Newspapers here are far from dead.

Except, if you’re on page 10 of the results no one’s going to visit. While G runs the links in search results through a tracking script occasionally and there’s the toolbar watching those who use it, users are more or less relying on G’s algorithms and occasional hand-editing. G might “leave it to the users”, but they certainly give some sites a more than healthy head start. For examples, look at all the people who complain or cheer when their site goes up or down in the latest set of results.

The avalanche of stuff–and I do mean stuff–coming out of the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas is overwhelming but one trend is clear to me: companies that want to succeed must be in the enabling business, not the product…

While the lost of twelve coal mine workers and the mistake in reporting their status for 3 hours was terrible, has anyone considered the blessing of the happiest three hours of their lives? They were not entitled to those happy hours, it was a gift. If e can look beyond the current pain, those three hours can be relived over and over and over.

If only the families rejoice as strongely at the funerals celebrating their fathers, brothers, husbands and sons being welcomed in the presents of God.

Jim

Sure, I get most of my information from the web, from sources I’ve deemed trustworthy over time. But that’s because I’m in front of a computer all day anyway.

But there’s infinitely more misinformation on the internets, because any wackjob, who wouldn’t get near a “real” media job, can just “publish” himself. See: Powerline.

Of course we had Judith Miller at the NYT too, and the entire WSJ editorial page gets away with printing bullshit on a daily basis.

Put aside for the moment the appeal, for me, of a tactile product. I guess that makes me old (at 36).

Is trust the real issue? I doubt it. I think it’s the ubiquity and free availability of the news from the wires. When I read an AP story on CNN.com at 11pm, and the next morning, the exact story is in my local newspaper, well, that makes Section A pretty much useless, except for the EXCELLENT editorial pages, which aggregates a wide choice of nationally-run left and right op-eds, has a couple very good local peope, and the Letters to the Editor, which is informative on a local basis. Lets me know what people around here are thinking. So pretty much I’m paying for the back two pages of Section A, the Local Section B, the superb comics page in Section C (Life-Food-Entertainment), and the also excellent Sports Section D. Well worth my couple hundred bucks a year.

I don’t know what will keep the very expensive printing presses open, especially if the classifieds cash cow keeps getting thinner, but it would be a terrible loss.

Also, can we stop saying X “is the new” Y? It’s really silly. It may have even jumped the couch.