Take note DUers - "We Are The Press" and how FDL made it stick.

Let us continue to "rearchitect" our government as We the People ... take full charge of the fate of OUR Republic and never relinquish it again.


BE AMERICA. ---

They did a GREAT job. I was there often and I was never disappointed.:patriot:

1 - Wee heee - I actually spun around in my chair

2 - I am so happy for the Wilsons

3 - I hope all those at FDL have a well deserved night out and rest.

4 - I wish I could log onto DU and enjoy the victory party!

Bush, Cheney and all their neoconster fellow criminals will not prevail ....


Peace.

media is. Then they'll deservedly lose all their power.
:bounce:

In the electronic age, news can be provided by a miriad of sources - like FDL. There'll always be "turf wars" over areas of common focus/interest in journalism, but ultimately the intellectually strong will vanquish the weak - and areas of overlap will diminish in the ensuing shake-out of the competing players.

... already having consequences that every aspect of traditional media and traditional governance are still largely clueless. Protecting the net should be our highest priority, followed by expanding access to every human mind on the planet.


Peace.

Is why we only have AP and Reuters for wire services now. It comes dangerously close by implication to recommending there only be one media outlet/newspaper in any given market at any given time.

The newspaper industry isn't in trouble because it fails to be profitable. It has profit margins that would make any other industry envious. I'm taking margins of 20-30% average across the industry. It is in trouble because panicky and greedy wall street types are divesting newspapers of as much as possible as quickly as possible in order to maximize short run profits at the expense of the long term.

The newspaper business has panicked every time a new medium came along that they'd be run out of business. And they've been wrong every time. They panicked when television was invented, and newspaper stocks tanked. They panicked back when radio came out, and newspaper stocks tanked. They even panicked when the telegraph was invented, and the stocks tanked. And now they're panicking because of the internet. Newspaper stocks are down, sure. But the profits never stopped coming, and the newspaper industry is still going.

Check out Mother Jones for a much better review of what's happening to the newspaper industry.
<http://www.motherjones.com/news/featurex/2007/03/breaking_the_news_package.html>

You missed the meme and the message ....


Peace.

can I support any proposition that encourages newspapers to hire fewer people, and perhaps even lay off more.

Blogs may at times be more accurate and up to date than standard media. But there are also few to no checks or balances on the truthfulness or ideological skew of blogs. In fact, said blog could be positively full of it. Newspapers cannot simply link to outside sources for all of their stories. If an actual newspaper links to a blog, they take responsibility for the veracity of the facts within.

Yes, yes, I understand the meme "We are the media". But look around. And not around DU, this is a pretty bright and aware crowd, but around at the people of the country. The average person isn't that politically aware, isn't up to date with current events, and couldn't care. We need to use this alternate media to put pressure on the main stream media to cover certain stories or issues. It cannot supplant it. Blogs aren't going to get the same kind of respect among the general public that the NYTimes has, or CNN.

Yes, yes, I know. Standard media is at an alltime low in terms of respect among the public. It is beside the point. People are still going to take something they see in the newspaper or on television far more seriously than anything posted in a blog. Even if the blog is correct. The problem is, there are no reprocussions for a blog being incorrect. Newspapers face actual reprocussions for being incorrect.

A newspaper story, even if it says the exact same thing as a blog story, carries more weight. Because a newspaper puts its reputation behind every story that it prints. And people can see that reputation in the physical presence of the newspaper, its building downtown, its reporters in the community, the local and national advertisements in its pages, and its history.

What do bloggers have? No strings attached. Which means there is nothing to prevent them from telling the complete and brutal truth. But at the same time, people subconsciously or consciously realize there is also nothing stopping them from making up complete and total fabrications. Bloggers have everything, and nothing, all at the same time.

If the problem in the newspaper industry is that corporate consolidation and pillaging are slowly destroying the business, the answer is to break up the media monopolies and reinvest in the newsrooms and copy desks. The answer isn't to just change the newspaper industry into a link hub for blogs.

Lastly, the article's complaint that newspapers cover too many topics is ridiculous. What is a newspaper? A source of general news and information. General facts. Let me say that once again. General information. If you really want specific information on a specific topic, you don't read the newspaper as your primary source of information. You read a trade magazine, or a foreign affairs journal, something that exclusively covers the topic of interest. Specialization already exists within the news industry. It is called the Economist, or Guns & Ammo Magazine, or Orchids Magazine, or Small Farm Today Magazine. Whatever the subject you're interested in, there is probably already a completely devoted news organization dedicated to it. But to claim that newspapers need to specialize defeats the very purpose of the newspaper. To be an all purpose source of general news.

... while I might suggest you stop fantasizing that you might be able to roll back reality -- that would only be enabling your dysfunctional approach to today and tomorrow and the day after .... beware -- you are among those who no longer have any currency in the world of the informed and those diligently seeking fact not fiction ... bye, bye ....


Peace.

I disagree with the notion of the inevitable primacy of the blog. Therefore I must be delusional, dysfunctional, and completely unconcerned with the truth.

Goodness. Do you read the words that you type before you post?

.... what part of that don't you get ... ??????????

BYE.