Living in the Year 1,500
This morning, I reread a fabulous piece on Journalism & Newspapers by Clay Shirky. A reader had sent this to me sometime last year, and it is one of those essays that contains a sprinkling of magic dust.
Shirky always seems to find the heart of an issue and contextualize it in a profound manner.
This was the money shot that stayed with me:
“Society doesn’t need newspapers. What we need is journalism. For a century, the imperatives to strengthen journalism and to strengthen newspapers have been so tightly wound as to be indistinguishable. That’s been a fine accident to have, but when that accident stops, as it is stopping before our eyes, we’re going to need lots of other ways to strengthen journalism instead.
When we shift our attention from ’save newspapers’ to ’save society’, the imperative changes from ‘preserve the current institutions’ to ‘do whatever works.’ And what works today isn’t the same as what used to work.”
Quite fascinating . . . His entire dissection on the newspaper business is worth 15 minutes of your time to read in its entirety.
>
Source:
Newspapers and Thinking the Unthinkable
Clay Shirky, March 13th, 2009
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
November 8th, 2009 at 10:33 am
For those of you as dumb as me, the year 1500 was roughly when the effects of the invention of the printing press began to be seen. The actual invention of the printing press was sometime in the mid 1430’s.
Ironically, we know this because Gutenberg was sued over it.
Figures.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:34 am
Sadly, we can expect the Murdochs of this world to prolong the pain associated with oligarchical resistance to the epochal change Clay articulates as oligarchs do all they can to maintain the status quo in their favor. I think that this seminal piece by Clay as well as Hugh Hendry’s “Why are billionaires voting for Obama and backing Brown?” are bookends.
http://bit.ly/49LpRw
Both articles are required reading for understanding what is going on around us.
Unstoppable change meets unsurmountable money and power.
(Of course it’s not just media money who have a vested interest in controlling media and preventing the Gutenbergesque change taking place.)
I’ll make the popcorn – this is gonna be good.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:37 am
Change Newspaper to the organization or government of your choice….
rt
November 8th, 2009 at 10:41 am
Agree with both you and Schmoo. Shirky’s piece is required reading.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:44 am
tangentially, from: “…Still another plan was to convince tech firms to make their hardware and software less capable of sharing, or to partner with the businesses running data networks to achieve the same goal. Then there was the nuclear option: sue copyright infringers directly, making an example of them…”
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
“A leaked draft of the Internet chapter of the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) reveals that ISPs will be held liable for the infringements of their customers, unless they disconnect those accused. The draft aims to strengthen the power of the entertainment industries and other copyright holders, at the cost of the public.
ACTA is an international agreement that aims to target piracy and counterfeiting globally. The degree of secrecy surrounding the negotiations is astonishing. Many institutions, the press and various individuals have requested that participating countries provide an insight into their plans, but none have succeeded thus far.
While the public is denied access to drafts of the controversial agreement, lawmakers continue to receive input from anti-piracy lobbyists such as the RIAA and MPAA. Today, the 6th round of ACTA negotiations have started in Seoul, South Korea, where representatives from the U.S, the European Union, Canada, Australia and several other countries will discuss the treaty’s content.
As happened previously, parts of the document have leaked out to the public and they reveal that the agreement’s scope is even more far-reaching than previously expected…”
http://torrentfreak.com/secret-anti-piracy-treaty-turns-isps-into-pirates-091104/
and, with this: “..“Cook’s Illustrated and Consumer Reports are doing fine on subscriptions!” (Those publications forgo ad revenues; users are paying not just for content but for unimpeachability.) ”
it should be, more than, telling that ‘Newspapers’ are reluctant to embrace this model..
~~
“Our newspapers, for the most part, present only the caricatures of disaffected minds. Indeed, the abuses of the freedom of the press here have been carried to a length never before known or borne by any civilized nation.” –Thomas Jefferson
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1600.htm
November 8th, 2009 at 10:52 am
rtalcott Says: November 8th, 2009 at 10:37 am
rt,
to your point–
“…When reality is labeled unthinkable, it creates a kind of sickness in an industry. Leadership becomes faith-based, while employees who have the temerity to suggest that what seems to be happening is in fact happening are herded into Innovation Departments, where they can be ignored en masse. This shunting aside of the realists in favor of the fabulists has different effects on different industries at different times….” from para. 7
http://www.shirky.com/weblog/2009/03/newspapers-and-thinking-the-unthinkable/
~~
“A coalition of sentiments is not for the interest of printers. They, like the clergy, live by the zeal they can kindle and the schisms they can create. It is contest of opinion in politics as well as religion which makes us take great interest in them and bestow our money liberally on those who furnish aliment to our appetite… So the printers can never leave us in a state of perfect rest and union of opinion. They would be no longer useful and would have to go to the plough.” –Thomas Jefferson to Elbridge Gerry
http://etext.virginia.edu/jefferson/quotations/jeff1600.htm
~~
and, more, to my first point–”"I really look with commiseration over the great body of my fellow citizens who, reading newspapers, live and die in the belief that they have known something of what has been passing in the world in their time, whereas the accounts they have read in newspapers are just as true a history of any other period of the world as of the present, except that the real names of the day are affixed to their fables. General facts may indeed be collected from them… but no details can be relied on.” –Thomas Jefferson to John Norvell,
November 8th, 2009 at 10:57 am
Newspapers are dead? So what, so are papyrus rolls.
