Front page of NYT today

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/03/12/business/media/12papers.html?_r=1&hp


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"In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches."

I disagree, a lot of the content in the news you can't get everywhere else. Especially local news. Most of the blogs out there now copy their news from these original sources. (there is value to that, like drudgereport, but its worthless without the original story) At some point it is one person who actually conducts the interview, or makes the phone calls to track down a story. They're doing it for a salary. The blogs that do write original content are either editorializing on someone elses story, or their own reporting is filled with errors and heresy. There is something to be said for the "profession" of journalism.

Local is the future of news. Theres no reason the Journal Sentinel needs a bunch of reporters in Washington to report national news, JS isn't a national newspaper. They need to be concentrating on state and local stories and investigations. I still get the Sunday paper and it is pathetic. It is tiny. It takes me about an hour over my breakfast to read the few articles I'm actually interested in. The reporting is so biased, the editorials so detached from reality, no wonder they've been losing subs for years. The only recent glimmer of hope I've seen is Daniel Bice who's been calling out some corrupt local pols pretty well (but he doesn't follow up and nail these creeps to the wall) and a recent series being done called "Cashing in on Kids" which it seems every week is finding another black mother of 14 kids who's scamming the state child care system for hundreds of thousands of dollars. The JS has avoided for years any stories that might confirm a stereotype on the dysfunctional black families in Milwaukee. This is refreshing. Now if they would cross Doyle for once and start investigating him! We've got our own Blagojevich in WI but no one wants to investigate him because all the reporters are liberals. They are also lazy and don't like doing any actual reporting anymore, they just reprint press releases from pols now.

You want to see REAL pathetic "news", watch local TV news. It's 50% weather which I can't believe people still watch. I just watched this "great" investigative piece where they put hidden cameras in cars they took to a car wash and watched the cleaners steal money from the coin tray. Oh thank god for that watchdog reporting. I thought all this time leaving $30 in quarters in my cup holder and going to a car wash in the ghetto was safe! These are paid journalists with a TV camera and decent resources, and they motivation is to seek out crooked car washes. Why not put some MPS board members in front of a camera and ask them some questions? I haven't read much about local TV news lately, but they're not going to be around long.

I just don't think there's a future with digital books. The only new thing a digital book can do is allow really really small authors a distribution channel. The long tail. But even right now an obscure author can get a book deal, and on demand printing makes that even easier.

Problems with ebooks:

A paperback book simply isn't that expensive to begin with. Unless ebooks are going to be $1, I don't know why someone would by an eBook for $10 when they could get the paperback for $12.

Hardcover, color, glossy books cant be duplicated with an ebook. Coffee table books either.

Of course the laundry list of intangibles: reading a book is different from reading a news article or magazine. It's a long process, typically not done to gather info, but for enjoyment. You can take a book anywhere, you can highlight it, write notes, mark pages. The spacial concept of finding things later (I remember this was on the left page toward the top. This is a big reason why I dont see ebooks replacing school textbooks). The feel of turning pages. Bookmarks. You can toss a book into a bag. It doesnt need batteries. Pass it down to your kids. Flip through the pages quickly to find something. You can burn them in protest!

If mags and newspapers isn't what Amazon is thinking about, they ought to consider it. Especially newspapers. Certain mags will survive for a while I think.

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"In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches."

And when it comes to national news, how about some serious big time papers do something like this:



and pound on him until he's voted out of office or resigns, not just bury the story. Newspapers are supposed to prevent this type of rampant corruption. I think there is huge potential for the next Woodward and Bernstein to bust open this new administration (that can't hire any staff thats paid their taxes), but there's plenty of scum just in Congress to get started with.

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"In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches."

Wow, it's pretty sad to see that a few cities are left with no newspaper. I hope that someone comes along and snatches up their market (ditching the unions of course) and shakes up the industry a little. I agree that they should be focusing on local news too. National news is easy to get anywhere; there are countless online sources for regurgitations of Routers reports, there's no need for local papers to make any mention of it. Many people talk about how there won't be a voice for the people if newspapers disappear, which is only true to a VERY small extent, and since that voice is hardly controversial any more (as you pointed out with the JS), it's mattering far less.

I also agree that local broadcast news is a complete joke. I don't understand why people continue to watch that junk. The stories are rarely insightful, rarely have useful content and are always over-hyped.

I also agree that ebooks will never replace print media, but I think there's a market for ebook readers, assuming the price comes down. Some of the readers are starting to implement tangible concepts, like highlighting, bookmarking and annotating (again, I refer you to iRex), which are all huge steps in the right direction. But I wouldn't be surprised to see the readers explode because of some other source, like newspaper distribution as you've pointed out. Imagine the a device like the Kindle, with it's Internet connectivity, having a market saturation equal to that of the iPhone. Now imagine local and national papers pushing stories to the device in real time. That would be amazing, and I agree that if Amazon isn't thinking about this, they are missing something huge (though, I'm pretty sure they are thinking about this, which is why they included RSS capabilities in the device).

