Comments on: Too little…

By: sam

sam — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 03:09:01 +0000

Newsday’s website is dreadful…more like an afterthought than a real vehicle for getting the news out. There has been considerable discussion on this blog about emphasizing local news. Newsday’s website gives top billing to stories about Christie Brinkley, some celebrity named Brown who’s accused of beating up his significant other, and other assorted trivia. While it has local news on there, too, some stories linger there for more than a week, some developing stories are barely updated, and there’s no coverage at all of others. For example, a large jewelry shop in the Roosevelt Field mall closed abruptly the day after Christmas. Not a word in Newsday. The second wave of major rebrandings of gasoline stations to occur in two or three years happened recently…not a word of coverage. Nassau County is in dire economic straits even as it spends like crazy…silence. And these are just the stories I notice while casually being out and about.

By: Michael Cavanagh

Michael Cavanagh — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 22:01:02 +0000

I disagree. It is not myopic to assert that when the watchdogs go away corruption will emerge. What, we must now count on whisleblower bloggers to sound the alarm? Digital delivery to a broad audience sounds great, but whose work are you disseminating? Do you see Websites paying “content providers” a living wage to dig deep into government documents for 8 hours a day for two weeks to expose government corruption or malfeasance?

Here’s an example. The financial and insurance industries lobbied hard and long to get government out of the way, arguing that if you removed regulation, “the market will manage itself better than government can.” Well, it did…

Cue Dr. Phil: “How’s that workin’ fer ya?”

By: Constantine

Constantine — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 21:21:46 +0000

In re: the effects of newspapers’ failing on democracy.

Um, these are the same papers that were around for the last 9 years or so, right? I can’t help but feel that they were serving up more cross-platform coverage of American Idol, athletes on steroids, and Octomom-style tabloid fever than they did real reporting. The blogs did a much, much better job on average of breaking some of the better stories.

By: Hearst’s 100 days: on the right track, or misguided? » Nieman Journalism Lab » Pushing to the Future of Journalism

Mon, 02 Mar 2009 18:35:05 +0000

[...] got leaked and was published by the Wall Street Journal (scroll down). And predictably as well, Jeff Jarvis deconstructs it, line by line, as “too little, too late”: …a memo that could and should have been [...]

By: Läsvärt om tidningskrisen — Per-Åke Olsson

Läsvärt om tidningskrisen — Per-Åke Olsson — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 14:41:52 +0000

[...] Too little… « BuzzMachine But more and more I see that there won’t be an orderly transition. There will be destruction. There will be voids. But out of that will grow new news [...]

By: Links for today | Links para hoje « O Lago | The Lake

Links for today | Links para hoje « O Lago | The Lake — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 09:52:08 +0000

[...] Too little…, Jeff Jarvis [...]

By: jardenberg kommenterar - 2009-03-02 — jardenberg unedited

jardenberg kommenterar - 2009-03-02 — jardenberg unedited — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 05:01:08 +0000

[...] Too little… [...]

By: Andy Freeman

Andy Freeman — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 16:40:58 +0000

> Democracy will suffer and corruption will have safe harbor.

That happened a long time ago. Democracy has suffered and corruption has had a safe harbor largely because media played along.

Since that happened while we had large newspapers etc, it’s rather silly to assert that it wouldn’t happen if they survived.

By: Rob Blatt

Rob Blatt — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 02:54:15 +0000

There are plenty of smaller local papers on Long Island, and this is a great opportunity for those papers to push their online content as being the only place you can get that information online. It’s a real shame for all the Newsday writers.

By: Scott

Scott — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:42:32 +0000

Hearst may be the first big newspaper company that “gets” what’s going on with their business, and is actually doing something about it. Kudos. I imagine this will lead to a wave of more pay walls. And why not? What is there to lose? The small and stagnant internet ad revenue? I agree that this may be too late… the dam may have already burst. But better late than never. And the implementation of ideas previously articultated on this blog and others (outsourcing printing, blog networks, sales/marketing revamp, etc.) is certainly a step in the right direction. Looking forward to seeing if it produces results…

By: Colin Crawford

Colin Crawford — Sun, 01 Mar 2009 01:15:21 +0000

I doubt it – this is a myopic perspective. With many mediums via which the public can obtain quality news I just don’t buy this argument that democracy will falter because a number of poorly run newspaper have failed to transform as their readers seek new ways to consume information. Digital delivery via online and mobile will reach larger and broader audiences than was every possible in print.

By: Too Little and Late Hall of Fame « Insomniactive

Too Little and Late Hall of Fame « Insomniactive — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 23:10:54 +0000

[...] See the whole, sad, delusional, and misguided Hearst memo here, and Jeff Jarvis’ on-target commentary here. [...]

By: Max Alvarez

Max Alvarez — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:35:06 +0000

I agree.

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:27:35 +0000

Tim, yes, I had similar fantasies a few years ago. But I don’t think there’s time for the companies and even if there is time, what’s left on the other end of this slow collapse will be worthless, won’t it?

By: ZuDfunck

ZuDfunck — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:17:27 +0000

It is so sad that these once great Titans are falling

Some take so demented joy I do not!

Democracy will suffer and corruption will have safe harbor.

Most troubling for anyone old and wise enough to see!

By: Tim Windsor

Tim Windsor — Sat, 28 Feb 2009 21:05:12 +0000

Jeff,

I read something a little different and actually quite encouraging for the news business in the memo.

If Hearst wants to hold back some of its precious newspaper content and “only” make breaking news, blogs, databases and photo galleries available online, “only” wants to create microsites and “only” plans to do a better job of linking and aggregating, well that sounds like a pretty good web experience to me.

Of course, it’ll probably speed the death of the paper in the bargain. That’s probably not the plan, but this approach will further marginalize the printed product and demonstrate how digital is an exponentially better medium for reporting and story-telling.

And that’s a good thing. The faster the paper disappears or becomes a mere niche product, the sooner a digital-dominant culture can emerge and rebuild the business plan.

I like what Hearst is up to a lot more than the knee-jerk reaction of “put up the pay wall” that we’ve been hearing from a lot of quarters in the past month.