Readers. There is no way for us to keep up with all the news coverage that can be found on line. However I like to open the following for discussion. As we surely have read, the print media has taken some major hits over the past decade.
I have just found a listing of 10 newspapers that are most likely to fail this year or resort to only offering an on-line product.
Philadelphia Daily News, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Miami Herald, Detroit News, Boston Globe, San Francisco Chronicle, Chicago Sun-Times, New York Daily News, Fort Worth Star-Telegram and the Cleveland Plain Dealer.
Part of the demise of this industry can be attributed to the younger generation, those under age 45, who get most of their news on line. However, there is a down side. Eventually, if the mainstream press evaporates, where will we get our news stories? Who will hold our elected officials accountable for their actions and policy decisions?
We have seen cases where, due to cutbacks, local news reporters are functioning as extensions of the city’s public relations departments publishing press releases rather than questioning city actions. That oversight failure opens the door for bloggers to ask the tough questions and challenge our leaders. That’s why the First Amendment, in our Bill of Rights, is listed “first.”
Apparently activists in the state of Maryland have hit a nerve with a Md. Mayor as indicated in the following AP story.
Salisbury mayor: Malicious blogs endangering city
Associated Press
March 13, 2009
SALISBURY — In her final State of the City address, Salisbury Mayor Barrie Parsons Tilghman warned residents of what she sees as a great danger to the city: malicious bloggers.
Tilghman said in her address Thursday that over the last five years, the presence of a small group of suspicious, mean-spirited people focused on the negative has grown, endangering the city’s vitality.
Tilghman says some people are avoiding serving their city because it’s not worth chancing the scorn of bloggers. But Tilghman says they need to stand up for the city.
Tilghman’s final day in office is April 19, but she says she plans to remain active in the city. She says she plans to give a less formal farewell address before leaving office.
Guerrilla journalism is an important tool and it can be best used online. 90% of media is owned by the major corporations of this country, but the internet (in this country anyway) is our only chance to get the TRUTH out.
Larry, good point about the local coverage. I don’t attribute it to cutbacks because it was crappy long before anybody cut budgets. Sycophants, illiterates and shills; or, kids with no experience: that’s the quality of local news coverage.
City council members DO NOT want you to see or hear them. They don’t want people to know what’s going on because they rarely know themselves. They do not want the public to that they are:
Confused
Stupid
Inarticulate
Manipulated
et cetera
Rather they want you to read the happy-talk regurtitated from city hall press releases. They absolutely resent honest (and particulary) satirical representation of how they comport themselves. So most of them are terrified of blogs.
Kate,
In theory your observation COULD prove to be correct. The only problem at this point is that the blogosphere has precious little of what amounts to real journalism…in other words, journalism that is incisive, holds the powerful accountable, doesn’t give up pursuing a legitimate story, is ACCURATE, and admits errors in reporting.
That said, the mainstream press isn’t doing much of that either.
Larry, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer announced today that it’s shutting down, too. Very sad.
To the subject at hand, blogs can be an important communication tool, as you and others demonstrate every day. However, as in all endeavors, abuse is a possibility. Make that “probability”. Here on the OJ you’ve gone through times when the debates were dominated by posters and those who comment that seemed to focus on personal attacks instead of the important issues. It’s a lot better now, which makes reading the posts here easier – we have fewer “seeds” to spit out as we chew on the content.
I don’t like seeing the demise of printed news media, but it seems almost inevitable. The San Diego Union Tribune is getting it’s fanny kicked by The Voice Of San Diego – a 24/7/365 online competitor run by real news folk. That’s likely the future.
Blogs play an important part today, but typically the “news” they present is homogenized with heavy doses of “opinion”. Those who read the entries may not fully understand that distinction.
So, you and I will continue to try to educate, inform and influence those who take the time to read our blogs, trying to fill some of the holes left by the disappearing print media.
I used to believe in newspapers and investigative reporting but when you open and read several different newspapers and it is the same it becomes shake and bake news and press releases. There is no longer freedom of the press under the patriot act.
The blogs are good reading because where there is smoke there is fire. When you have people live on the spot who are you going to believe? The city officials, the newspapers under the patriot act, or from the horses mouth?
Pot Stirrer.
I am envious of your “handle” and have been since writing on this blog.
Thank you for acknowledging the improvement of the Juice blog. While I surely have an Agenda as it relates to property rights and taxes, I make no secret of my stance on those issues.
I do not wish to see the demise of the print media, especially the OC Register where I know all of the editorial staff. Although we do not agree on every issue they provide opinion that opens the door for our Internet discussions.
