The Revolt of the Stenographers...
7/26/09 3:18 PM
Grasping Reality with Both Hands The Semi-Daily Journal of Economist Brad DeLong: A Fair, Balanced, Reality-Based, and More than Two-Handed Look at the World J. Bradford DeLong, Department of Economics, U.C. Berkeley #3880, Berkeley, CA 94720-3880; 925 708 0467; delong@econ.berkeley.edu.
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The Revolt of the Stenographers... At the moment, at the top of nytimes.com are four stories: A pretty good story by Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston filling in details in stories reported at lest three years ago by Ron Suskind in his The One Percent Doctrine--and, of course, they do not cite or reference Suskind in any way: Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston: Bush Weighed Using Military in Arrests: "The memorandum — written by the lawyers John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty — was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/the-revolt-of-the-stenographers.html
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John C. Yoo and Robert J. Delahunty — was directed to Alberto R. Gonzales, then the White House counsel, who had asked the department about a president’s authority to use the military to combat terrorist activities in the United States. The memorandum was declassified in March. But the White House debate about the Lackawanna group is the first evidence that top American officials, after the attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, actually considered using the document to justify deploying the military into an American town to make arrests. Most former officials interviewed for this article spoke only on the condition of anonymity because the deliberations about the case involved classified information...": + 1/2 Tobin Harshaw well out of his depth on finance: he truly darkeneth counsel without wisdom--it really is too bad that he took Chris Suellentrop's "Opinionator" and trashed it: -1 Peter Baker and Helene Cooper adding absolutely nothing to the state of play on Crowley-Gates-Obama: 0 Michael Wilson and Solomon Moore "As Officers Face Heated Words, Their Tactics Vary" with a truly self-parodying headline adding nothing to the state of play on Crowley-Gates-Obama: 0 That's minus one-half for four--a batting average of -0.125. At the moment, at the top of washingtonpost.com are four stories: Ernesto Londono doing real reporting from the urban battlefield in Iraq: "After the Shooting, Another Showdown: Deadly Clash Underscores Rift Over Interpretation of U.S.-Iraq Deal": "When insurgents attacked an American convoy with AK-47 rounds and a couple of grenades on a dusty highway in a Baghdad suburb this week, U.S. soldiers returned fire, chased the suspects through narrow alleyways and raided houses. When the shooting subsided, another confrontation began. A senior Iraqi army commander who arrived at the scene concluded that the Americans had fired indiscriminately at civilians and ordered his men to take the U.S. soldiers into custody. The U.S. military said the soldiers had acted in self-defense and had sought to avoid civilian casualties; U.S. commanders at the scene persuaded the Iraqis to back down. The incident, apparently the first time a senior Iraqi commander has sought to detain U.S. soldiers, signals a potential escalation of tensions between U.S. and Iraqi forces trying to find a new equilibrium as Iraq assumes more responsibility for its security...": +1 Michael Rosenwald: "Digital Nomads Ditch Their Cubicles for Diners and Pool Decks"--a piece that doesn't even try to provide any information at all about how many "digital nomads" working at coffeeshops there are these days or how their lives have really been changed by the coming of wifi and lattes, and so is more an embarrassment than anything else: 0 Jason Straziuso and Rahin Faiez doing competent stenography about the war in Afghanistan: "Suicide attackers strike southeastern Afghan city": + 1/2 Dan Balz sucking hs thumb and adding absolutely nothing to the state of play: Obama's Ambition: Was His Strategy a Mistake?: 0 That's one and a half for four--a batting average of +0.375 Taking the eight lead stories of the New York Times and the Washington Post together, we have a batting average of +0.125. Now let's take a look at the most recent stories for the eight top feeds in my RSS reader: Chris Whalen at The Big Picture on financial regulatory reform: "Is the Fed About to Lose On “Systemic Risk” Legislation?": "It is really fascinating to see how much people underestimate the political staying power of technocrats such as FDIC Chairman Sheila Bair and SEC Chairman Mary Schapiro. I get the distinct feeling that some senior members of the media, analysts and the banking community, still don’t see the ladies as serious players. If you bother to look at the Players’ Roster of American politics, it is clear that the ladies are very much in the ascendancy in Washington, both in government and in the lobbyist community. Consider the movement in terms of legislation on regulatory reform. The ebb and flow of the debate is headed very much in the direction of collective, shared authority for determining when a TBTF bank or, more specifically, a non-bank company such as AIG needs restructuring. This http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/the-revolt-of-the-stenographers.html