I suspect that, much like the author of that article predicts, we'll see a lot of other local (and possibly even national) papers fold in the next year or two. What will be interesting to watch is what happens from all of that... assuming of course the federal government doesn't try to "bail them out" I guess.

Something interesting that's happening now:
NY Times Turning News Into A Platform
The Guardian Follows The NY Times In Making News A Platform
If they manage to do this right, it could forever change the way news is gathered and reported. Of course, the NYT will probably botch the whole thing, but others may learn from their efforts and do it right.

On a related tangent, reporting these days is absolutely pathetic. Poor grammar and missing words have become the norm. Are all these papers and online blogs firing their editors to save money or something?! If I wanted to read stuff in retardese, I'd get my news from myspace. I expect more from the big players.

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no fat chicks

Quote by stevo

And when it comes to national news, how about some serious big time papers do something like this

Agreed. There's simply not enough subjective and oppositional reporting happening anymore. Newspapers as a whole have just become outlets for large corporations and politicians to get their word out. It's pretty pathetic, and it's why I don't bother consuming any of it. It's also why small-time blogs keep blowing up; because they DO challenge authority, like the newspapers are supposed to.

From the article:

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For more than two centuries, newspapers have been the indispensable source of public information and a check on the abuses of government and other powerful interests. And they still reach a vast and growing audience.

That isn't nearly as true today as it once was. Nowadays, nobody wants to step on any toes, and that's just wrong!

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no fat chicks

For Sale: The Times corporate jet

http://www.politico.com/blogs/michaelcalderone/0309/For_Sale_The_Times_corporate_jet.html?showall

Just hilarious that a newspaper would own its own jet!

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"In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches."

Quote

Wow, it's pretty sad to see that a few cities are left with no newspaper.

I agree. But I think someone out there is smart and will buy up these papers cheap, if only for the brand, and turn them into the digital publications. Could be Murdoch, he owns a ton of smaller newspapers. (BTW, I predict the Journal Sentinel to stop printing a daily paper before the end of the year, and only print a Sunday)

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Something interesting that's happening now: NY Times Turning News Into A Platform The Guardian Follows The NY Times In Making News A Platform

Yeah I've been reading about that. My boss passed this around yesterday:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-1023_3-10193349-93.html?tag=mncol;posts

Clearly NYT realizes its time to change or die, but they still don't understand what to do. This article it full of terrible ideas (CustomTimes to PRINT out your own newspaper!) and retread ideas that sound like theyre from 1999 (semacodes).

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Among the projects he talked about, one done in conjunction with software maker Adobe Systems seemed particularly appropriate in a world where everyone has a different size display and uses windows of infinitely varied sizes within their browsers. Bilton explained that the project is aimed at automatically resizing and reformatting data onscreen for whatever sized window in which the user is reading the Times

Is that supposed to be a joke? This is a new research project they're working on?!

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"In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches."

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Clearly NYT realizes its time to change or die, but they still don't understand what to do. This article it full of terrible ideas (CustomTimes to PRINT out your own newspaper!) and retread ideas that sound like theyre from 1999 (semacodes).

Yeah, it's really amazing how out of touch and behind the technology these companies have become. Makes you wonder how they've stayed afloat this long (same story for the music and movie business, but at least they still have a semi-monopoly proping them up).

The NYT also keeps wanting to charge people for their content, which goes against everything they're trying to do. For instance, they have this open API for people to submit stories, but it sounded like they want to charge people to access that content. Not only is is shady (charging others for something someone else gave you for free), but it's a sure-fire way to stop people from submitting stories. They seem to be the only big paper trying new things though, so you gotta give them props for that at least.

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no fat chicks

Yes, they are constantly contradicting themselves on what tech changes they're going to do. Like I said, they seem to have realized they need to change, but they're just throwing every dumb retread idea to the wall and seeing what sticks. Maybe 8 years ago that would work, but its getting a little late to be experimenting, they need someone with some vision to lay out a strategic digital plan for the future.

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"In the morning if my face is a little puffy I'll put on an ice pack while doing stomach crunches."

They could always snatch up all the news outlets they can afford, stretch themselves to their limits and claim they are "too big to fail". I mean, it worked for the investment firms, auto industry and soon the flight and credit industry, right?

Anyway, keep us posted on your work, I'd love to see how it works out for ya.

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no fat chicks

Just found this. Check the demo, it's pretty slick. 100% javascript, no flash required...

http://www.sohtanaka.com/web-design/simple-page-peel-effect-with-jquery-css/

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no fat chicks

I dig it!