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 ...
Thanks for the link. Great comments.
Ink-on-paper investigative reporting would always have its place, and the money would surely follow.
Who wouldn't want more scrutiny of a Governor McGreevey, bankers giving liars loans to "deserving" folks, or stellar Madoff fund returns IN ADVANCE of an implosion. Mr. Mulshine sprains his arm patting his "profession" on the back, arguing that the unwashed simply cannot be entrusted with so noble a task.
Whether in pixelated form or smudgy ink, stellar content counts.
I really do miss the linotype. It gives excellent velocities with minimal leading.
Came this close to buying one >| . . |<
Had a drawer full of spare starwheels.
That is when fonts were serious brass.
There is one behind the new mall, rusting in the field. Belonged to a job printer.
When Tom Brokaw admitted to Charlie Rose the weekend before the 2008 election, after Obama’s two years of campaigning and running for the White House, that ‘we don’t know much about him’, Brokaw was inadvertantly admitting that modern journalism had failed in being the ‘vetting’ force.
That is the same journalistic group that kept crying that vetting candidates was their duty, their responsibility.
Instead, they abrogated their responsibility, their duty, and decided they preferred heaping massive attacks on a citizen questioner such as Joe the Plumber or scrutinizing the moral values of relatives of the GOP vice presidential nominee rather than vetting the Dem nominee and his vp nominee.
The MSM made Obama the Dem nominee and got him elected. The MSM made McCain the GOP nominee and got him defeated. The MSM won those in 2008, but their methodology lost them the trust of the general public. That general public has turned to the Internet to get raw news, rather than the filtered pablum of propaganda the MSM has become adept at feeding.
No, we really won't.
We should get word to Rush to make the Excellence in Broadcasting Network, an actual network.
The man is absolutely right,
“Fake” journalists are no replacement for “real” journalists.
“Fake” bloggers are no replacement for “real” bloggers.
The “average” journalist is no replacement for the “best” blogger, and the “average” blogger, is no replacement for the “best” journalist. But the best blogger is likely to be
more than just a replacement for the best journalist; he is likely to be a replacement for everything that has ever been written before.
That is the point overlooked in these discussions — that maybe the average journalist may be better than an average blogger, the best blogger is the summation of every writer that’s ever been — because the population sample is much larger, and he is the one in a hundred million instead of just the one in a hundred thousand.
It’s like the evolution of the Olympic Games and world records — when there were only tens of thousands who could compete; but when the whole world competes, you have to be a truly gifted person born, bred, and made for that event — because you’re not going to be able to fake it.
When Mr. Moonshine is a bona fide genius himself, we’ll be the first to let him know.
The problem with that is????????
I disagree and believe that the public will miss us once we're gone.
The only thing I miss, is having to drag the recycle bin full of "mostly unread" papers to the street.
JJJ
So-called mainstream journalism has become little more than a cheering section for and a campaign arm of the Democratic Party. That is the problem. I won’t spent any money on a film with Sean Penn, Streisand, or many of the other leftist elitists, and I won’t spend money on a newspaper dedicated to supporting the leftists. I will buy an LA TIMES again on the day they use the term “illegal alien.” But, of course, that is not going to happen.
That clip came from an editorial board meeting with Obama and editors of the San Francisco Chronicle.
The (old) audio on redistribution of wealth came from a Chicago Public Radio station that a blogger took the trouble to listen to and publicize.
It's really a toss-up when it comes to the major failing of so-called "journalists" today: the liberal editorial bias of the media is a given, but the laziness of reporters is a major contributor to the decline. When you think of all the money spent on the travels of reporters covering Obama during that long primary/election cycle by the major media, exactly what bang did they get for the bucks? Other than generalized quotes (which usually didn't match the YouTube video of the event) and hackneyed repetition of canned background material and/or generalized genuflecting, I'd say not much. The candidate rarely spoke to the campaign plane groupies, and they meekly accepted the silence.
The author can mourn newspapers, but actual journalists -- meaning those with historical knowledge and an appreciation of facts (vs. opinion) -- died long ago. Without them, newspapers are a waste of paper, ink and time.
As Rush said one day, "2008. The year journalism DIED."
>>Bloggers are no replacement for real journalists
______________________________
And who are these real journalists and where are they?<<
The real journalists are displaced by hundreds, if not thousands of miles telling you what they THINK is happening.
If you don’t believe me, go back and visit some of the 9/11 threads.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/620413/posts
I'm sorry. You are correct.
I mistook the "redistribution of wealth" comment for the "bankrupt the coal industry" comment, which was from the San Francisco Chronicle Editorial Board audio that a different blogger found.
-PJ
I think we need newspapers too, but not what we have. If that is the only alternative, then it needs to die out completely. It’s been polluted by stupid people with an agenda, people who can hardly write or even put together a decent sentence.
“Bloggers are no replacement for real journalists”
Might be right.
If there were any real journalists left in any appreciable number.
Instead, mostly what’s available are wannabe Pulitzer Prize-winning opinion columnists making the “news” up as they go along, to fit their own biases.
The problem is we have essentially no real journalists anymore. (cf. Orson Scott Card's " Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?" )
Given a choice between bloggers and the crowd that turned the newsrooms of America into Obama's Ministry of Truth, I'll take the bloggers.
Well, someone needs to ask us: "do you want fries with that?"
Also, analysis is a problem in news reporting. Reporters should report, not opine or analyze. And trust me, there will always be someone willing to sit in school board and council meetings.
Hey, I just got a great idea! You know how we have all those illegal aliens who are willing to do the work that Americans are unwilling to do? Why don't we put them to work as journalists? :)
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