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for determining when a TBTF bank or, more specifically, a non-bank company such as AIG needs restructuring. This goes directly contrary to the Geithner proposal to give this function to the Fed...": +1 rdan of Angry Bear sends us to Mark Thoma of Economist's View who tells us to read a 1983 New York Times story about health care reform in Canada: Douglas Martin: "Health Care in Canada: Popular System Now ROcked by Criticism": +1` Steve Benen reports and analyzes Obama's attempt to sell health reform: "Not surprisingly, President Obama devoted his weekly multi-media address to health care reform today -- the sixth address to emphasize reform in the last eight weeks. But what I found noteworthy about today's was the target audience of the pitch. In his five-and-a-half minute message, the president didn't mention the word "uninsured." In fact, the address wasn't geared towards the tens of millions of Americans without coverage at all. Instead, Obama talked almost exclusively about the importance of reform on businesses and employers. In fact, the president referenced the words "small business" 11 times in his message this morning...": +1 Jim Henley of Unqualified Offerings advances the ball on Crowley-Gates-Obama: "These statistics cast an interesting light on Brandon del Pozo’s defense of police doctrine... police work is less dangerous than many other possible occupations, and that less than half that danger stems from violent resistance by suspects – the kind of 'loss of control' that defenders of Officer Crowley’s conduct during the Gates arrest point to as a major danger.... What statistics alone can’t untangle is the impact of police praxis on the danger level: is police work relatively safe because police are hardcases about maintaining control, or is it relatively more dangerous because the provoke confrontations. And the ultimate question begged previously is where police safety ought to rank in the hierarchy: is it better that police feel as safe as possible or that citizens be respected...": +1 von of Obsidian Wings advances the ball on Crowley-Gates-Obama: "Pithlord makes clear a point that I consider essential, namely 'We all act like dicks sometimes, and I can sort of understand both Gates and Crowley's point-of-view in a subjective sense. I imagine I'd feel pissed off if I was either of them. The difference is Crowley acted illegally and unprofessionally.' (Emphasis mine.) That's a huge difference. As I've written in comments, I don't know and don't really care if Professor Gates lost his cool and acted like a jerk. I do know, however, that Gates didn't have a gun and the power to throw Crowley in jail...": +1 Josh Marshall of Talking Points Memo doesn't advance the ball on Crowley-Gates-Obama: "Henry Louis Gates, Jr. says he'd be happy to have a beer at the White House with Officer Crowley and President Obama...": 0 Heebie-Geebie on the social isolation of the mother of the neonate in modern American culture: "Lately I've gotten really into making the bed each morning. It only takes a minute, and the room looks so much tidier. I think this means I've got too much time on my hands, or maybe my brain. At least I'm not fretting about imaginary baby symptoms.... Being around babies too much is a kind of sensory-deprivation zone where you start hallucinating symptoms out of sheer boredom...": +1/2 Steven Teles at The Reality Based Community advances the ball on Crowley-Gates-Obama: [T]his little micro-dispute in Cambridge was fundamentally a conflict about "honor." This whole thing would have been a big nothing if either man were willing to swallow his pride. The cop could have defused it by letting Gates call him a racist and have it roll off his back. He couldn't because, I think, he has a self-conception as precisely not a racist cop.... To back down would have been to... be dishonored. Gates couldn't back down and say "yes, officer, whatever you ask, officer" because he believed he was being treated in a way that was inappropriate to his status as a Harvard professor and because he thought he was being hassled because he was black. To back down would have been untrue to his idea of himself.... So they both stood their ground, and the guy with the gun won. And so Gates retaliates in the media, and with the president.... Now the Cambridge cops think that they are being dishonored.... The question is, is there any way for everyone involved here to retain their honor? That is, can they back out of this thing with the way they understand themselves, and that they want others to understand them, intact?.... Today... Obama seems to have realized that taking sides in this zero-sum conflict http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/the-revolt-of-the-stenographers.html