Online newspapers are certainly a possibility if they provide worthwhile content. The author admits as much about financial papers. Currently most newspapers, real or internet based provide very little. Most journalists are partisan hacks providing opinion pretending to be reporting.
The real hurdle going forward for publishers is dealing with the fact that the net provides an endless stream of armchair journalists or actual boots on the ground who are putting out better content through countless blogs.
Where you stand on this is irrelevant. The hard facts remain—the vast majority of folks under 35 have rarely picked up a newspaper. RIP.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:02 am
MEH…..that paragraph you quote was what triggered my thoughts. As someone who has been doing high tech start-ups for decades now I’ve seen many organizations fail and they all seem to fail for the same reasons…as are outlined in the paragraph you quote…..AND….I see that everywhere today when most organizations attempt to deal with problems.
We are not learning from failures….we don’t even recognize failures as failures…
rt
November 8th, 2009 at 11:05 am
BR- That is a fascinating article. There are so many ramifications and lessons to learn that go far beyond just the reasons for the demise of newspapers, the false hopes and distorted realities of the publishers and the sorting out of the basic commodity being sold (paper or content?).
An analogy can be made between the advent of the printing press in the middle ages and the blogosphere today.
Prior to the printing press, pretty much only the catholic church had bibles and thus only the institution of the church had knowledge on “how to gain access to heaven”. Thus they had control over christians and the church served as the necessary conduit to an afterlife in heaven. Thus the church was extremely powerful and capable of extracting enormous sums of wealth. When the common man obtained printed copies of the bible, many concluded that they did not need the church to gain access to heaven, thus began the reformation, religious persecution, etc.
So my analogy is that with the blogosphere and the rapid access to and sharing of information, analysis and opinion, a similar transparancy is developing with respect to the actions of government and other powerful institutions.
Whereas in the past we elected officials and for the most part trusted that they were serving in our best interests, now there is near instantaneous access to information, analysis and sharing of opinions to question and even change their course of action.
Thus the Treasury cancels a bad tax deal. The “behind closed doors” decisions of the NY Fed are exposed. The inappropriate relationships between corporations, banks and government officials come to light.
Since the blogosphere is still a developing and growing phenomenon, this trend towards greater transparency in society should only continue to be strengthened. I personally think we have much to thank for the efforts of bloggers such as yourself. ZH, Mish, CR, IG and many others for the groundbreaking that you are doing. The transformation to a more transparent society may end up being the greatest contribution that you all are making!
November 8th, 2009 at 11:10 am
The word is “anomie” and refers to the breakdown of social mores and institutions during periods of transition.
No doubt that’s what we’re all struggling with now.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:13 am
With no numbers on the which billionaires actually voted for which candidates, Hedrey’s pre-election article leaves out that all-important “support for his claims” that is the crux of bad journalism.
And why does Hendrey forget to mention all those billionaire entrepreneurs who do supported Obama?
The Oracle’s good buddy Bill Gates, also a billionaire-Oamama-supporter, is the certifiable king of entrepreneurs. Not to mention the other billionaires who formed Google (Obama supporters) who are now dismantling (creatively destroying) what Gates brought us just a decade ago.
Hedrey’s sophistry is easily tossed on its head: the reality is Obama’s tax DECREASES for the bottom 95% are designed to give incentives to new entrepreneurs, not the support for the fat cats that Bush and the focus on. Why does Hendrey leave that out?
Hedrey’s write up is nonsensical, just more Glenn Beck-like trite…
http://blogs.trb.com/entertainment/technology/watchthis/2009/11/jon_stewart_mocks_glenn_beck.html
… which should be required viewing in journalism schools, and Hedrey should watch it twice.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:22 am
I didn’t realize how poor your hand was until you tried to play the “Hedrey’s write up is nonsensical, just more Glenn Beck-like trite…” card. Whew. Pretty lame. If that’s the best you got, I pity you.
Putting Hugh and Beck in the same sentence is like comparing Einstein to Joe McCarthy.
Hugh is a brilliant thinker and I’m sorry if his free thinking has offended your partisan religion.
Hugh is right, however, and all the machinations of spin, mischaracterizations, and falacious reasoning (however lame and actually comical) won’t change that.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:32 am
Lame? Why are the data supporting what I wrote lame? They are data showing Hedrey’s claim is wrong.
Entrepreneurs supported Obama, from the bilionaires I mentioned in Silicon Valley, businesspeople, and Wall Street Hedge funds and beyond.
