[ExI] future of news media, was RE: autism/vaccination link

[Emlyn]

2009/6/1 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>
>
>> ...On Behalf Of Emlyn
>>
>> 2009/5/30 spike <spike66 at att.net>:
>> > ...
>> >
>> > A good example was that article I posted yesterday on Bernoulli
>> > numbers, where the mainstream press went on and on about
>> the formula
>> > being found by a teenage Swedish immigrant from Iraq,
>> paragraph after
>> > paragraph in one news story after another, but none of them would
>> > actually just write out the damn formula!  None!  ... spike
>>
>> ...
>>
>> Also, I'll go ahead and blame the mainstream media here. I
>> think we're increasingly seeing them fall behind the 'net as
>> a good way of providing information... Emlyn
>
> Ja.  I still haven't figured out a way for the traditional media to find
> some place to exist.  When newspapers were still relevant, they provided
> more than just the news stories.  They were deciding for us which stories
> are important and which were to be relegated or ignored.  With the internet,
> there is no need to control for paper space, since it doesn't actually cost
> anything to publish stories.  There is no editor to decide for us which
> stories are important.  We all become our own editors.
>
> Let us watch this closely, for in the past, news sources were few, and
> tended to be a converging influence on the population.  Now we have replaced
> that with diverging influences.
>
> Another point: traditional news media need to do more and more for less and
> less.  They are getting the old pressure for better, faster, cheaper.  Well,
> they have been forced to choose faster and cheaper.

Which is the worst choice for them. The 'net does faster and cheaper
better than a traditional org will ever do.

So through this lens, how do the remaining options, better & cheaper
and better & faster, look?

Better & cheaper might work for the opinion/editorial side of
publications like the NY Times. Shrink, write good stuff slowly with
less people. Cons here: you get to survive, but by shrinking, might
mean you can't attract the best, you might lose relevance, that might
compromise quality long term.

Better & faster is where the walled gardens might work. eg: WSJ? Cons
here: this seems reliant on being really high quality, better than
most of the rest of the net. So you have to stay way up the pointy end
of the pareto distribution, a very hard life.

-- 
Emlyn

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