As a recent form of communication there are many blogs and bloggers who are just starting to write.
Our hope is that they use caution in their stories so that this new source of news will be credible.
Having the ability to add You Tube video footage to support our content has provided a leg up on the daily newspapers.
God, I would’ve thought that the demise of newspapers was every conservative’s wet dream. No more “liberal bias”, aka; those pesky facts, to contend with, just pure pontification.
Careful Larry, I think they arte talking about the people in the 3rd row!
“over the last five years, the presence of a small group of suspicious, mean-spirited people focused on the negative has grown, endangering the city’s vitality.”
Unfortunately, the Internet has given every disaffected malcontent a place to spew their bile, half-truths, and hysterical conspiracies. I read a lot of blogs and I’m struck by how similar they all are to one another: They all contain cry babies who have axes to grind and see that it’s easier to sit on the sidelines and pout, complain and whine when they don’t get their way than it is to get in the game and make a meanigful contribution. Most of you bloggers are shrill shrews with too much free time on your hands and not joy in your lives. The mayor has a point in that it’s a shame that a few loudmouthed malcontents can hijack an agenda to suit their own selfish needs. Take god drama queen of a city, Larry. You crybabies recalled an entire City Council because they treated you and the other perpetual whiners like the annoying, lying gnats that you are. Now you want to recall one of your own because his eyes were opened to how incredibly complex and overwhelming it can be to manage a municipal corporation, and how much more difficult a group of gadflys can make that. I hope that the quality of what passes for journalism on blogs improves as more traditional print media goes under. For the time being, I have to remind myself to take all of the drivel that oozes out of your pieholes with a grain of salt. For most of you bloggers are complete douchebags and you not what you speak of.
Larry, guess I was wrong about the quality of comments. Hopefully, Hector is an exception.
Pot Stirrer.
One thing Art and I share is a thick skin.
For Hector to say that we should get our facts straight we did not “recall an entire city council.” Perhaps he has confused me with other activists that lived in Fullerton in the 1990’s.
Hector. Can you spell credibility????????
Go back under your rock.
anonster.
Conservatives do not wish to see the death of the print media. Well, perhaps there are a few exceptions like the New York Times. From the web.
…what if The New York Times goes out of business—like, this May?
It’s certainly plausible. Earnings reports released by the New York Times Company in October indicate that drastic measures will have to be taken over the next five months or the paper will default on some $400million in debt. With more than $1billion in debt already on the books, only $46million in cash reserves as of October, and no clear way to tap into the capital markets (the company’s debt was recently reduced to junk status), the paper’s future doesn’t look good.
“As part of our analysis of our uses of cash, we are evaluating future financing arrangements,” the Times Company announced blandly in October, referring to the crunch it will face in May. “Based on the conversations we have had with lenders, we expect that we will be able to manage our debt and credit obligations as they mature.” This prompted Henry Blodget, whose Web site, Silicon Alley Insider, has offered the smartest ongoing analysis of the company’s travails, to write: “‘We expect that we will be able to manage’? Translation: There’s a possibility that we won’t be able to manage.”
The paper’s credit crisis comes against a backdrop of ongoing and accelerating drops in circulation, massive cutbacks in advertising revenue, and the worst economic climate in almost 80 years. As of December, its stock had fallen so far that the entire company could theoretically be had for about $1 billion. The former Times executive editor Abe Rosenthal often said he couldn’t imagine a world without The Times. Perhaps we should start.
Does House Speaker Nancy Pelosi read the Orange Juice blog? I just found this at Drudge Report:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, worried about the fate of The Chronicle and other financially struggling newspapers, urged the Justice Department Monday to consider giving Bay Area papers more leeway to merge or consolidate business operations to stay afloat.
More News
Seattle Post-Intelligencer newspaper goes Web-only 03.16.09
Pelosi goes to bat to keep Bay Area papers alive 03.16.09
——————————————————————————–
In a letter to Attorney General Eric Holder, released by Pelosi’s office late Monday, the San Francisco Democrat asked the department to weigh the public benefit of saving The Chronicle and other papers from closure against the agency’s antitrust mission to guard against anti-competitive behavior.
“We must ensure that our policies enable our news organizations to survive and to engage in the news gathering and analysis that the American people expect,” Pelosi wrote.
The speaker said the issue of newspapers’ survival and antitrust law will be the subject of a hearing soon before the House Judiciary Subcommittee on Courts and Competition Policy, chaired by Rep. Hank Johnson, D-Ga.