Hedrey waves his rhetorical wand about “higher taxes” but in reality Obama has already lowered taxes on the “bottom 95%” in the stimulus plan. That’s where the fresh ideas come from, right? Not from the GOP fat cats and trust fund dividend clippers, right?
Hedrey’s article is surely not brilliant, his argument is false at its base and easily disproved with a few counter examples which I accurately provide above.
Data wins in journalism, not Glenn Beck conspiracy theories.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:33 am
ha ha, it’s Hendry, not Hedrey, and he’s an Scottish hedge fundie, not a journo.
all and any journalism discussion must devolve into the cultural wars. actually, that’s how newspapers started in this country, as partisan hacks slamming the opposition. even Thomas Jefferson had partisan presser.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:36 am
not so sure that the main reason newspapers (and other media companies) aren’t in trouble isn’t related to the fact that they have been cutting the quality of their content (journalism). and that was compounded by the need to have higher profits than the business could really do reliably. their have been reports of newspapers having word quotas for their journalists. and there is that time factor. they don’t normally allow enough time to do the real story, so they end up with what ever PR spin etc that some will give. Plus there is that access excuse (if I don’t put the story out the way this way TPTB will not talk to me or my outlet again). They also don’t tend to research what some one tells them. but that back to the previous reason (access and time).
costs savings are the main reason for these failures
November 8th, 2009 at 11:36 am
Print media is yet another one of our many, many rot-invested institutions. As with all the others, expect those individuals who control it to become increasingly desperate as the rot within becomes increasingly terminal.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:46 am
rtalcott,
yes, I hear you, similiar to when I was reading that passage, as well..
btw, do you read any http://laserfocusworld.com/index.html ?
November 8th, 2009 at 11:48 am
everybody just assumes it’s content or partisanship that is killing newspapers. the real killer is technology and the net culture. we went everything for free. Barry is doing awesome analysis off of mostly and other journalism, and TBP free. would you want to pay for the original? welcome to the freemium world. Chris Anderson at Wired described this in detail http://bit.ly/SQKFo
November 8th, 2009 at 11:50 am
TV Networks will be next. Who will want to pay for a network “sponsorship” once content is streamed directly to households via internet services? I think GE has figured this out.
November 8th, 2009 at 11:50 am
I don’t think I ever link to my own blog here since it’s not a finance blog, but here’s a short post I wrote on the subject of anomie a couple of months ago. It was a major theme in Macbeth — written not in 1500 but ~1600. Don’t bother with the link if you’re looking for actionable market analysis.
http://pickapoison.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/anomie-when-foul-is-fair/
November 8th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
VennData,
Look kid, it’s my day off. I’ll simply assign you this homework: research what “straw man” means and use it in a few examples. Then I want you to review how your use of Beck as a straw man makes you like silly. There will be a quiz on Friday.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
MEH….I need to get back to it…been long term unemployed in Albuquerque NM…not much happening here. My hiking buddy is a theoretical physicist @ the Air Force Lab here doing optics so we get into long discussions on various aspects of his work (high power coupled fiber systems) or optics/physics in general when hiking.
I am a physicist turned start-up operations guy….came down here for a start-up…that didn’t work. ABQ is a start-up disaster area. Easily $1 billion in VC money over the last decade and zero success stories. Truly an amazing record. Many classic failures….really organizational failures…like Advent Solar recently. Advent….maybe $200 million VC money with no results….lots of great fantasy along the way though!
I talk to many hiring managers and headhunters and what I detect is a LOT of fear or risk and a LOT of cluelessness. Can’t remember the last time I talked to an organization that appeared to be able to make a rational decision. Seems like results (or the probability of achieving results) no longer enter into any equation….everything is fear or risk avoidance driven…and that doesn’t typically turn out well.
It’s a damn strange world out there and getting stranger…possibly time to reread some Orwell although Laser Focus may be more valuable.
rt
November 8th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
From the article:
So who covers all that news if some significant fraction of the currently employed newspaper people lose their jobs?
Crowd sourcing. Barry has a form of it here with his daily linkfests. People go out and find what interests them. They bring it back and drop it onto the board and see what flys. We could call Barry a daily news man already. His would be called the What Say Ye?
People might say that all that news is coming from other news sources. How far does it really need to go until it isn’t? How about the Zero Hedge posts on what GS is doing? How about the bloggers reading financial reports to report on what companies are doing and reporting that. Wasn’t that how the Goldman/Buffett tax scam was discovered? What about hobby economists or secondary economists reporting on government jobs reports. Does anybody do that in their spare time? Oh yeah, I forgot. Some money manager guy named Barry Ritholtz does it as a by product of his job. Bonus money I think he would call it. Man, if even something as dreary as job numbers can pick up thousands of fanboys what about the latest movie?
