Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Sports blogger looks at the death of newspapers

A Michigan sports blog, Maize n Blue, opins about changes in sports when (it's term) newspapers die, and blogs are the only thing left. It's much more thoughtful than most of the new media, pointing out some of the problems of relying only on institutions for information (it uses quotes as an example; pointing out that universities aren't going to report bad quotes or bad stories and that bloggers don't have access to press conferences). It's worth reading even though it's not new.

Monday, April 6, 2009

Michael Kinsley says journalism will live on

Michael Kinsley adds his voice to the people saying that newspapers may die but journalism won't. He also, correctly, criticizes newspaper management for its failing to move ahead (I loved this description: "the typical newspaper executive is a bear of little brain"), but he believes journalism is changing but will continue.

Sunday, April 5, 2009

Nichols, McChesney write about media ills

The Seattle Times, itself a casualty of media problems, reprints an essay from The Nation by John Nichols and Robert McChesney that lays the blame for newspaper problems not just on the Internet, but even more on media corporations themselves. Here's the nut graph: "In a nutshell, media corporations, after running journalism into the ground, have determined that news gathering and reporting are not profit-making propositions. So they're jumping ship."  They offer some solutions to the present situation, including government help, but see corporate changes as vital.

Of chaos theory, post-advertising and media

Bob Garfield muses about the death of old media in an interview filled with so many concepts that I can't begin to sum them up.  Read it.