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– Mitchell, Greg (June 29, 2009). "Why 'E&P' Went Along With Media Blackout on Kidnapping". Editor & Publisher.
Its great that Arrington nailed these bozos but in the real world of massive unemployment, the "depression," a couple of wars this is non news. And even online it seems the phishers, credit card scammers etc have become mainstream and boring. The Zynga crap is just chump change and can easily be shut down compared to the maybe hundreds of millions of real dollars being stolen each month.
Perhaps if the mainstream media was doing their job we wouldn't have two wars to report about?
Whether you like it or not the future is online, mainstream media will move online, there will be a shifting of the balance when paid subscriptions are introduced, and superblogs that offer the journalistic credibility that comes from being independent of large corporations, will be significant competitors in that space.
"The truth is, if newspapers want to survive they should go back to doing what they started out doing — muckraking, stirring the shit, calling bullshit."
Mainstream media has not been an independent voice for quite some time. This is why fewer people are willing to waste time reading it. Technical news or not, mainstream media is too compliant to its paymasters and does not care too much about readership - forgetting that readership pays to read them.
The fact that people like yourself still keep putting shit like this online, and actually promote articles that have not been checked for any credibility what so ever, bullshitted out by some random dude-ass who's got no clue what he's doing and the impact it may have on anything, is just sad. It just goes to show that people today do not value quality in front of quantity, or should I say.. if it ain't free it ain't gonna fly. Grow up.
http://query.nytimes.com/search/sitesearch?quer...
And the answer is no, they haven't.
Ask questions, Think for yourself and promote free speech/free thought even if you do not like it. We may disagree but we both enjoy the ability to share our thoughts freely.
Oh, an nobody said anything about paying or not paying for good news. did you ge fired from some publication or something? you have some serious emotional issues you have to deal with.
Simply put, stop being an idiot!
The democratization of the flow of information can mean, that a lot of individuals can piece a big story together, and that is indeed a new form of journalism emerging from the blogosphere and all its helping agents. They cannot, however, replace the possible earth-shifting moxie of a major newspaper.
This does not discredit the arguments in this case of shoddy research, however. More power to the risk-taking, waveriding, badass blogmeisters out there!
Exciting times.
To correctly translate the quote to cover the Watergate example, the quote would perhaps be "There is nothing a well established collaborative blog cannot do that a Times news team can"
Protecting a source doesn't end with ink.
Also, 'licensed news sources'?
Here was the point, one more time for the cheap seats and those in 'real democracies' - and excuse me if it is a little more blunt and in caps but since you crossed the line from 'clarification' to 'I'm a loudmouth' I wanted to restate my point clearly and in large type.
IN THE REAL WORLD, I THINK FREE SPEECH INCLUDES EVERYONE NOT JUST GUYS IN THE NEWSPAPERS. SO I THINK BLOGGERS END UP PROTECTED JUST AS MUCH AS PRINT IF THEY HAVE SOURCES AND CAN SHOW PROOF AND RESEARCH.
That's all I said. Why you need to attack the US, blogs or anything else is beyond me.
It also says an awful lot about you more than whatever I posted says about me.
FWIW here in the US, we protect sources as well. Not that you might have done research to discover that before posting your ignorant little diatribe.
Have a nice day.
Actually, a number of states, such as California, DO have shield laws for journalists, but there is no FEDERAL shield law, nor a national one. So, journalists that defy federal court orders to turn over source material do run the risk of seizure of relevant property, contempt charges and even jail.
Two famous recent cases involve Josh Wolf: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Josh_Wolf and Judith Miller: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Miller_(jou...)
A federal shield law has been introduced in Congress, but they're still hashing out how to define who's covered by the privilege.
Further on, we have laws saying what kind of personal information you - as a private citizen - are allowed to spread about someone else. These laws exist to protect people from being 'hung out' on - for example - the internets. Those laws do not apply to journalists/people publishing stuff in licensed news sources, which is a good thing, but that also requires those HORRIBLE (OMFG OH NO) layers and LAYERS of editors (if you actually have had any contact with someone working at, for example, a newspaper you would know that making editors sound like a hassle is just plain bullshit).