All sites may not have all the news but people seeking out their interest(sometimes for small ad profit, sometimes for hobby) will report what they see and others will pick up that news item and pass it on through the network. Not micro payments but micro lifting. Instead of the traditional source of publishers doing the heavy lifting you have the crowd source doing a little bit of work passing the news down the line with the different entities supporting the congregation of the new sources. Barry pays for his blog we all pay for our internet connection and advertisers support the net cost with all of us micropaying the rest by creating and even being the network.
The invisible hand of the crowd finds creates and passes along the relevant news. Everybody giving up a minute of their time each day to push the best news forward. Whereas the seasoned journalist gives up his eight hours and in the future maybe only giving up one or two hours(and getting the bulk of the ad revenue for that service) to hand the work off to the crowd to make up the other seven hours work, one by one, minute by minute. That way the news gets delivered much more efficiently
Then you have the guys that go to the political protests. They can report back with video using their cell phones. More microlifting.
Before they even have a chance to travel home two million people have already seen the news of the shoe thrown at the president from twelve different angles, the guy is either an instant hero or villan or both and the latest internet reporter is already a has been lest a big event happens to occur again in his obscure little town
microlifting. Just like that game we used to play as kids where six guys would all use a finger and lift one guy off the ground in what seemed to be a miraculous action. This time though the ‘guy’ is the news and the fingers are those on the mice of the world ready to point, click and pass. Microlifting, that’s where this is all going. The linux model
I want credit for coining that word in this context.
November 8th, 2009 at 12:41 pm
“Crowd sourcing.” like the tweets from Ft. Hood? http://bit.ly/1×9Dy4
November 8th, 2009 at 12:52 pm
I read a tweet today, oh, boy,
about a man who’d really (made the grade, stole, inherited, found, won millions…)
He blew his mind out in a (car, hunting accident, robbery attempt, drag race, boat collision…)
November 8th, 2009 at 1:17 pm
@hue
Yep, pretty much. Just remember that this is brand new and people are like teenagers with their first case of beer. Some are invariably going to end up on the side of the road puking their guts out.
I’ll wager the citizen journalist will be much more effective and learn better standards quicker than any journalism class can teach. The crowd should (though I wouldn’t bet on it) force it. Once those standards are in place they will probably be adhered to quite closely.
How many times have we heard of internet suicides or heart attacks being stopped because the crowd got a hold of the police or other relevant authorities? Morality will come through more often than not. We’re still going through the growing pains
That article is a great example of what I’m talking about. Before that woman even finished her ’story’ the web was already moralizing on the integrity of it. And for that guy to complain of inaccurate reporting, I suppose he has never watched CNN during ‘breaking’ news stories. The MSM can be the worst sources of false news reports much of the time. What about balloon boy? That is a classic example of how the MSM is more concerned with pushing news over facts
And guess what. Isn’t it insane that we all know exactly who I am talking about in regards to balloon boy? And if we don’t there are a million news stories at Google to explain it to us. Yikes! Give me a break, this citizen journaling is going to get rough
Hold tight to your sense of humor folks
November 8th, 2009 at 1:56 pm
common man, as a former journo, it pains me when i hear or read happy talk about the death of newspapers. it’s the delivery method that’s dying, not the content. and sure, CNN et all is not perfect, but amateurs aren’t going to do any better.
the irony is someone here was crowing about how Barry the TBP and bloggers stopped the Goldman buying FannieMae tax credits, didn’t even noticed that Barry linked his post to an item by Floyd Norris at the NYT. do you think crowd sourcing would dig up that story? Norris probably had that landed on his lap, but it was because he developed sources over the years that tipped him off ( i’m not saying i know where the story came from.)
how would amateurs have reported on balloon boy, not much different. plus cable TV and newspapers are worlds apart. local TV and local newspapers are world apart too. the TV stations used to steal my/our newspaper stories all the time, reading them without any attribution. or take the same story and call the same sources and get the same quotes.
journalism ain’t rocket science, but it’s not easy as you think. it was never a well paying job. most journos don’t work at the NYT, big dailies or network. i remember how easy daytrading was during the Nasdaq boom too. whatever job you have, it’s sure it’s pretty easy. it can be done for free by crowds.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:34 pm
Hue – I am the crow. Your point about Floyd Norris is fair enough. I am convinced the information flow goes both ways – journalists read bloggers, bloggers read journalists and obviously many people from various walks read both. Would Floyd Norris’ article have been sufficient for the Treasury to back down? Perhaps, but then again perhaps not.
Obviously original content costs money. Investigative journalism is not a free resource. There will be a decline in the overall quality and quantity of news information if all resources such as advertising were to dry up.
Growth is occurring though in the Huffington Post style blog newspapers. They are developing original content as well as repackaging. As I write, I am realizing that she is one smart lady. Her site stands a good chance of developing into a dominant news outlet in the future.
