Topic: The Demise of Traditional Media (Read 20602 times)

Mongrel · « **Reply #100 on:** January 27, 2010, 10:40:52 AM »

Quote from: P. Birdy on January 27, 2010, 08:25:54 AM

I am still not seeing how people are supposed to make a living in this brave new world of news media where nobody ever pays for anything. I mean, I know some people find the idea of paying for the services of the Fourth Branch a little distasteful but the less financially rewarding and cutthroat journalism is, the more we will have to endure semi-literate 20-something hacks writing Wikipedia-researched fluff pieces about viagra because they are the only people dumb enough to take their college degrees and happily march right into careers that pay 25 grand a year with no benefits and even less stability.

Well, that's kind of the point yeah.

The problem is assuming that the average person thinks the fourth estate is important enough to pay for when you can get that hack fluff for free ("Hey, that's still news, right? And besides, all journalism is biased anyway!" or worse yet "InTouch magazine is news").

It's a bad situation all 'round. But then, watching people try and put genies back into bottles is always painful.

JDigital · « **Reply #101 on:** January 27, 2010, 04:58:33 PM »

Reminds me of this anecdote: And if only 1% of those people...

I'm still baffled how anyone spends $4 million on a website. That's 16,000 man-hours at the rates of some very high-end developers, or ten very well paid devs working for 28 forty-hour weeks. Even so, what sort of business plan is it to increase the price of your product when the market is full of competitors who give an equivalent or better product away for free?

Mongrel · « **Reply #102 on:** January 27, 2010, 05:05:57 PM »

You know, for the record, my preferred newpaper is doing very well in the internet era. They have remained profitable, all current content is free, and they still maintain a very high standard of reporting - I would say that they break more signifiant news stories than any other paper in the country.

In fact they are profitable enough that they make snide comments about how they're in the black and aren't planning to go back to a for-pay model whenever they report on these 'demise of traditional media' type stories.

So, while anecdotal evidence is not data, there is at least one example that demonstrates that it is possible to survive and prosper in the new era.

Mongrel · « **Reply #103 on:** May 24, 2011, 08:34:14 AM »

Not related to the original "will newspapers survive?" issue, but this is still the best thread I would say.

Quote from: Dantes

Decent musings on the future of books.

That's pretty much what I've been assuming for a while now and there aren't any real surprises. The article's still a good read nonetheless.

Books have qualities that screens don't and e-readers have functionality that books don't. It used to be ALL books, now there will be a mix. Going to a hybrid or mixture where there was once a monoculture doesn't necessarily mean one form becomes wholly extinct.

Pacobird · « **Reply #104 on:** May 24, 2011, 09:51:10 AM »

how is the hot girl at starbucks going to know i am reading salman rushdie if i have a kindle

sei · « **Reply #105 on:** May 24, 2011, 11:24:15 AM »

oh wow a book about salman are they wild or farmed i heard farmed have more mercury

Pacobird · « **Reply #106 on:** May 24, 2011, 01:21:39 PM »

hey did you know salman travel 500 miles upstream during mating season to spawn and then collapse from exhaustion

you might say they.......rush to die

sei · « **Reply #107 on:** May 25, 2011, 11:11:02 AM »

they die of heart failure

my salman you're fatwa have you been eating to get so 'bese???

[spoiler]hajjen dazs[/spoiler]

Büge · « **Reply #108 on:** July 12, 2011, 06:24:32 PM »

Another newspaper bites the dust.

Admittedly, it's because the editors authorized hacking into the cellphone of a murder victim, but still.

Mongrel · « **Reply #109 on:** July 12, 2011, 06:29:43 PM »

This has been a pretty huge story for a number of weeks (no, I'm not saying Buge's late to the party or anything like that - it's really biggest in England, not so much elsewhere). The parent company has pretty much controlled British politics for almost fourty years by basically acting as a gigantic blackmail machine who's sole aim was to increase the size of Rupert Murdoch's ego. Makes ol' Conrad Black look like a sainted aunt.

