Death of the Newspaper -- Chapter 657
This video is really something worth seeing. Like a train wreck.
It's 15 minutes of pontificating from the "reader's rep" at the Cleveland Plain-Dealer. And one more world-class example of just how totally and completely lost some of these Newsosaurs continue to be. Lost, arrogant and full of hot air, I might add.
| Weekly chat with Reader Rep Ted Diadiun |
You don't really have to watch all or any of it, actually. King Kaufman over at the The Future of Journalism site takes it apart and rips this guy Diadiun a whole lot of new open ad space, so to speak.
In the video, he celebrates a recent column by one of the PD's writers who proposes the way to save papers is to shut down by blogs by tightening copyright laws. Brilliant, no? Both the columnist and Diadium are entitled to their obsolete and censorious views. No problem, there. But in this video the PD ombudsman puts on garish display his gross ignorance of the blogosphere and helps us understand how newspapers are stumbling into the abyss. It's not just about the economic model. It's also about decades of unchallenged and myopic arrogance.
At one point Diadiun boasts that the pro-copyright column might have garnered about 30,000 readers. Way, way more, he says, than that blogger "guy" Jeff Jarvis whom, he imagines, might have a few dozen readers.
LOL
P.S. As I travel around, I'm actually making a point of reading more local newspapers than ever. Sorry to generalize, but mostly they suck. They are emaciated, boring and kept barely alive by AP copy.
The Plain-Dealer was once a very good newspaper. I even wrote for it a few times back in the 80's. But haven't been in Cleveland in a while and I freely admit to not searching it out, ever, on the Web.
July 9th, 2009 at 4:26 pm
Geez Louise, Cooper. Newspapers are so dead nobody even feels like bashing them anymore.
July 9th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I just read Jeff Jarvis’ site. He supported the attacks on Iraq and Afghanistan.
And he’s a “liberal”.
July 10th, 2009 at 6:49 am
And now, for something completely different:
I…have to admit, I share the rightwing’s fascination with Ann Coulter.
But for different reasons. I just can’t get past the Adam’s apple.
July 10th, 2009 at 7:05 am
I haven’t watched the video – mainly because the guy who has written two long blog posts about it says HE hasn’t gotten past the first ten minutes, so I assume it has the power to cloud men’s minds – but there’s something about a key argument coming from the Plain Dealer I don’t understand. It’s the bit about a 24-hour news injunction and the “ripping off” of original journalism by “news aggregators” like HuffPo or The Beast. In my experience a site like HuffPo does it’s own short summary of a story, drawing one’s attention to it and then links to the source. That means that my eyeballs – if I care about the story – are directed to the site of, say, the Plain Dealer to read the actual story. That helps, not hurts, the Plain Dealer because I’m not going to check 20 newspapers for original stories. If a local paper is doing interesting reporting, the news aggregators actually grow it’s potential audience rather than diminish it. So far as I know it’s already a violation of copyright to reprint from the original story at length and it has to be reported much like, say, a television broadcast would handle it via short summarization. Aside from the 1st Amendment issue, there’s no way that an embargo of summarization helps the source, because nobody knows about your story exists who isn’t already a regular reader. News aggregators don’t rob you of regular readers, i.e. in the Plain Dealers case, folks who live in Cleveland and crave whatever local news the Plain Dealer provides – they bring irregular readers to your site on a semi-regular basis, which should help, not hurt, your “clicks” for assessing ad rates and any other schemes for monetization of your news stories.
July 10th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Here in Kansas, virtually all of our “small town newspapers” are owned by big corporations like Tribune from decidedly much bigger cities. All of them, that is, except for the good old Iola Register, located in Iola, KS. It has been independently owned since its inception several years ago, and despite the nationwide reputation of the Kansas City Star and the Wichita Eagle (both corporate owned), the Iola Register is the only newspaper in Kansas worth reading on a regular basis, and spending your subscription money on. There is actual news and reporting, believe it or not, although it is done on a shoestring. And this newspaper was ahead of the so-called “respectable” (read: big) newspapers at the time of the Iran Contra scandal, and in more recent years, the detainee abuses at Gitmo and Abu Ghraib. Every other newspaper in Kansas is tinged heavily to the right wing, and not just the neo-con faction, but to the extreme part of the right wing. Despite the fact that Kathleen Sebelius was elected governor twice because the overwhelming majority of Kansans rejected the GOP candidate because they were too far to the right.