November 8th, 2009 at 2:41 pm
Speaking of which, funny SNL skit on Goldman Sachs, really.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/11/08/seth-meyers-amy-poehler-g_n_349895.html
November 8th, 2009 at 2:43 pm
Clay Shirky’s blog: http://www.shirky.com/weblog/
November 8th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
@hue
Ironically, journalists will probably turn into bigger stars now that penny pinching publishers can’t limit their growth. The web is syndication to the max. Sure, it is hard to turn a buck now, but once a person develops a following the cash should follow too. Look at Drudge, Drew Curtis or Huffington as bsneath said above. These folks have understood the potential and cashed in big time.
I’ll bet they are developing the same types of sources. Also, who knows if Norris didn’t get the story because he is popular on the web and not just in the print version of the Times. And would the backlash have occurred if his story just appeared in the NYT or did it take the internet flash mob to give the story some political muscle? I’d guess a little bit of both at this point. What I’m seeing is that we all get to be spectators front row centre(that’s how we Canadians spell it
) of one of the biggest cultural turning points since maybe the ….printing press 
And it will all be archived too! That’s will be so cool
November 8th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
I think Shirky is mostly wrong about mostly everything. Evidence:
Exhibit A is a very simple experiment that you can do either literally or as a thought experiment. Choose a street of middle class homes that has been around for, say, at least 35 years, ideally longer. Estimate the number of those homes that 35 years ago received home delivery of one or more newspapers. Compare it to the number today. For most choices of streets, I claim, you’ll find that the subscription rate has dropped precipitously. Next, take a survey of the current residents, especially those who do not currently subscribe. Estimate the number of hours they spend consuming news from other sources and the number of written words (of journalism) that they consume each week. Contrast *that* with similar figures for their counterparts from 35 years ago.
The point of the Exhibit A experiment is to make you at least suspect that the reason papers are selling less is because consumer demand for journalism has collapsed. It is not, as is so often supposed, that people are getting their news “for free” on the net. It is that people in aggregate are consuming less news.
(If you try the Exhibit A experiment and get the positive results I predict, try a follow-on experiment: take a random selection of middle class people and estimate, for each, what quantity of journalism they consume each week. The range should be (prediction) quite wide. Consider the people above the median level of news consumption. They should be (prediction) a distinct minority. Finally, contrast weekly spending on print journalism between the groups above and below the median level of news consumption. I think you’ll find that those who consume the most news tend to, in aggregate, still buy plenty of print. Compute how high the median level of news consumption would have to rise, with the print consumption correlation still holding, to “save the industry”.)
Exhibit B: Shirky offers that portals (e.g., AOL) and micropayments (e.g. iTunes) are variously either dead or only work in exceptional micro-economic circumstances which conveniently for his arguments do not apply to newspaper-style journalism. He argues that digital advertising increases inefficiencies. With these arguments he seems to not only refer to the common beliefs of the late 1990s but to be stuck there himself. Surely he has noticed the resemblance of today’s social networks to the portals of the past. Surely he has noticed that nearly every field of specialized journalism has successful models based on subscription fees and delivery by the web and email? Surely he has noticed a trend towards aggregation of content (e.g. Hulu) that goes hand in hand with, yes, crackdowns on scofflaws?
Exhibit C: Shirky ignores the future of printing technology. Even if we accept Shirky’s unwarranted interpolations about consumer behavior (that they want everything for free and all those subscription fees they do pay are just a temporary anomaly) his micro-economic arguments are predicated on the assumption that newspapers must operate massive presses and physical distribution systems and that these barriers give them a necessary protection against competition. Those assumptions seem wrong. First, printing technology is marching relentlessly towards a situation in which fast, cheap, and customized-content print-on-demand will be practical. That is, we can expect a shift of the responsibility to print from the publisher to the retailer and we can expect distribution to the retailer to become increasingly digital. Second, the essential barrier to competition of, say, “the Baghdad office” is not its linkage to a large and expensive print operation but, rather, the fact that it is difficult and expensive to operate “the Baghdad office”!
In these regards, Shirky’s “nothing work, try anything you can, we’re in a world of chaos” seems like a just-so story, not a credible account. He needs to explain less about how more people are “getting the news for free” and explain more about how fewer people are “getting the news, period.”
November 8th, 2009 at 3:06 pm
Whoops @bsneath,
I just realized that I wrote basically what you said about Norris in different words. My apologies for that. My brain is melting as I get older
November 8th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
@dasht: why don’t you just use Nielsen ratings and web page stats, then get back to us.
November 8th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
Dang Common Man, you really are a Canadian. Nobody south of the 48th would even think of being that civil. I enjoy your posts btw.
November 8th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
My bad, I meant the 49th, but then again there are some very civil people in North Dakota……..
November 8th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
@Transor Z
*I* don’t because I don’t (a) trust the methodologies behind them and how they are commonly interpreted; (b) don’t think we typically get the meatier numbers. To me, such things seem useful for relative comparisons of a web site to itself across time or between two similar web sites, but they don’t do well at giving us absolute numbers or of making good comparisons to news consumption habits of the past. As one example: think of how often people click on a link, see an article, look at but a few words of it, and move on (either because they got what they wanted or because it looked uninteresting). Someone doing N hours of that, perhaps actually reading 2 articles in any depth, is not quite comparable to someone spending N hours reading a high percentage of a printed paper in some depth.
