is a great NYT article re: Snowden, NSA, and the Guardian. Won't find articles like this in the SF Chronicle anymore.

http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/18/ma...wden.html?_r=0

[lukasz]

If anything should give us pause, it is watching the whole NSA double speak moment on Washington. First, Snowden chose to leak to the Guardian and not the Wapo. The Wapo of Watergate is long gone.

Second, Obama has promised us an independent review of NSA program from outside experts. What do we get? James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence who misled congress with the famous least untruthful response to questions. The panel is already morphing from investigating abuses to focusing on risk from unauthorized disclosure. Double speak.

It really feels like 1984. In 1984, everything was necessitated from Oceanian being at perpetual war. Sound familiar?

Twitter can be a great voice, but filtering the fact from the noise is pretty hard. You should not underestimate the disinformation on the feed too.

I don't think anything truly perceptive has been said since about where we are today since Orwell, and Eisenhower in 1961. But really it is a tactic as old as human society, isn't it? Become the guardians and unlimited power is yours.

[Matthew J]

I hope that I am wrong too, and I expect in one form or another, there will be some version of the NYT available in printed format.

But don't dismiss twitter. Twitter is as reliably as the person tweeting. When the pope tweets something, or a respected reporter, you most likely have immediate, minimalist, accurate information.

You are correct that Twitter has its place in society. Certainly if you asked the folks making operating Twitter and similar sites they would see their services as providing function in addition to what full out journalism provide. The rub will be whether journalism can find its way in the new media world without trying to become just another social media site.

[vertical_doug]

Peggy Noonan: What We Lose if We Give Up Privacy - WSJ.com

Peggy Noonan has an OpEd in the WSJ today. The real danger is when you start self-censoring out of fear of making a misstep.

As for twitter/facebook, the mere fact that the Egyptian and Turkish Governments want to cut mobile phone services in the squares to prevent real-time blogging tells you about the power of the new media.

If you want to crackdown on social unrest:
1. Cut cellular services
2 block social media sites
3. send in agitators to cause problems
4. then send in the police to restore order.

-D

[Jaq]

Get the Sunday-only LA Times, and then almost exclusively for the coupons. I'm sure there are plenty of coupon sites on the web, but the Zen of clipping is not to be easily dismissed.

If you want to crackdown on social unrest:
1. Cut cellular services
2 block social media sites
3. send in agitators to cause problems
4. then send in the police to restore order.

-D

Or provide people with so much WWE, The View, Teen Mom, Reality Tattoo Shop shows, the Kardashians, Downton Abbey, Type II diabetes, Youtube cat vids, internet p-rn, Angry Birds and other mindless distractions that they just don't give a damn.

[j44ke]

If anything should give us pause, it is watching the whole NSA double speak moment on Washington. First, Snowden chose to leak to the Guardian and not the Wapo. The Wapo of Watergate is long gone.

Second, Obama has promised us an independent review of NSA program from outside experts. What do we get? James Clapper, Director of National Intelligence who misled congress with the famous least untruthful response to questions. The panel is already morphing from investigating abuses to focusing on risk from unauthorized disclosure. Double speak.

It really feels like 1984. In 1984, everything was necessitated from Oceanian being at perpetual war. Sound familiar?

Twitter can be a great voice, but filtering the fact from the noise is pretty hard. You should not underestimate the disinformation on the feed too.

I think that the only reason Twitter Inc et al have been able to be used as some form of end around on government secrecy is that up until very recently the government has been made of people leftover from the pen and paper era. It isn't that technology is democratic - it is that the old guys in government didn't understand technology. Now that they are figuring it out, the Internet makes it easier, not more difficult, to figure out who are the dissidents and who is doing the leaking of what information where and when. People are worried about the politics of gun-ownership registration. Your IP information is much more valuable as a means of control.

And Egypt - who owns the electricity and cell service? How powerful is a Blackberry with a dead battery and no connection? Technology is a product. Freedom is real.

[theflashunc]

Any EIC of a non-national paper (WaPo, NYT, maybe the Trib or the LA Times) who runs a national story on their front page deserves to be fired for incompetence.

Exhaustive and exclusive coverage of local areas is the only way papers have any prayer of surviving. Unfortunately, they're run by people brought up in the good ol' pseudo-monopoly days of the 70's and 80's.

[liv2bike]

Downton Abbey

Yes, give me more Downton. Notice how the Earl of Grantham is always reading the papers...newspapers and telegrams. How we have evolved.

[ThomasRZ]

NY Times delivered to my door seven days a week. I am 33.

I have an obligation: I have an MS in journalism.

I get enough computer time in at work (not in the world of journalism, sadly) and the last thing I need more of is screen time. The paper edition is beautiful and perfect.

[Peter Polack]

This is THE problem. Twitter gets you news seconds after the event.

Frankly, I can't understand the need to have news reported "seconds after the event". Most news doesn't have enough of an impact on our decision making, or our lives, to require such instantaneous reporting.

I delivered as a teenager, and still subscribe to, my local newspaper. I've been that way for 40 years. I feel it's extremely important to be aware of what's going on in my local community and only a local newspaper can provide such coverage. The smaller the community, the more necessary it is. Unfortunately, few people read ANYTHING these days, and fewer care about their towns and bergs, to bother to make the effort.

I'm 53.

[fmbp]

I'm 33. I grew up with my parents getting local and regional papers, as well as the WSJ.

Since graduating from college, I've lived in 4 different cities (Milwaukee, Houston, LA, and Iowa City). I've always like to subscribe to the local paper. For one thing, it has helped me to get to know each new city.

Now, in Iowa City, we get two (small) papers daily. We get the paper from Cedar Rapids, and the paper from Iowa City. I skim through them each morning when I eat breakfast. Mostly, I like the crossword puzzle (and fortunately, the IC paper includes the LA Times crossword puzzle). Once I'm done with the crossword puzzle, the papers get 'recycled' by our dog in her crate. Let's just say the old girl has always had separation issues.

Mostly, I get my news online.

[Jaq]

That's just it. It's not news seconds after the event. It's still gossip. It's limited, subjective, containing a kernel of truth, perhaps more, but nothing to give a rational person enough information to act intelligently upon.

[SpeedyChix]

NYTimes online subscriber and Sunday print delivered. Whenever we've been in New England we add the daily Boston Globe. Local paper is only online now. Mid 50 and I still like reading ink on paper. Graphics industry was my life for 30+ years.

[Dallas Tex]

........ It's limited, subjective, containing a kernel of truth, perhaps more, but nothing to give a rational person enough information to act intelligently upon.

Sort of like most newspaper articles.