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others to understand them, intact?.... Today... Obama seems to have realized that taking sides in this zero-sum conflict was not the right move, at least given his office. Which is why this is so refreshing. Whatever his flaws, Obama knows when he messed up and he knows how to find the right way to clean up his mess. Whatever his flaws, I do believe this is a man who has a touch of greatness--not from being flawless, but from being able to recognize his flaws and counteract them...": +1 That is a score of six and a half out of eight--a batting average of 0.8125: I am 6.5 times as likely to be happy that I have spent my time reading one of the top stories in my RSS reader as I am to be happy that I have spent my time reading one of the top stories printed by the New York Times and the Washington Post. To some degree this is the "Daily Me" phenomenon: my RSS reader is now tuned to bring me things written by people I learn from, while the editors of the Washington Post and the New York Times select stories on the basis of... bizarre and incomprehensible algorithms. To some degree this is because this is because the WP and the NYT are pitched at a level far below the one I want to read at, in part because they think their audience is less clued-in than I am (Peter Baker and Helene Cooper; Dan Balz) and in part because their reporters are out of their depth (i.e., Tobin Harshaw). In part this is because they are unprofessional (i.e., Mark Mazzetti and David Johnston not situating their article in its proper context in the journalistic enterprise begun by The One-Percent Doctrine). To some degree this is because their reporters know nothing about how representative their anecdotes are and so have absolutely nothing interesting to say (Michael Wilson and Solomon Moore; Michael Rosenwald). And then there are Jason Straziuso and Rahin Faiez performing the very useful service of writing up the briefings in Kabul, and Ernesto Londono putting his life on the line to inform us about what is going on half the world away. With this as background, let's consider David Simon's proposals for the future of journalism. Here's David Simon with the mike: Build the Wall : CJR: To all of the bystanders reading this, pardon us. The true audience for this essay narrows necessarily to a pair of notables who have it in their power to save high-end journalism--two newspaper executives who can rescue an imploding industry and thereby achieve an essential civic good... [and] still have a card to play... the only card that ever really mattered. Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Katharine Weymouth, publishers of The New York Times and The Washington Post, are at the helms of two organizations trying to find some separate peace with the digital revolution.... Yet incredibly, they delay, even though every day of inertia means another two dozen reporters somewhere are shown the door by a newspaper chain, or another foreign bureau closes, or another once-precise and competent newsroom decides it will make do without a trained city editor, an ombudsman, or a fully staffed copy desk. This then, is for Mr. Sulzberger and Ms. Weymouth: Content matters. And you must find a way, in the brave new world of digitization, to make people pay for that content. If you do this, you still have a product and there is still an industry.... I know that content wants to be free on the Internet.... I know that commentary--the froth and foam of print journalism--sells itself cheaply and well on thousands of blogs.... I know that if one of you should try to go behind the paywall while the other’s content remains free, then, yes, you would be destroyed.... But also apparent is the fact that absent a radical revisiting of the dynamic between newspapering and the Internet, there will be little cohesive, professional, first-generation journalism at the state and local level, as your national newspapers continue to retrench and regional papers are destroyed outright. You must act. Together. On a specific date in the near future--let’s say September 1 for the sheer immediacy of it--both news organizations must inform readers that their Web sites will be free to subscribers only.... No half-measures, either. No TimesSelect program that charges for a handful of items and offers the rest for free, no limited availability of certain teaser articles, no bartering with aggregators for a few more crumbs of revenue through microbilling.... You must both also individually inform the wire-service consortiums that unless they limit membership to publications, online or off, that provide content only through paid subscriptions, you intend to withdraw immediately from those consortiums... make a voluntary donation--let’s say $10 million--to a newspaper trade group to establish a legal fund to http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/the-revolt-of-the-stenographers.html
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consortiums... make a voluntary donation--let’s say $10 million--to a newspaper trade group to establish a legal fund to pursue violations of copyright, either by online aggregators or large-scale blogs, much in the way other industries based on intellectual property have fought to preserve their products.... [T]he need to create a new revenue stream from the twenty-first century’s information-delivery model is, belatedly, apparent to many in the industry. But no one can act if the Times and The Post do not; the unique content of even a functional regional newspaper--state and municipal news, local sports and culture--is insufficient to demand that readers pay online. But add to that the national and international coverage from the national papers that would no longer be available on the Internet for free but could be provided through participation in the news services of the Times and The Post and, finally, there is a mix of journalism that justifies a subscription fee. Time is the enemy, however.... [F]or the Times and The Post--entities that are still providing