Just to state what you might otherwise not understand: everyone still has the freedom to print, distribute, publish, say and yell what ever they want about whomever they want. But journalists can do it and the only one who's ever responsible is the responsible publisher (don't know the correct english word, sorry). That person registers as the "licensee" for the specific news company.
Additionally, one little teeny tiny blogger can never, EVER outweigh a whole editorial staff when it comes to anything.
I will say that condescending tone aside if you had answered like THIS the first time I could have seen you r point. Instead for reasons only you know you chose to be condesending and snide.
I mean you're still being both of those things but at least your answering (sort of) what I asked.
But do yourself a favor and reread your first response to me and see if MAYBE you might have been less of a troll?
'real democracy' - you do know there isn't a country on earth which is a real democracy right? Just variations on the idea?
Ps - I don't know you but I'll go out on a limb and say the dozens of reporters in media whim I personally talk to on a weekly basis outnumber those you talk to. So yeah I actually know people who deal with editors and they'll tell you a good editor is worth their weight in gold while a bad one - yes they do exist - is a huge pain.
I'm also gonna guess what you know about bloggers is pretty thin. It isn't hard to find reliable content on the net. The best Internet journalist holds themselves to a high standard because they don't have an editor to catch their mistakes.
But I'm sure in your true democracy things run much differently.
Again have a good day. I wish you the vest of luck in whatever you do all day when not railing against the evils of the interwebs.
Thanks in advance.
I am aware that 'real democracy' might be a bit aggressive, it just surprises me every time I find out another civil right you're lacking in US law. You may or may not be one of the overwealmingly many people shouting "the land of the free" all day long, but that ticks many of - especially those who live in a real free country where you actually can say and do what ever you feel like.
Have a good day, you too. Always nice to have a bit of discussion.
-t
There are no doubt innumerable stories that are not covered, don't make the attention of the masses, and aren't effectively reported.
Tom Abate hits the nail on the head on that missing piece, http://minimediaguy.org/2009/11/07/will-content...
There are a handful of true-blue muckrakers out there - but most of what passes for 'reporting' these days is an amateurish extension of corporate PR campaigns.
And I've worked side by side with the both types of reporters...so I'm not just making an idle observation.
The funniest recent example is Andrew Ross Sorkin, who has a new book out about the financial crisis. It contains this quote: "Treasury bills were trading for less than 1 percent interest, as if they were no better than cash, as if the full faith of the government had suddenly become meaningless."
In order to write that, you'd have to lack a basic understanding of a central feature of the crisis: that money was fleeing to the safety of Treasuries because the full faith of the government was suddenly the only thing that was _meaningful_. Sorkin is known for writing some howlers for the Times and has also been caught hobnobbing with the very CEOs he was writing about in his book.
This comes right after the Edmund Andrews scandal over his book about his personal financial situation that conspicuously left out some crucial facts.
TechCrunch isn't just a blog, it's a small media empire of it's own.
That said, it's absolutely shocking the NYT didn't give a 'Fair and Balanced' <chuckle> report after Arrington had done all the homework for the piece over at TC.
Great article Steve -- and thanks for inventing that iPhone doo-hickey!
http://www.siliconvalleywatcher.com/mt/archives...
Now, that last point is something that might warrant some investigation, especially in terms of what the company's true revenue activities are. (i.e. direct virtual goods purchased with real-world money or lead-gen revenue).
Other than that, I think that the story on the Times is still useful for its readership. You see, being a tech head, you may find it completely sane to buy "Brownie Points" on "Sorority Life" in order to throw that wicked party in the Bahamas for your sisters; however, to the majority of the readership, they'd find it interesting, if not alarming, that people (including adults) would engage in such transactions at such a large scale.
There aren't really people actually paying real money for virtual goods. There are, however, people being tricked into signing up for premium SMS subscriptions for things like horoscopes at $10/month.
So, the insanity of consumers you think the NYT story uncovered is actually untrue. It was a scam perpetrated on people very new to the idea of socializing with their friends on the web. Facebook is the only 3rd party site anyone I know placed their real name.
Others held their nose and felt they had to for the money, and it's good that a light is finally shining on the unsavory parts of that business.