That said, if you have a case to make, make it: I’m open-minded. I think I see and can point to a sharp decrease in demand for journalism. Shirky (and you?) are saying: no, demand is still there (maybe even higher) just not in a monetized form. Shirky’s conclusion is less depressing for the future of humanity so I’d be happy to be proved wrong.
Meanwhile, taking my view as an alternative hypothesis at least, the burden is on Shirky (and you) to defend your conclusions.
-t
November 8th, 2009 at 3:43 pm
i really don’t know how profitable PuffHo (;-)) is. Arianna was already loaded, a former Republican who ran for the Senate, then discovered a liberal religion. I think her best assets there are the legion of mostly famous people who blog for free. I doubt people go there for breaking news. I don’t read Drudge, but isn’t his stuff mostly linked to other news sites? But I know Drudge is powerful and influential, especially those liberal MSMers who cover stories after he points them.
I should also say that not all citizens journalism is like the Fort Hood example. As a Hokie, I remember some good stuff was recorded during the shooting by students on cell phones.
you’re right bsneath about bloggers amplifying old Floyd. as an ex journo, i don’t read even newspapers much, unless there are stories linked by blogs.
dang, i was going to do some work today, logged on the fb, read a blog or two, and it’s 8 hours later. now i have to watch football.
November 8th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
The Fountainhead – Gail Wynand is a powerful newspaper mogul… his success is dependent upon his ability to manipulate public opinion”…….It has been speculated that Wynand is partially based on real-life newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst …from Wiki…Murdoch? Fox “News”?
The gigs up.
Everybody has a printing press (and a video camera in your phone…witness the protests in Tehran where the women was shot dead…)
Now we can all try to manipulate public opinion
November 8th, 2009 at 3:55 pm
@dasht: ESPN. Guess what it is? Journalism with some game broadcasts. 40 years ago there were three major networks that went off air locally overnight. The Weather Channel? Journalism. The AP hyperlinks on your email home page? Journalism. Fantasy Football player news texts to your phone? Yep. TMZ paparazzi video of Vern Troyer (Mini Me actor) tripping before getting into his limo? Uh huh. Viral video of Australian baby getting hit by train with CNN voiceover?
You are hugely misguided to think that overall aggregate demand for journalism has decreased. Sadly, a lot of it is demand for tabloid crap.
November 8th, 2009 at 4:00 pm
“Sadly, a lot of it is demand for tabloid crap.”
that is why we got wall to wall Jacko coverage. even Balloon Boy got high ratings.
November 8th, 2009 at 4:16 pm
@Transor Z,
Oh, I see. I took you to be making a different point at first.
Two observations:
1) You offer there a hypothesis not so different from mine. You are saying that news consumption hasn’t quantitatively shrunk (say, measured in words consumed by consumer per week) but the attention has shifted away from 80% of what traditional newspapers cover. Same difference. And note that you still contradict (e.g.) Shirky pretty well there because something like ESPN’s web content appears to be doing just fine, revenue-wise, thank you very much. (In fact, I did mumble something about how specialized niches aren’t having the mainstream problems so you aren’t even contradicting me much.)
2) A lot of what you describe is only pretty generously called “journalism”. Aside from the weather, most of it is “entertainment”. What do you think of a TV show like “America’s Funniest Home Videos”? Journalism? How about “YouTube”? Especially with it’s “recommended” selections (generic and personalized), it’s ability to subscribe to this or that person’s feed, etc. Journalism? What about Joe Basement’s blog? Journalism?
-t
November 8th, 2009 at 5:06 pm
It’s all entertainment now.
November 8th, 2009 at 6:31 pm
rt,
I hear you about the ‘Classic’ mistakes to be witnessed in ’start-up’-Land..I’d hazard to guess that too many, of those ‘Op wizzes’, B-skooled-out @ places like Hartford..
you mentioned Advent Solar–are there any, active, crystal pullers/wafer fabs in ABQ?
past that, re: Orwell, I’d be hard pressed to recommend either ‘1984′, or ‘Animal Farm’, over the other..
November 8th, 2009 at 6:36 pm
@dasht: Traditional newspapers have these sections called the Sports Pages. Sorry, you don’t get to redefine “journalism” to suit your argument. Everything I mentioned earlier is journalism. YouTube content includes segments of broadcast journalism. A lot of it.
The niche point is more of you trying to redefine terms. Traditional papers have usedwire services stories under their own headlines for 100 years. The web carries wire stories as they break.
Traditional newspapers print feature articles, have home sections, recipes, movie reviews, op-ed pages. What you want to remove from discussion as “specialized” are electronic journalism outlets drinking newspapers’ milkshakes. Sssssssss!
