Unless they’ve got way too much time on their hands and a way to get into news conferences and behind police lines, bloggers aren’t going to report the news quicker than the army of full-time reporters out there. Blogging, with all its power and promise, is still often very reactive and akin to armchair wrestling. Newspaper reprorting, on the other hand, is often (but still unfortunetaly not often enough) about pounding the pavement.

One place where this is obvious is business journalism. Bloomberg, Dow Jones and Reuters charge thousands of dollars a month for delivering timely, accurate and reliable news to traders around the world. The Internet has shrunken their advantage over freely available sources to mere minutes if not mere seconds, but it is those seconds, combined with their reliability and commitment to accuracy that warrants the high cost.

Yeah, every once in awhile someone will scoop the MSM, but that is rare.

I do agree that the audience is no longer passive. We have the ability to comment on the news via blogs and the papers’ own sites, in many cases. That’s good. But, still, the primary sources of the news — at least in reporting it — is the established media. That includes all media, from the WSJ to the Bedford NOW newspaper (the weekly that serves where I live).
Mike

WHAT?

No, Mr. Jarvis, newspapers and other media still do very much *control* the news. No other force has as many people uncovering and exposing the news, features and other information. Sure, they’ll be the periodic scoop by an individual.

But, day-in and day-out, no individual nor entity can compete with newspapers for gathering news.

The papers just have to get a handle on embracing the ‘net, not fighting it. That was my main point when I wrote about Scheer’s column Monday evening.
Mike

Bad news: gets about the same number of online subscribers as other online subscription methods.

Good News: protects newsstand and print subscription sales and assures when people research issues covered by the paper they’ll find archive stories and be introduced to the newspaper’s website (because the archives are open for search engine spiders as well as the public). Also, we’ve found that charging the local print edition rate for online subscription generates the same number of subscribers as other online subscription methods. For combonation of print and online we discount only slightly.

More info here, here, here
and here.

Interesting experiment, except the other way around: get “the internet” to assemble a news portal that ignores newspaper and wire services for 24 hours after their release on the internet and see how well it would or would not work.

Delia

P.S. Wondering if NA could test this (just state the premise and invite contributors). You’d probably have to do it for quite some time before you conclude if it could work and how well.

This blogger, see below, scooped the AJC bad – on this one item alone. Was like shooting fish in a barrel too, as the whole topic had blown-up into a national conversation, one that must have been embargoed to newspapers until bloggers and talk show hots had their way with it.

http://www.atlantamagazine.com/blogs/entry.php?id=223

What about all the news outlets that agree to play into the hands of the spinmeisters by allowing them to speak “off the record”. Even entire press conferences are now anonymous. When the Times and WaPo stop going along with this charade then maybe it will stop. If there is more than one person listening it can’t be off the record (this protects whistle blowers).

Why should John Bolton or Karl Rove get a free ride?

Let’s see, in Peter’s World, a newspaper reporter will cover an event, talk it over with her editor after he gets out of his third meeting of the day, and then write a story, which the editor will eviscerate for fear of offending conservative readers in the suburbs, send it through the copy desk and have it appear in the newspaper the next day. Meanwhile, a blogger at the same event will blog it on the spot, have a cup of coffee, and then blog something else. Yeah, that’s the ticket for longevity. Say, how did the SF Chronicle circulation do in the past year? Yep, down again.