the lion’s share of journalism’s national, international, and cultural relevance--their reach has never been greater. The proof is that while online aggregation and free newspaper Web sites have combined to batter paid print circulation figures, more people are reading the product of America’s newspapers than ever before.... No doubt some mavens of new media who have read this far have spittle in the corners of their mouths at the thought of the dying, tail-dragging dinosaurs of mainstream journalism resurrecting themselves.... [T]he fledgling efforts of new media to replicate the scope, competence, and consistency of a healthy daily paper have so far yielded little in the way of genuine competition. A blog here, a citizen journalist there, a news Web site getting under way in places where the newspaper is diminished--some of it is quite good, but none of it so far begins to achieve consistently what a vibrant newspaper, staffed with competent, paid beat reporters and editors, once offered. Newmedia entities are not yet able to truly cover—day after day.... Detroit lost to a better, new product; newspapers, to the vague suggestion of one.... [T]hree factors are worth noting--if only because of their relevance to the online subscription model that is clearly required: First, there is the familiar industrial dynamic in which leaders raised in one world are taken aback to find they have underestimated the power of an emerging paradigm. When I left my newsroom in 1995, the Internet was a mere whisper, but even five years later, as its potential was becoming a consideration in every other aspect of American life, those in command of The Baltimore Sun were explaining the value of their free Web site in these terms: this is advertising for the newspaper.... Looking back, it sounds comical.... Second, the industry leaders on both the business and editorial sides came of age in an environment in which circulation had long been a loss leader, when newspapers never charged readers what it actually cost to get the product to their doorstep. Advertising, not content, was all. This specific dynamic maximized everyone’s blindness to the real possibilities of a subscription model.... [I]f there is no profit to be had in delivering the paper product to homes at existing rates, then by all means, jack up those rates—raise hard-copy prices and drive as many readers as possible online, where you charge less, but at a distinct profit.... Last, and perhaps most disastrous, the rot began at the bottom and it didn’t reach the highest rungs of the profession until far too much damage had been done. As early as the mid-1980s, the civic indifference and contempt of product inherent in chain ownership was apparent in many smaller American markets.... [L]tle was done by the industry to address a dynamic by which men in Los Angeles or Chicago or New York, at the behest of Wall Street, determined what sort of journalism would be practiced in Baltimore, Denver, Hartford, or Dallas. If you happened to labor at a newspaper that was ceding its editorial ambition to the price-per-share, it may have been agony, but if you were at the Times, the Post, The Wall Street Journal, or the Los Angeles Times, you were insulated.... The cancer devouring journalism began somewhere below the knee, and by the time the disease reached the self-satisfied brain of the Washington and New York newsrooms, the prognosis was far worse.... http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/the-revolt-of-the-stenographers.html
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reached the self-satisfied brain of the Washington and New York newsrooms, the prognosis was far worse.... [H]ere are a few possible outcomes, if the Times and The Post go ahead and build that wall. First scenario: The Times and The Post survive, their revenue streams balanced by still-considerable print advertising, the bump in the price of home delivery and newsstand sales, and, finally, a new influx of cheap yet profitable online subscriptions. And reassured that they can risk going behind the paywall without local readers getting free national, international, and cultural reporting from the national papers, and having seen that the paidcontent formula can work, most metro dailies will follow suit.... Second scenario: In those cities where regional papers collapse, the vacuum creates an opportunity for new, online subscription-based news organizations that cover state and local issues, sports, and finance, generating enough revenue to maintain a slim—but paid—metro desk.... In a metro region the size of Baltimore, where 300,000 once subscribed to a healthy newspaper, imagine an initial market penetration of a tenth of that--30,000 paid subscribers (in a metro region of more than 2.5 million), who are willing to pay $10 per month... for the only product in town that covers local politics, local culture, local sports, and financial news--using paid reporters and paid editors to produce a consistent, professional product. That’s $300,000 a month in revenue, or $3.6 million a year, with zero printing or circulation costs.... At $100,000 a position for editors and reporters, that’s a metro desk of some thirty-five paid souls.... Third scenario: Except for one in which professional journalism doesn’t endure in any form, this is the worst of all worlds. The Times and The Post survive because their coverage is unique and essential. But the