Posted on 12/27/2008 11:43:59 AM PST by shoptalk
When my colleague at the Newark Star-Ledger John Farmer started off in journalism more than five decades ago, things were very different. After covering a political event, he'd hop on the campaign bus, pull out a typewriter, and start banging out copy. As the bus would pull into a town, he'd ball up a finished page and toss it out the window. There a runner would scoop it up and rush it off to a telegraph station where it would be blasted back to the home office.
At the time, reporters thought this method was high-tech. Now, thanks to the Internet, a writer can file a story instantly from anywhere. It's incredibly convenient, but that same technology is killing old-fashioned newspapers. Some tell us that that's a good thing. I disagree and believe that the public will miss us once we're gone.
Mr. Farmer, who is now the Star-Ledger's editorial page editor, retold his experience of the old days a short while ago at a wake of sorts for departing colleagues. The paper has been losing money and might have had to shut its doors sometime early next year. So the drivers' and mailers' unions made contract concessions, and about 150 nonunion editorial staff took buyouts as part of an effort by the publisher to save the paper.
(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...
More changes at the Star
This news about the features section has come now from three different sources, so it’s already circulating out there with former staffers. Here is what the latest source says:
“Not announced yet, but look ford a reduction in the number of sections, all in the interest in saving newsprint. Features (or what is left of features) will front the classified ads.
“Metro/State will front Business. TV listings will move to the A Section (’so to make last minute changes’ of course). From (publisher) Michael (Kane’s) note: If you have any questions, see Dennis (Ryerson).
Also in jeopardy: the Saturday op-ed pages will disappear in January, say some. And some staffers are being asked to punch a clock and their time in the restrooms is being monitored.
How will we know if you won't leave.
I see more and more of these whiny pieces coming from the MSM lately. Sounds like a death rattle to me.
Chuckle!
That looks like a “reporter” headed for a job interview in the fast food industry.
You left out the fact that the gushing drivel that these morons are already printing and will be printing about Zero and his family for the next four years is enough to make a maggot puke. My daily newspaper will be the next cancellation.
“LOL, the local press are apoligists for higher taxes, it is bloggers who are fighting the good fight, God bless them, every one.”
Are you saying all bloggers are conservative? (or most)
In a lot of places, the city council meetings are either streamed or on a cable channel. So why do I need a reported to tell me about things that interest me.
Dunno, doubt it. But the one here in town who fight taxes are.
With all that said, he is mistaking the content of journalism for the means of delivery. Of course, 90% of what is on the Internet is dreck. The remaining 10% includes nuggets that the MSM totally missed, like the deserved downfall of Dan Rather.
The broader point is this. At the turn of the last century, every newspaper delivered its content on horse-drawn wagons. By 1920, all newspapers were using trucks, and anyone dumb enough to continue using horse-drawn wagons would soon be out of business.
Standard newspapers face a similar choice today. Those who persist in putting ink on paper will die. That includes the NY Times. Any newspaper that learns how to edit Internet content, publish on the Internet, and make money doing that, will become the leading newspaper in the United States, bar none.
This is a rather obvious point. Paul is missing it.
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There have been realitively few REAL journalist around for a couple of decades now..
This guy is late to the party...
Most journalist are simply shills for an agenda be it a political one or a social issue one...
You do have a point, advocacy does define too much of today’s print production yet the writer’s plea is thus:
“Over the past few weeks, I’ve watched a parade of top-notch reporters leave the Star-Ledger for the last time. The old model for compensating journalists is as obsolete as the telegraph. If anyone out there in the blogosphere can tell me what the new model is, I will pronounce him the first genius I’ve ever encountered on the Internet.”
Mr. Mulshine is an opinion columnist for the Newark Star-Ledger.
While not a card-carrying genius myself, I do believe that this small man should recognize that the developed ability to hide only delays the day when the prey will be eaten.
The protective cover of time and distribution allows for analysis but never substitutes for decision.
Lugubrious brevity.
Bloggers are only stepping into the great vacuum left by the death of real reporting.
If only we had a conservative/christian businessman who could buy up some of these newspapers, on the cheap and prove once and for all IF liberal bias is the main culpret of NP losses or if it is merely a technological one.. I am betting in certian markets if the NWPs actually had new management-reported the news instead of bias, plus covered stories the American public wanted-then they’d actually PICK up readership, and the people would love it!..(fresh air-as opposed to the stagnant socialist rags we have now).
Every single one of those writers was more thoughtful, analytical, logical,honest
and articulate than anything I’ve seen in the NYT, AP, LAT and all the rest of them, in decades.
We have no journalists anymore. We’re all bloggers. Some do it for free. Some get paid by newspapers.
Bloggers are no replacement for real journalists
______________________________
And who are these real journalists and where are they?
I guess the best newspaper reporters this clown knows also explain in an understandable way why your taxes SHOULD go up. My newspaper explains it all the time.
Newspapers aren't going out of business because of the internet. They are going out of business because they decided, maybe fifty years ago, that their primary market would be people who can't read.
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