I agree that the NYTimes article was bad on multiple levels, and agree they missed this important angle to the story. It was a fluff hype + "isn't this weird!!!" piece.
You and I both know that Zynga (despite what they say) makes the majority of their revenues from offers.
MaggieL may have erred by straying with an unnecessary jab at the left, but your political bigotry is much more caustic and unneeded anywhere. But you know that -which is why you remain anonymous... or you don't then I'd ask who is the mouth-breather now?
Absolutely. You nailed it. The single worst mistake made in these Final Days has been to go even MORE "shrimp cocktail" and even LESS "throat".
The other largely unrecognized factor is that more media content than the public would ever imagine stems from 1. press releases*, and 2. news agency feeds (e.g. AP or Reuters). In recent decades, newspapers have essentially become wrappers for this syndicated content. And unless you're really fond of killing trees and smearing ink all over your hands, there are all sorts of other ways to deliver that same generic commodity.
* - I include under the umbrella "press release" phenomena like that IBM query letter mentioned a few entries earlier. I'm talking about all subject-sourced news reporting, where stories come to you like greasy lozenges all ready to swallow, rather than your moving your (fat, lazy, pompous) ass out to go report on your own.
Anecdote: I once signed a contract to author a guidebook for a major publisher. Word got out, and a p.r. person I'd never met emailed me and told me she'd like to "work with me" on the book. Totally puzzled, I asked what she meant. She told me she'd "worked with" a number of authors on similar projects, gotten them the info they need, providing helpful assistance on who to cover, etc. Even after telling her to SIOOMA, I still needed 17 showers to wash off the creepy.
When I wrote a restaurant review column for a well-known newspaper, the whole food department was absolutely shocked to see that I never read a press release. Never even opened an envelope. My editor even reprimanded me for it. That's how cozy - no, the word's not cozy...it's more of a grafted-together hybridization - writers, journalists, editors are with these icky flacks.
Curation: A Dead Idea Of Dead Thinking
http://snurl.com/t531k
This is something your BFF Dan Lyons needs to read!
We do need a way to pay for investigative journalism and informed opinion, perhaps public media PBS or ABC (in Australia) will need to expand to take this role as the newspapers vanish.
You should read it:
http://www.forbes.com/home/forbes/2005/1114/128...
:)
These dinosaurs and paid off hacks deserve to go down. A-greed they had sooo much time and budget to invest to an online presence and just sat back and became outdated.
Back in the1990's I read the most blatant pay off article front lower page about how good GMO's are for the food chain. I seached the authors history. She had none.
The much needed paradigm shift is here and spans may sectors.Those wise and felxible enough will thirve and the rest will be rightly left behind. Exciting x's these are.
ahaha
The only other nailing that can compare with this happened long time ago, theses, you know.
Every good story requires appropriate hardware. Nailed it, man. Nailed it.
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/09...
And, eventually, the Zyngas of the world will work to stiff bloggers, too, or give it a shot.
It was reported about a year & a half ago that the LA Times digital side made enough to support both the print AND digital newsrooms. It just doesn't make enough to pay off all the wrongheaded debt entered into during the takeovers, mergers, etc.
Now that the story has finally made mainstream attention-- I'm surprised it's gone THIS many years with no mention, I believe a ton of articles are going to come out-- mostly uninformed, but increasingly less so.
It's absurd how much an article can change from truth to fiction with just a couple of missing words.
Gee, I thought it had something to do with their wall-to-wall shilling for every possible expansion of government power.
New York Times costs money. Blogs are free.
That explains it as well as anything.
The NY Times screwed the pooch on this one. (Nobody says journalists don't miss stuff, though this was especially egregious. I wouldn't be surprised if the reporters on this story don't read TechCrunch.)
But your last sentence is idiotic.
Really? Four words: "Washington Post. Walter Reed."
You don't quite get it. NYT is an infomercial and their journalists know this.
They are not innocently withering away. They are like the polluter who has befouled a river, got caught, and yet comes back to dump more like a total dick.
In fact, that's the perfect metaphor for their journalism: POLLUTION.
Heck, half of them are probably on CIA payroll, which is why they so eagerly self-censor and lie all the time.