regional dailies, too eviscerated to offer a credible local product, cannot entice enough online subscriptions to make do. They wither and die.... But all of this is, of course, academic. Because at this moment, Mr. Sulzberger and Ms. Weymouth have yet to turn that last card. Until they find the will and the courage to do so, no scenario other than the slow strangulation of paid, professional journalism applies. Meanwhile, we dare to dream of a viable, online future for American newsrooms. A few comments: I think Simon has gotten the hierarchy wrong. In terms of willingness-to-pay, mine is, in order: (1) the FT; (2) the Economist; (3) the Contra Costa Times; (4) the WSJ (and double if my online subscription came with the editorial page excluded); (5) the New York Times; (6) the San Francisco Chronicle... (666) the Washington Post. So I don't see the Washington Post surviving in any scenario: what does it have to sell, after all? At the international and national level, there are lots of organizations for whom aggregating up the international and national news makes sense as a loss leader. I do see the Contra Costa Times surviving: at a local scale, the task of aggregating up all of the press releases and police blotters and local gossip blogs is not of sufficient interest for anyone to do it for free, so there is value there. I do see the FT and the WSJ and the Economist and--alas! given its employment of the odious Stuart Taylor, Jr., he who slammed Sonia Sotomayor for being insufficiently grateful to Princeton for its beneficence in admitting her--the National Journal surviving: beat-level knowledge and expertise at that level is valuable. I don't know what is going to happen to the Atlantic and the NYRB and the New Yorker: it could go either way. I don't know what is going to happen to the New York Times: it could go either way. And I think Simon has gotten the situation very wrong: if the WP and the NYT move together on September 1 to cut off access, they die immediately and everyone switches to reading the Manchester Guardian, which flourishes. If the WP and the NYT and the LATimes and the Grauniad and the Times of London and the Telegraph all move together on September 1, they die and the Chicago Tribune flourishes. If the CT also cuts off access--if everyone with a White House correspondent cuts off access--then the White House web page becomes America's daily national newspaper, and that http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/the-revolt-of-the-stenographers.html
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correspondent cuts off access--then the White House web page becomes America's daily national newspaper, and that State and Treasury webpages become our daily free international and financial newspapers, respectively--with lots of webloggers peering over their shoulders to try to keep them somewhat honest... RECOMMENDED (5.0) by 4 people like you [How? ] You might like:
David Simon Whines About The State Of Journalism While Undermining His Own Point (@Techdirt) Who the "Friends of the People" Are and Why We Bash the Neoconservatives (@this site) 2 more recommended posts Âť Brad DeLong on July 25, 2009 at 11:13 AM in Economics, Economics: Information, Information: Better Press Corps/Journamalism, Information: Internet, Web/Tech, Weblogs | Permalink TrackBack TrackBack URL for this entry: http://www.typepad.com/services/trackback/6a00e551f080038834011572345bdd970b Listed below are links to weblogs that reference The Revolt of the Stenographers...:
Comments You can follow this conversation by subscribing to the comment feed for this post. Good summary, but what about the likelihood of the news hole being filled by even more dumbed-down national content providers such as USA Today, teevee news or NPR, or the AP's own execrable content? I used to love print papers, but they are as dead (and probably as mythical) as the Homeric golden age. Now my consumption model is exclusively blogs, except I watch the "most popular" page on Yahoo to see if there is something big I am missing. Then I try to research it without clicking through to the AP, the NY Times, or any of the other corporatist agitprop sites. I think a lot of local papers will be printing weekly in the near future. I might even pay for this, as the space limitations would probably exclude much of the worthless recycled crap that fills a mid-market daily. This might not be a bad combination with an online presence. Anyway, I am pretty confident that people who want good information will continue to be able to find it until the US elects a more competent strongman than GWB. Since most consumers in the current market don't seem to care about details or to learn much of anything no matter how it is presented, the loss of mass market news is not really that big a deal. The main result is the loss of an easily manipulated propaganda channel. The real tragedy will be the end of daily comics. Posted by: albrt | July 25, 2009 at 12:29 PM Cue Malcolm Gladwell's talk, at the recent New Yorker event, regarding overconfidence. I think your analysis is precisely correct. However my experience with organizations is that they engage in a phenomenal amount of belief that what they produce is indispensable and best-of-breed --- a strange sort of managerial cognitive dissonance that simultaneously holds that no employee is indispensable (a valuable trait for any manager), and that the product of the enterprise IS indispensable (a perhaps inevitable byproduct of the job, but sadly out of touch with reality). So we shall see whether these sites truly believe in their hearts that the world cannot go on without them... Posted by: Maynard Handley | July 25, 2009 at 01:05 PM Just got my first copy of the new Christian Science Monitor (weekly review). It's larger than a magazine, smaller than a tabloid newspaper, uses lightweight paper but still has very good color. Easy to carry and read. Also has a crossword puzzle. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/the-revolt-of-the-stenographers.html