I’m with Manny in spirit that everything is entertainment but I’m not letting you off that easy. You couched your argument in allegedly data-driven terms but when challenged you’re trying to define newspaper as the A section of the NYT. Never was the case and journalism has never been so narrowly defined. I don’t need to include bloggers to make my point.
November 8th, 2009 at 8:56 pm
@Transor Z,
Sure, traditional papers “before the Net” included plenty of non-journalistic, entertainment content. Do you think Dear Abby and the comics section accounts for sales, back then? Sure, they were a factor but then why wouldn’t consumers have opted instead for comic books, magazines, and such as substitutes, if that is all they cared for?
That “section A of NYT”, as you put it, is both the social crisis Shirky is talking about and what sold papers – back in the day.
“Do you remember, your president Nixon? Or even yesterday?” — Bowie.
I think that the saturation of the consumer environment with entertainment, combined with steadily worsening economic times for most people over 30 years (plus the chimera of supposedly perpetually rising real estate values as a cure) has left people bitter and distrustful towards real news. Demand for real news has collapsed because on the one hand most people don’t give most of it much credibility and and on the other hand they feel powerless in the face of it anyway, so why bother.
-t
November 8th, 2009 at 9:02 pm
“Online newspapers are certainly a possibility if they provide worthwhile content. The author admits as much about financial papers. Currently most newspapers, real or internet based provide very little. Most journalists are partisan hacks providing opinion pretending to be reporting.”
So in other words, they’re blogs.
November 8th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
If newspapers disappear and our only source for news becomes blogs, let’s look at what the daily headlines would look like for politics (and have looked like):
[BR: That obviously is not Shirky's point, and arguing by reductio ad absurdum is unbecoming to a gentleman!]
-Obama is a Muslim socialist that was born in Indonesia.
-Bush wants to start the draft and he’s going to draft your son.
-The Democratic healthcare plan will return us to communism.
-Republicans want old people to die, that’s why they don’t back healthcare reform.
-Anyone that is against a public healthcare option is a fascist.
Does anyone really want to see society devolve into this? People say “if people want quality journalism, then people can get it on the internet?” Where other than the newspapers and the BBC? I love geopolitics so I subscribe to the Stratfor site but for 3 months it’s $99 and I don’t really want to pay $1000 to get my range of news I want to read, so we’re left with the crap. (and liberals aren’t going to read RedState and conservatives aren’t going to read DailyKos either to read a counterargument to their beliefs.) All non-newspaper outlets on the internet don’t report the news but instead report their opinion on the news, and society would suffer from that.
November 8th, 2009 at 9:44 pm
“Sure, it is hard to turn a buck now, but once a person develops a following the cash should follow too. Look at Drudge, Drew Curtis or Huffington.”
i meant to address this earlier, i doubt any of those people make money, some may even be funded from other sources. very few sites on the Internet make money selling news.
“That “section A of NYT”, as you put it, is both the social crisis Shirky is talking about and what sold papers – back in the day. ”
and no, the A section was not the major money maker either, classified (poached by Craig’s list) and ads. generate the bulk of the revenues. the news was often the loss leader. they don’t put ads on the front page. i’m sure advisers come to newspaper because the readers are there. but’s it hard to quantify.
http://www.cjr.org/the_audit/post_22.php
“But the average newspaper historically has taken in three or four times as much revenue from advertising as it has from circulation. In other words, if you lose 10 percent of your customers that advertisers want to reach, you’re probably going to lose somewhere near 10 percent of your advertising, which is needed to pay for things like reporting and editing.Think about it this way: If each subscriber/buyer is worth $1 in circulation revenue and $3 in advertising revenue, then even if increased prices help you break even on the circulation revenue, you’re going to have a far greater loss in advertising and thus net revenue if you lose that customer.
November 8th, 2009 at 9:45 pm
and no, the A section was not the major money maker either, classified (poached by Craig’s list) and ads generate the bulk of the revenues. the news was often the loss leader. they don’t put ads on the front page. i’m sure advertisers come to newspapers because the readers are there. but it’s hard to quantify where the news fit into the puzzle.
November 8th, 2009 at 10:21 pm
numbnuts that view “Section A of the NYT” as some standard of rectitude have forgotten History, recent, or otherwise..
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Judith+New+York+Times+Iraq
http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Operation+Mockingbird+The+mighty+Wurlitzer
“All the News that’s Fit to Print”, certainly, is true to its meaning, if one understands the context..
they’ve even started a cottage Industry http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Lies+the+New+York+Times+told
November 8th, 2009 at 10:26 pm
Amen, Mark.
Jayson Blair?
November 8th, 2009 at 11:34 pm
knowing your leaning Hoffer, you should be happy that Scooter was feeding Judy information.
Jayson Blair. so what? how about Stephen Glass. And Janet Cooke winning a Pulitzer Prize.