One thing this got me to thinking is that the worst long-term fallout may be increased regulations upon the press. Not just in England either. News International's reach is vampire-squid like (to steal a term), and they're already facing possible prosecution in the US and maybe Australia.

I think chances of that are low, but if anyone was looking for an excuse, it sure doesn't get any better than this.

Büge · « **Reply #110 on:** July 12, 2011, 06:45:00 PM »

Quote from: Mongrel on July 12, 2011, 06:29:43 PM

News International's reach is vampire-squid like (to steal a term),

That's a rather poor simile. The Vampire Squid is confined to a strata of the ocean that is virtually uninhabitable by most other forms of sea life, and furthermore, they're only about a foot in length. Their reach is not only short, it is limited to the smallest and simplest of prey.

Ted Belmont · « **Reply #111 on:** July 12, 2011, 06:49:06 PM »

Perhaps he meant a vampire that is also a squid

Mongrel · « **Reply #112 on:** July 12, 2011, 07:26:02 PM »

It was a reference to the Rolling Stone article on Goldman Sachs. I know most folks haven't read the article, but the term "giant vampire squid" (used to describe G-S) has become something of a very minor meme.

News International shares similar business ethics and practices, so, bad joke only I get follows. Naturally.

Brentai · « **Reply #113 on:** July 12, 2011, 08:23:20 PM »

So here's this giant enemy vampire squid.

Thad · « **Reply #114 on:** July 12, 2011, 08:50:03 PM »

Quote from: Büge on July 12, 2011, 06:24:32 PM

Admittedly, it's because the editors authorized hacking into the cellphone of a murder victim, but still.

...we really should stop fucking calling it "hacking" when somebody tries the default PIN and it works.

But yeah, it's downright goddamned horrifying. Who'd have thought Fox News was Murdoch's HONEST news outlet?

Classic · « **Reply #115 on:** July 12, 2011, 09:44:38 PM »

In related news, John Oliver did a Daily Show segment on Monday the 11th!

Mongrel · « **Reply #116 on:** July 18, 2011, 04:14:19 PM »

Anybody following this story has been treated to a veritable smorgasboard of stories today.

- The Chief of London's Met police resigned
- Rebekah Brooks was arrested (later released... for now)
- The commissioner of Scotland Yard resigned
- One of the original whistleblowers was found dead in his apartment (It honestly looks like a coincidental OD - he had lots of well-documented substance use. Of course conspiracy nuts will have a field day anyway.)
- LulzSec hijacked the online front page of London's Sun newspaper and ran a story stating Rupert Murdoch had committed suicide by ingesting large amounts of palladium (har har).

Brentai · « **Reply #117 on:** July 18, 2011, 04:19:06 PM »

Turns out, ground up moon rocks are pure poison!

Mongrel · « **Reply #118 on:** July 18, 2011, 04:39:25 PM »

Uh, in case it wasn't clear the LulzSec/Sun story was a hoax.

I'm as saddened as the rest of you.

Thad · « **Reply #119 on:** October 12, 2011, 09:24:06 AM »

So it turns out NewsCorp has been artificially inflating the WSJ's subscription numbers through a practice that looks an awful lot like money laundering.

Guardian: Wall Street Journal circulation scam claims senior Murdoch executive

Quote

The Guardian found evidence that the Journal had been channelling money through European companies in order to secretly buy thousands of copies of its own paper at a knock-down rate, misleading readers and advertisers about the Journal's true circulation.

Link via Stross, who adds:

Quote

What's significant about this revelation it that it comes from the opposite end of the organization — advertising and circulation — from the previous allegations — of journalistic and editorial corrupt practices — that shut down the News of the World and got Rupe up in front of a Commons Committee. Previously, NewsCo could maintain that it was just the misdeeds of a few bad apples in the news side of the business. With this latest revelation it looks as if the whole organisation has out of control, to the point of committing what looks very like circulation fraud.

And while the large corporate advertisers might be willing to put up with dirty tricks aimed at the readers, this is something else. (I expect a collapse in NewsCo's advertising revenue, not to mention an imminent FBI investigation ...)

News:

Author Topic: The Demise of Traditional Media (Read 20602 times)