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Of course the writing is top notch. Posted by: phil | July 25, 2009 at 02:28 PM NY Times survives under any scenario, but only because Rupert Murdoch will buy it for the name. I agree with your analysis of WaPo: under any scenario, it is toast. Posted by: jwb | July 25, 2009 at 02:31 PM Why give a point to a link to an article published 26 years ago? One could find more recent articles covering the same terrain. As a dual US & Canadian citizen, I'd say the C system has improved in the last 15 years and all systems are suffering economically from improved technologies and procedures (the cost of end-of-life, saving preemies, etc.). Posted by: melissa | July 25, 2009 at 04:50 PM If by "adding nothing to the debate" you mean "adding nothing new," then I'm not concerned. (I assume you didn't mean subtracting from the debate, because you gave other articles negative scores instead of zeroes.) All periodicals have articles where the reporters are, in a sense, going through the motions and reporting on information that isn't groundbreaking. It's far less forgivable that papers publish dreck, even if it is inevitable. A few points: 1. I doubt any of these sites is going to cut off access entirely. The Wall Street Journal, for instance, mixes it up with some subscriber content and some free content, and its site views are catching up to those of The New York Times. If some of these papers gave away the information that can be viewed in a lot of other places, like movie reviews and editorial content, and force people to pay small charges for most other content, like the international and business news, it seems likely they could keep page views up to where they are now, even if they dropped for some months before climbing back up again. I'm curious, though, how a paper like the New York Post would be able to put George Will's column on its site if The Washington Post charges for it? Syndication deals could make some of this difficult. 2. On that note, the mistake a lot of these papers could make is to put stuff that's available everywhere behind a paywall. Opinions are more than a dime a dozen on the Internet, so it makes no sense to charge for that. But while international or financial news is still readily available, some organizations have built up a name for themselves in these areas so charging seems realistic. Even if you assume a very small response from current free riding readers, like one or two million of the fifteen or so million unique visitors that nytimes.com currently gets each month, having those people sign up and pay a small fee can generate pretty nice returns. And just because there might be a paywall doesn't mean that advertising goes away. Depending on the paper and its demographics, perhaps more money could be gained with a small number of online viewers. 3. Perhaps this isn't so much a move to rely permanently on subscriber revenue as it is like a loan from loyal readers. If the papers can use this money--assuming any is made--to put themselves on sounder financial footing and then reinvest to make themselves more worthwhile, such moves will really pay for themselves by making the papers more indispensable. Imagine if The New York Times focused on state level politics in a really intense manner, more than it does now, for all fifty states, to make it more likely someone living in New Hampshire and someone living in Arizona would read the paper. Or if The Washington Post decided to do the same. There are enough people in this country who want certain types of information and will pay to receive it, and when it comes to national as opposed to international news, there seems to be a lot more talent. 4. Those who suggest that some papers have such a brand name, even if it does need polishing to remove the tarnish, that they would be snapped up by someone like Murdoch are on to something. Posted by: Brian J | July 25, 2009 at 05:27 PM Parallel to all this critical eye on contemporary journalism is the need to be much more critical of contemporary economics as it is practiced by Summers, Geithner, Bernanke and the rest of the Chicago School/Greenspamism crew and secondly how the Reagan Democrat party would like to govern the country. A realistic first appraisal would be where to slim down on our governance infrastructure. Otherwise this is having fits about nits. I say healthcare as good as the Senators get even if it means whining down the government programs to rescue Goldmine Sachs, in southern central Asia, and the oil producing middle east. And, oh, stop the domestic spying ops that is the NSA. http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/the-revolt-of-the-stenographers.html
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The Revolt of the Stenographers...