They were silent about election rigging in 2000 and 2004. They were silent about the mountain of evidence showing 9/11 to have been an inside job. Et cetera.
But ***free*** comes at a price, especially your key demographics and your likes/dislikes are quite usefull to several third parties.
I don't have anything against them selling these off, if you really are informed about it, that's just in the deal; the problem comes that very few people do really read the TOS and Privacy agreements and I can't remember that I even saw them before playing Farmville, I should sign up ones more to control that...
I never buy something online and the only internet related cost I'm willing to pay is that of my access to the internet. That's it.
Why ? because it is quite possible to offer all the other services for almost free, some services do even pay you for doing blogarticles, etc. - I don't believe in that model, BTW, so I never go there neither.
Free services are IMO the only real affordable way for using internet as an individual, that's why I promote them by using them. Ofcourse, it means that others get to know me and about me quite a lot...
I don't know anyone using a search engine he or she's paying for to use in order to consult the internet... nontheless search engines learn a real great deal about us...
It's important though to inform people about the dangers they're running and therefore the blogarticles quoted are of great importance.
It's a pitty indeed that mean stream media aren't more at their guards when coming to tech issues...
I count 21 writers/editors at the TechCrunch masthead:
http://www.techcrunch.com/about-techcrunch/
And I get about 12 names from the tech staff at the NY Times:
http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/
The NYT masthead for bits probably leaves off some copyeditors and others, but I think it's fair to say that TechCrunch should be able to beat the NYTimes because it has more reporters and it's writing about its home turf. The NY Times forces its writers to produce something that's accessible to most of their readers including the folks who wander in from the Arts section.
So I reject your idea that this is some battle between David and Goliath and I don't think this says anything about whether non-professional bloggers can beat professional writers. It's just that Tech Crunch wrote a great story and the NYT wrote a perfectly good one that didn't go into the angle that TechCrunch followed.
That fact (i.e., other media outlets failing to tell the full, up to date story) IS less of a defense of NYT, and more of a comment on the state of mainstream media in general.
Sidebar: for some to defend big media's failure to update their story to reflect this latest bit of news is just plain silly. Isn't a fundamental axiom of good writing 'Don't bury the lead?'
If ScamVille isn't the lead, it's certainly should be a core part of it; a proverbial, "But other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, did you enjoy the play?"
Their articles/editorials are so absurd that not only will I no longer read them I refuse to even let someone bring a copy of the NYT into my house.
They write like their bully pulpit still exists when in fact it is crumbling under their feet. They write as if their words are the most important ever spoken when in fact they are usually so far from the truth to make them virtually worthless.
Die, bitches, die.
That's what blogging is all about, and why I love that bloggers are prepared to call shit when they see shit. I just wish I had a single journalistic bone in my body so I could join in the fun.
Murdoch has made a living from pushing the interests of his corporate friends/backers.
Fact is that there are many individuals producing far better content than his overpaid journalists -- we won't miss them.
Sure, the BBC is a threat to Murdock on line. But so is every other blogger out there. Shame is he will probably get the next UK government to cripple the BBC -- it won't save him, but he'll do damage in the meanwhile.
If you haven't read it, please do.
http://www.tampabay.com/specials/2009/reports/p...
Remember, this is the "religion" that managed to beat the IRS into submission. God only knows what they have planned for the St. Pete Times.
And yet, the last two of your blog posts have been annoying aggregations of "interesting links" (that aren't fucking why I come to this blog, BTW)
That's the reason not to trust newspapers and conventional media. Their much-vaunted professionalism amounts to their efforts to make sure they're all telling the same story, the same way, at the same time. They rely on official sources, and rarely question them.
With the democratization of journalism, lots of poorly researched, biased crap gets published. That's an improvement, however, over just a little poorly researched, biased crap getting published, because the odds of finding the truth in all the muck have improved.
The world has changed. No, most blogs can't afford to open bureaus in different countries. But, do they need to? Why should we rely on the New York Times having reporters in Iran, when there are Iranians there who can, and do, write and publish on the Web? For that matter, most of us live in cities in which many of our fellow students and co-workers have direct ties to people in other countries. With a little asking around, most of us can get more accurate accounts from the ground than the mainstream media seems to be capable of.