So if you are ever passing through Iola, KS, Marc, deposit a couple of quarters into a paper machine and check it out. It is pretty good…or maybe I am just so used to low quality newspapers that I haven’t read anything better (I must confess that I do spend a lot of time each week reading back issues of the New York Times that a friend gives to me).
July 10th, 2009 at 12:59 pm
To give you an idea of how things are: In the Salina Journal, out of all of the nationally syndicated editorial page columnists that they feature each day, there have historically featured exactly two of them who could in any sense of the word be construed as being friendly to Democrats: Paul Krugman and Susan Estrich. Just those two; not even David Broder merits a space. Within a matter of weeks of the former winning the Nobel Prize last year, he was purged completely from the pages of Journal, leaving only Estrich (her columns condemning Democrats who criticize Israel in the least apparently solidified her in the eyes of the powers that be…so if there must be a token Democrat on the editorial page, who better to have than Estrich). To my knowledge (I haven’t paid money for the Journal in years, and I have completely stopped reading it for some time), Krugman’s space was taken by a Thomas Sowell, a real right wing loony if there ever was one.
The Phillistine from Georgia might call the newspapers “liberal media”, but if that is what is meant by “liberal media” (i.e., having one Democrat on an editorial page of dozens), I will celebrate immensely when every last newspaper in the land goes bankrupt.
Thank God for blogs like this. I am not unsentimental enough to appreciate our small town newspapers for their church coverage (I go to church myself), 4H coverage (I was a longtime 4H member, and I admire the organization greatly), boy scout news, local small town high school sports news….blogs don’t do that kind of stuff. I think that is a tragedy, but I am sick of newspapers – big and small – shirking their responsibility to inform the public with hard factual news reporting, rather than the typical kind of entertainment-larded, innuendo-riden, guilt-by-association attacks so favored by the conservative publishers who pull these strings from above. Good riddance, newspapers!!!
July 10th, 2009 at 3:10 pm
David: who could in any sense of the word be construed as being friendly to Democrats: Paul Krugman and Susan Estrich.
Construed? That’s like saying that Ann Coulter could be construed to be a conservative. Why are you so afraid to just come out and state the obvious? Liberals specialize in weasel words.
- – -
No newspaper has gone out of businiess that didn’t deserve it.
July 10th, 2009 at 4:03 pm
“Ann Coulter could be construed to be a conservative”
It’s kind of sad that Woody embraces Ann Coulter as a “conservative”. There’s nothing conservative about her. She’s a radical rightwinger veering into fascism – assuming the crazy bitch believes a word that she utters and isn’t just addicted to TV cameras and book sales. Even the National Review fired her ass because she was too much of a screeching nutball extremist. Coulter’s radical rage-mongering is the antithesis of “conservatism” – at least “known world” conservatism that has roots in thinkers like Burke and Oakeshott.
July 11th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
The Scary Blonde Pundette is a radical statist reactionary, not a conservative. Reg gets it right, as usual, the guy from Georgia grasps.
July 11th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
reg: Ann Coulter is…veering into fascism
Fascism:
Don’t you mean President Obama?
July 11th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
I don’t know the ostensible politics of “Rep Ted Diadiun” but his ostensible politics doesn’t really matter, does it?
Reactionaries fear Free over a payment model. Reactionaries fear universal access to the means of production and publication because they fear and detest the people.
Reactionaries won’t tell you who they work for; how much money they make.
July 12th, 2009 at 6:55 am
You’re a nutcase, Woody.
Fascism was typefied by nationalist zenophobia, racism and intolerance toward liberal ideology. The Hayekian screwballs who attempt to link fascism to keynsianism and skip over all of the links between the Nazis and rightwing capitalists and racists during the ’30s are utterly disingenuous propagandists. See “Ford, Henry.”
You are ignorant of economics and politics. Totally. And a dishonest racist, homophobic hack.
Go back and masturbate to your wingnut websites…
I’ll grant that you’re not as incoherent as “Biff Larkin”, who sets some standard here for “not even being wrong.”
July 12th, 2009 at 9:12 am
Construed? That’s like saying that Ann Coulter could be construed to be a conservative. Why are you so afraid to just come out and state the obvious? Liberals specialize in weasel words.
Woody, you’re such a fucking moron; David wasn’t saying that there was anything vague about Estrich and Krugman being friendly to Democrats, he was saying that they were the only ones who were by any stretch of the imagination.