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southern central Asia, and the oil producing middle east. And, oh, stop the domestic spying ops that is the NSA. Posted by: christofay | July 25, 2009 at 06:31 PM I think Berle and Means in their grand manifesto, The Modern Corporation and Private Property, argued that most newspaper reporting was rather poor except for business news in certain papers, such as the WSJ. When people use the news to take action, they argued, they will pay for quality. If the quality slips, readers will switch to other sources. I think that analysis still holds. People will pay for the business coverage in the WSJ or FT. They'll pay for Variety or ImbdPro. They'll pay for Consumer Reports. That is, they'll pay so long as the information is timely, useful and accurate. Posted by: Kaleberg | July 25, 2009 at 07:30 PM To quibble with your choice of death rattle, the if the list gets down to the Chicago Tribune, the game is over, and any random paper could rise from the undergrowth. As best I can tell as an ex-Chicagoan, there is nothing left of the Chicago Tribune--no national or international reporting beyond the me too grade. I haven't seen a link to a Trib story in over a decade where it was the go to report. The Trib never has the scoop, never has the best analysis, never has the in depth reporting, never has the important story first. Every year or so the Trib breaks a local story, in Chicago or at the State House. It's a shaping up to be a sad century for the country's second city, the loss of its papers is one part of it. Regarding the WP and NYT--they have two functions, first as centers of good national and international reporting, and second as the venue where official sources place the info they want published. The second function is very fragile. Official sources can call one paper as easily as another, and if/when the WP and NYT lose their cachet, the sources will abandom them in a rush of unpopularity and the struggling paper will have its last leg kicked out in a few weeks. Posted by: Jim Lund | July 25, 2009 at 09:48 PM The main challenge for the major newspapers is finding the optimal price point. Even as someone in the Washington Post's circulation area, I'd say on balance it is worth less to me than the NY Times. However, for local sports coverage, some metro news, and even the occasional national or international news story it has some value to me. $120 a year online subscription fee for a regional paper strikes me as too high. It should probably be priced at about half to three quarters that rate in order to capture the widest possible readership (and yes, I'd probably class the Washington Post as a high quality regional paper). Odds are though that the Washington Post management would want to price itself at the same level as the NY Times simply as a matter of "honor". What the management doesn't seem to realize is that its editorial content is essentially WSJ-lite and jettisoning writers like Dan Froomkin limit value of its online product for its online readership. The paper desperately needs new management. Posted by: Jim | July 26, 2009 at 12:55 AM Another important point -- back when the NYT was paywall, when an article was considered "sufficiently important", somebody somewhere in the blogosphere would copy-paste it. There are far too many legitimate subscribers for any newspaper to attempt to police who is breaking the seal. Asyouknowbob, the newspapers are attempting to enforce the ACAP protocol to control how search engines may display snippets. Can copy-protection be far behind? Posted by: Jonquil | July 26, 2009 at 07:37 AM Interesting. First, I agree with everyone who says the WP is largely worthless. The only WP thing I read regularly is Ezra Klein's blog. I look for specific stories a few times a year, but otherwise the paper is fishwrap. Second, papers need to admit to themselves that with rare exceptions (Paul Krugman) their commentary is largely not as good as blog commentary and largely worthless. Third, the one real value that newspapers do have an edge on is basic class one facts. Their news staff has an edge at finding facts that bloggers largely can't match. Fourth, one of the things that makes many papers so worthless to readers is that -- sports and style sections aside -- they have given away their birthright for a bowl of pottage by abandoning fact oriented reporting in favor of he said/she said articles. They try to skip http://delong.typepad.com/sdj/2009/07/the-revolt-of-the-stenographers.html
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The Revolt of the Stenographers...
7/26/09 3:18 PM
away their birthright for a bowl of pottage by abandoning fact oriented reporting in favor of he said/she said articles. They try to skip over the one thing they have an edge on and subsitute quotes from public figures. Believe me, those public figures are more than happy to feed their blather to the blogs, especially the blogs that support their viewpoint -- and I count Fox News as one of those blogs. Fifth, as housekeeping point, if papers want on line subscribers they have to face the fact that they must price the product in a range that reflects what people think it is worth and what on line distribution costs. Pricing too high is death. Finally, if papers adopt that approach, they must prepare for massive shakeouts in readership. For example, I would never pay for my local paper, since I can get the movie listings direct from the theaters on the web and they do such a poor job that otherwise they are worthless. I wouldn't pay for any dead trees paper in my state, although there is a fledgling on line paper that I might pay for if the price was right. If papers charged on line, I would buy the NYT if the price was right, would think about getting the LAT if the price was right, and then would look into a few good overseas sources. Right wingers might be more interested in some other sources. The one thing I would pay a reasonable price for is an on line subscription to the comics and cartoons I like. Posted by: Pat S | July 26, 2009 at 10:54 AM 1. What is the over/under for complaints about the use of Manchester before Guardian? I guessed 7 last time, picked under, and lost. 2. I really hope Gannet is the first to go under. They seem to specialize in eliminating content. Their papers make the Post look fantastic. Posted by: PSP | July 26, 2009 at 12:56 PM
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