Mossadegh http://bit.ly/2QEAlQ
Pham Xuan An http://bit.ly/nOjjD http://bit.ly/4sE1Dh
November 8th, 2009 at 11:38 pm
Mark was taking things a step deeper than my friend was. I was just arguing with dasht on his not understanding the business model and nature of the newspaper biz. The reliability of content is a whole ‘nother discussion.
November 9th, 2009 at 12:35 am
@Tansor Z,
One last thing: If you take Shirky’s conclusion to be “try anything, don’t worship traditional institutional forms” for the business of journalism? I agree with that conclusion. I just think how he got there is kind of B.S. The same conclusion follows from what I’ve been saying.
-t
November 9th, 2009 at 12:43 am
Transor Z, i feel into the trap of http://bit.ly/2wvqSp
but what Hoffer is making is the “never fly on an airline again because of a plane crash” argument
November 9th, 2009 at 12:53 am
hue,
“knowing my leaning” ? pray tell, what would that be?
btw, do you have anything that links ol’ Scooter to Miller’s WMD reporting?
November 9th, 2009 at 12:58 am
hue,
actually, w/ this http://clusty.com/search?input-form=clusty-simple&v%3Asources=webplus&query=Lies+the+New+York+Times+told I’m making “the way they drop Planes, even our FAA/DOJ would shut them down” ‘argument’..
you should get some Kevlar, for your Ox..
November 9th, 2009 at 1:03 am
your leaning is spelled out right here Hoffer: “btw, do you have anything that links ol’ Scooter to Miller’s WMD reporting?”
it was all in the newpapers that you don’t trust. i believe there was even a trial. i know, that is not what Scooter was convicted of. Judy came up with all of the WMD stuff on her own.
November 9th, 2009 at 1:09 am
you must not believed that Goldman was trying to buy FannieMae tax credits, that came from All the News that’s Fit to Print too.
November 9th, 2009 at 3:07 am
@Hue,
If what you say (that news was the loss leader, etc.) were true, then publications such as the “Pennysaver” in various cities would have, decades ago, forced newspapers out of business.
-t
November 9th, 2009 at 6:01 am
Just my 2 cents: Like many if not most corporations and businesses, the capitalist model of constantly increasing profits is the flaw which leads to their demise. Look where it got David X. Li. The rigid insistance on ever increasing profits leads to cutting costs until the product is damaged, its value becomes questionable, and the underlying structure that supports it is undermined to the point of inoperability. Even Big Oil will have problems going forward (as will Big Pharma and Big Agri) for this same reason. Capitalism destroys democracy for the same reason (ie. our government no longer works for “we the people”).
November 9th, 2009 at 7:19 am
dasht, did i say advertising is the sole moneymaker? just ask the networks about their news divisions.
why am i addressing someone writing nonsense trying to debunk Shirky?
November 9th, 2009 at 7:52 am
the news in itself isn’t valuable enough to cover its production expenses. otherwise, media companies would thrive on the Internet, charging for subscription, and not needing advertising.
The New Yorker wasn’t profitable in the booming 90s. http://bit.ly/1H78zR Newhouse is still willing to subsidize it.
tech blogs are profitable because of advertising. political blogs are not for the same reason. DailyKos still in the red. http://bit.ly/41j3vM
November 9th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
@hue,
You said advertising was the major source of revenue but it was unclear where hard news fits in. My point is that it isn’t unclear at all: Hard news is the only differentiating thing papers had/have going for them. It sold copies and subscriptions. Ads subsidize(d) those. If hard news didn’t drive traditional newspaper circulation, then publications that didn’t bother with hard news would have beat out newspapers long ago.
Perhaps interestingly: the S.F. Chronicle, a troubled paper, recently managed to close its deficit by raising issue and subscription price by 33%, and that after a %50 hike not long ago. Why didn’t someone else come along and offer a substitute product with everything *but* hard news, at a much lower price? The hard news is a papers main contribution of value: it’s what, for the most part, customers are buying.
-t
November 9th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
you still don’t get it. in a newspaper, they could monetize eyeballs, page views (read: circulation) with ads, because advertiser went there to be seen. car dealers bought huge ad sections not because of the news on the front page. They can’t do that on the web. those Pennysavers just doesn’t have the circulation or the reach. the quality of the news probably has declined but not that much. the customers paying for circulation only brings in a quarter or a third of newspaper revenues. what Chris Anderson said was that if the newspaper dropped the print edition, they cut half their costs, but 80% of the revenues.
November 9th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Why didn’t someone else come along and offer a substitute product with everything *but* hard news, at a much lower price?
if the answer is hiring more news staff and produce better content, they would have done that ages ago.
if you could produce a substitute product at a lower price, people would be throwing money at substitute newspaper in every city. a simple business concepts: your costs can’t be higher than your revenues.
November 9th, 2009 at 6:15 pm
@hue
You’re now close to arguing *my* point which is that it’s a decline in demand for hard news that has newspapers in a bind, not the “gratis availability” of hard news on the net. It’s a failure of the enlightenment, not of the delivery model.
-t