July 12th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
reg, liberals today are the most intolerant group, and you show that every day by personally attacking people who hold different views than you.
I could hardly be ignorant of economics and politics. You just won’t admit that I and the study that I linked are really correct.
The facism of Roosevelt is being taken to new heights by Obama.
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Okay, passing, “construed” and “by any stretch of the imagination” are in no way similar. Right.
July 12th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
“The fascism of Roosevelt”
You’re a sick fuck, Woody. Really just an ignorant political pervert. Racist, homophobic, dishonest…and ignorant as hell of both politics and economics. Crazy shit…
July 12th, 2009 at 6:30 pm
“liberals today are the most intolerant group”
This from a rightwing nutcase who calls Franklin Roosevelt and Barack Obama “fascists.”
July 12th, 2009 at 6:49 pm
Incidentally, moron – you’re treading much deeper water than you can fathom. One of the guys you cite is an avowed anarchist. Two others cited in your link were America-Firsters who opposed the US entering into WWII.
You’re part of the “hate America” Right with this argument, asshole. And you don’t even get it…
July 12th, 2009 at 7:34 pm
reg, you’re not qualified to determine who is qualified to discuss politics and economics. Your feeble and desperate attacks against me highlight your inferiority complex and envy.
The guys in the quote that I provided were described as “classical liberals during the New Deal.” They were on your side of the table, which should make their statements about Roosevelt even more believable to a leftist like you.
Regarding Obama and FDR, TIME recently had a cover picture of FDR with the title saying “What Obama could learn from FDR.” My family has detested FDR for decades, for good reason, so it was pretty sickening to see his picture again, right after TIME had Obama on its cover thirteen times in the past year. I tossed the magazine rather than read it, just as I toss off your stupid comments.
July 12th, 2009 at 7:47 pm
Why don’t you and Woody exchange email addresses reg, so you can do your knife dances by yourselves?
July 12th, 2009 at 8:43 pm
Jim, I gave that question one second of thought.
July 12th, 2009 at 8:55 pm
“My family has detested FDR for decades”
That is the single funniest thing I’ve read in a long, long time. Marc, “Woody” has to be a covert creation of yours–it’s just too unbelievably bizarre. C’mon, fess up.
July 12th, 2009 at 9:26 pm
Woody – once again you use terms you don’t understand – i.e. “classical liberals” – in a bizarre context (”on your side”) and prove your ignorance. The point was that you are quoting, which is typical for you, obscure cranks. I’m through with you on this thread – you’ve made an ass of yourself rather throughly.
And I don’t want to upset the tender sensibilities of the intellectual giants, Jim R and Sergio.
July 12th, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Joseph, you left off “for good reason.”
In fact, my mother and I were talking about FDR this past weekend. In negotiations with my grandfather in a coal-miner’s strike, John L. Lewis took up for him and put FDR’s guys in their place after they unjustly attacked him.
But, the dislike for FDR goes much further and for more good reasons.
Okay, I’m through on this.
July 12th, 2009 at 9:29 pm
reg, get over your class envy.
July 12th, 2009 at 10:02 pm
Woody, get over your envy of anyone who actually has a clue…
You bizarrely called FDR a “fascist” – which is really a perverse and indecent point of view that indicates you reside on the margins of political opinion – and defended that by invoking one contemporary writer who avows anarchism and a couple of obscure”classical liberals” from the ’30s – who showed their colors by opposing Roosevelt over support for the Allies in WWII. You added to the analytical mess by apparently assuming that folks of the Hayek-Van Mises stripe are my fellow “liberals” and “on the left.” You literally don’t know what the hell you’re talking about and are grabbing blindly at strange quotes that confirm your petty prejudices, regardless of how dubious or ideologically extreme the source. You are intellectually incompetent. It’s really that simple. For you to imply some sort of “envy” of your incompetence is pathetic. Okay, this is a waste of pixels on a ridiculous little prick…
July 12th, 2009 at 10:04 pm
Oh one more irony – all of this on Woody’s part in defense of…Ann Coulter. While calling liberals “intolerant.”
It reeks.
July 13th, 2009 at 7:50 am
I defended Ann Coulter? Where was that? No, I made a comparison.
“It” doesn’t reek, but “you” lie.
July 13th, 2009 at 9:00 am
“# Woody Says:
July 11th, 2009 at 6:42 pm
reg: Ann Coulter is…veering into fascism
Fascism = blah, blah, blah
Don’t you mean President Obama?”
Still reeking…